Beasts, Gems, and books

Greetings, readers. Are you ready for summer? And are you ready for another update?

I'm happy to report that I've been able to stick with my weekly writing quota in an effort to get as much done as I can on my main project for the year. I've even been able to make up for some lost time in the past couple of weeks, which makes me happy. I'm still not saying which title I'm working on, but since I ruled out a couple of titles in the last post, I will also say that my main project is not one of the following:

Foreign Lands
Nethbane
Path of a Hero (revision)

Yep, sorry. PoaH is still stuck in traffic waiting its turn to be worked on, but fear not. I'll almost certainly be back to working on it within the next year and a half, or so. I've been avoiding it, shame on me, and the reason is because there are several parts and story threads in it that I know will be messy to clean up and hammer out. When I first wrote the trilogy, I was pretty much just gamboling along and having fun, spitting out whatever plotline ideas occurred to me that passed the 5 minute rule. Unfortunately, that's left some weak plot elements to come back to. But I refuse to just abandon the revision project. I want readers to really see this book how it was supposed to be written, just as is now possible with Wings of Fate. I don't want to wait too long before having the complete trilogy available to the public once again.

So, that leaves the following possibilities in my lineup:

Book 9
Taloner: Reima (revision)
Taloner: Moa
Taloner: Wekthusia
Predecessor

Can you guess which one is the winner?

Speaking of Book 9, I really thought you should know ... seeing as how it's the first half of a duology, its project name is the Gem Duology. This title might change in time, but for now, this is it's name. And since this is a duology, that of course means that there's going to be a second book involved here. Let's call if Book 15 for now, shall we? (Even though it will take place directly after Book 9 in the series, and not later on in the timeline)

I do have the gist of the plot framed out for the duology, and it's one I'm very eager to share with readers. Among other things, some new insights will be revealed about the Gems of Virtue, something that has only vaguely been mentioned in the series up until now. The Gems affected quite a bit of Gaia's history during their existence, and they are legendary among its inhabitants.

The duology will also feature at least one new Chaos Beast. Readers familiar with The Rebirth Trilogy will remember these fun critters, as a couple of them surfaced there.

There is so much about these beasts that I enjoy writing about. Each of them is totally unique from the others, and each is connected with different elements in the world, giving them powers related to those elements. Denlupis was associated with electricity and speed, of course. And here's another fun fact about the beasts: They have the peculiar nature of becoming attached to the existence of one mortal at a time, until either they die, or the mortal does ... guess which one usually happens? So, someone in the duology is getting a new beast attached to them. Oh dear.

And while we're talking Chaos Beasts, I'm in the process of finishing some concept art for one Chaos Beast in particular. You'll likely see it posted here in the near future.

That's all for now. Until next time!