Two major accomplishments to report today.

First, I published a blog post (which you can see here), that is a bit of world building. As I’ve said before, that is one of the most exciting–and most challenging–parts of writing epic fantasy, but I think at last that the pieces are coming together. It’s surprisingly difficult to build a religion from the ground up, but luckily some actual faiths from the history of our world have provided at least something of a skeleton.

Second, I also managed to write over 2,500 of a new prologue for the first book.

This prologue looks significantly different than its earlier iteration. There are now two viewpoints rather than one, reflecting a pretty substantial plot development I discovered during yesterday’s outlining. The prologue narrates the meeting of the enigmatic Conclave of the Nameless, particularly two of its members, the Stranger and the High Queen of the Anukathi Y’Narra, both of whom are given tasks by their master the Demiurge (who appears as male to one and female to the other). While we know the Stranger’s task (at least in broad outline), I’m leaving Y’Narra’s a mystery (which probably won’t be revealed until Book 2).

I probably won’t have a lot of time to work on the Novel this week, since I want to finish up a novelette I’m working on and a short story (the latter of which will debut here!) Still, I hope to chip away at some outlines, just so I have an idea of how the larger series is going to work out.

Ultimately, I hope to make this two quartets, with the second taking place some years after the first.

The first quarter will be titled The Heretic’s War, while the first volume will be The Blooded Sword. 

I feel really good.