Author: E.J. Lowell

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September Update – Yet More Refining

Howdy!

Summer is almost over, which means my brain can, in theory, stop going on strike any day now. Or, well, it could if not for the fact that I’ve got a month full of deferred dental and medical maintenance to deal with. It all needed to get done, but I’m also very ready for a few weeks of that just… not happening. Still, I keep plugging away at various projects. They’ll get done when they get done and I’m determined not to rush them.

The Refinery

Gil Girau Chronicles – Quality control pass on book 1 is more or less done, we’re in the final polishing and branding stage and I’ve found myself in need of more art than I expected. The general wisdom is don’t draw your own book covers but you know that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m at very least going to draw my own maps. Book 2 is in progress off and on, but I’ve come up against a worldbuilding-shaped wall, so I’ve mostly been working on filling in the gaps in my own knowledge. There might be appendices in the works — at very least explanations of The Creatures that appear as well as various words in various languages. The silver lining is that I’ll be a lot more prepared to tackle my next series without it taking four or five years to get a book out. I hope.

Salt 2 – Still in the quench bucket. I’m resisting mightily the urge to make a resource map for the continent because that’s the kind of nerd I am.

Raw Materials – I mentioned “Project: Strongholds” and “Project: Contact” last time, but the bin where I keep my free-floating ideas just keeps getting more cluttered. This is a good thing! I’ve taken the Sanderson approach to idea wrangling – write everything down, organize it vaguely, come back to it later and see what fits together.

Back to work with me! Or rather, balancing work and rest while my face (and also nervous system) heals. Stay hydrated, take care of your teeth, and keep on keeping on, y’all.

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July Update – Books Keep Booking

Howdy!

I missed a couple of months in there but in my own defense, we had a great deal of Stuff Happening around the house as well as personally that made it difficult to work on writing, which meant there wasn’t a whole lot to update. Am I writing this now to procrastinate doing more writing because it’s supposed to be unconscionably hot today and my brain tends to go on strike in the summer? Perhaps. But it has also been since March since I said anything.

A Peek Into The Refinery

Because I like visual metaphors and writing books is sometimes like working with clay. Or metal. This is an experiment, but the contents are more or less the same as they have been.

Gil Girau Chronicles – Book One is, in theory, fully drafted at a rough total of 115k words, awaiting a quality control pass and final polishing/branding. This is by far the longest I’ve spent on a book and I suspect it’ll show. Book Two is on the workbench as we speak – I’ve reorganized the plot somewhat and am currently making sure my outline and notes are folded together properly before I stick this thing back in the fire and get going with the second draft. Book Three is in the smelter, so to speak. It currently exists as a bullet list and an explosion of digital sticky notes that I will hopefully be able to organize better once I shape up Book Two.

Salt 2: As You Do – Sitting in the quench bucket while I hammer out the dragon story. It’s also stuck in line behind a cat for the moment.

Raw Materials – I have two projects for which I’m slowly gathering ideas while I work on other things. They’re currently labeled “Project: Strongholds” and “Project: Contact.” One of them has most of a cast and part of a plan, the other has maybe a protagonist and many vague ideas. Both are fantasy, both are set on Uthir, though the world will likely have a different name in each of them. Different time periods, different cultures, all that jazz. Mainly, I’m listing these for my own records – “yes, I have been planning this story for [many] years.”

Now, back to work with me. These words ain’t gonna write (or, in some cases, build) themselves. Stay hydrated and keep on keeping on, y’all.

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March Update – Ides and Whatnot

Howdy!

It’s been a minute, as things usually go around these parts. Slow progress is still progress. Sometime back in January I decided that this was going to be the year I wrangle all my brain weasels and I seem to be making slow and steady progress on that as well as on my books. We keep going!

What Am I Working On?

Gil Girau Chronicles – Book One is still technically in revision but only because the farther I get into Book Two, the more I find that I need to foreshadow. There will soon come a point at which I just have to say “good enough” and get some beta readers’ eyeballs on this thing, as well as an editor. If I can get my art chops back for more than a few hours at a time, I’ll also start working on cover art and maps. (I do love me a good map.) As for Book Two, I’m caught up to and now beyond the point that I managed to reach in November, evaluating plots, and slowly building out more of the world as I go. I like to think that I’m more of a planner than a discovery writer, but sometimes I do get halfway through a plan only to discover that it’s wrong for the story. Current word counts for books one and two are 105k and 62k respectively. (Which is part of why they’re taking so long – ya boi ain’t used to writing 100k word novels. 😀 This is a good thing.)

Salt 2: Electric Boogaloo – Still on standby, but I’ve heard the cat is moving. (If you know, you know.) It’s been a slow and weird couple of years for both of us and this perpetually-delayed book is proof of that.

Secret Project – I have this bad habit of naming things in blog posts that never end up going anywhere or end up on the back burner cooking for months/years. But rest assured. There is another. There are actually a couple others, but I tend to rotate the back burner between them. They both involve worldbuilding and dinosaurs. Absolute shocker, I know.

The march goes on! Somewhat haphazardly, because I was never cut out to be a drum major, but at least I can keep a beat. Have a good Salad Day and keep on keeping on, y’all.

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December Update – Rolling Right Along

Howdy!

In theory my last update was in August, but for some reason unknown to me it doesn’t actually show up on the main page. The update before that was in June, so either way it’s been a minute. I’m still poking plots with sticks, as one does. My gratitude is endless for the fact that 2023 has been by and large a quiet year, after having three (four or five, really, in my personal case) years in a row of complete and utter chaos. Do I feel like it’s the calm before a very large storm? Maybe I do. Am I wrong? We won’t know until we get there. Is this just me having a hefty helping of paranoia? Most definitely.

What Am I Working On?

Gil Girau Chronicles – Book One (Urien of Escathir) is complete, currently in revision to add in things I’ve come up with in the course of further building up the world around the characters. Book Two (Shadows of Salrohis) was my NaNo project, and I got about 60k words into it before a good friend pointed out that a main villain needs work and the scenes are all out of order. So I’m rewriting parts of that one already, but it’s in progress. Yes, I am working on two books at once, sort of, with Book Three (Dragon of Gil Girau) in the noodliest stages of planning. The NaNoWriMo burnout is a little bit strong with this one, so rewrites, retcons, and revisions have been my focus over the course of December. I hope to have Urien of Escathir out sometime next year. Hopefully. Finally. I’ve only been working on it for two whole years. (Technically three, but I’m not going to count the proto-draft.)

Salt 2: Electric Boogaloo – Yet again on standby. This is in part because I’m waiting for my father to get the cat off his desk (if you know you know) and in part because I’ve been so focused on my own work. I haven’t looked at my draft of this in a while and having learned a lot about writing from spending two years mucking with Gil Girau, I’m a little bit afraid to.

2024 is just around the corner. I don’t know how this happened, and I’m reticent to say anything about how I expect it to go. We won’t know until we get there and the last ten or so years have shaped me into a person that very much doesn’t want to make plans and promises that could very easily be snapped away by circumstances beyond anyone’s control. My personal mantra is slowly becoming “we’ll see.”

And so we will. Take care of yourselves, y’all, I’ll be around. Lurking quietly and poking plots with sticks.

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August Update – Summer Slump

Howdy!

The Summer Slump has me firmly in its clutches, but at least this year I’m aware of it. I was doing alright while it was June and rainy, but now that it’s just sunny and hot for most of the day… it is now Tired Hours. Luckily I found a partial solution this year: closing the curtains earlier in the day. A simple thing, but apparently the light is what gets to me.

This doesn’t mean I’ve stopped working though, just that things have been moving a bit slower and that I’ve been more distracted. I did a smart this year – rather than trying to put more things on my plate, I’ve been focusing on what I’m already working on. A lesson one would think I’d have learned by now, but I don’t call myself a late-bloomer for no reason.

What Am I Working On?

Gil Girau Chronicles – We’re in the home stretch of the rewrite! Couple more chapters to go. Still no release date on it but I’m hoping to have it at least done, if not scrubbed down, sanded, and polished before mid-October, when I’ll be ironing out the plot of the second book to write for NaNo. I know the broad strokes but there’s a lot of discovery writing happening with these characters, too. Tending the garden as I go, with this series.

Salt 2: Electric Boogaloo – Still on standby, but I’m expecting to send in my clunky little half-draft for review soon. Happy Salt-iversary, y’all! Sukhetai and Tanan have been chilling out for about two years now due to Life Happening, but we’ll get there eventually.

Grifters – Skyrim is the gift that keeps on giving, and I keep on playing! Figured I’d slap this one in the update because the series recently passed episode 50 and we’re about three episodes away from the end of Act 1. Which means I have some screenplays to write. It’s going to be another long series, but hopefully not quite as long as Dawnbreakers. (Who knows, maybe ES6 will be out by the time I’m done.)

Other than some off-and-on worldbuilding and creature design to help flesh out the Gil Girau Chronicles as needed, that’s all from me! I’ll see you in… probably two-ish months, if the pattern holds.

Keep on keeping on, y’all!

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June Update – Happy Pride! And Monsoon Season.

Howdy!

Happy Pride Month AND Jurassic June! I had no idea the latter was a thing but honestly, I’m loving it. (Most of it, anyway.) Prehistory and queerness can coexist and that’s half of Uthir’s design bible in a nutshell. Prehistory, queerness, and dragons.

It’s not technically Colorado’s monsoon season but it sure does feel like it. It’s been raining (and hailing, mostly hailing, actually) since mid-May and honestly, if not for flooding concerns, I’d be here for it. At least where I am, anyway – I’ve seen the hail and flood damage in some places just to the south and it is No Joke.

You know it’s been a boring few months when all I talk about is the weather. (In fairness, I find weather interesting.) The most excitement I’ve had in the last couple of months was Reed Timmer driving the Dominator up through the Front Range and Prehistoric Planet dropping a season 2. (Deserts and Badlands are my favorite episodes. Nobody mucks with Dreadnoughtus.)

After the last few years, I’ll take boring! Boring good.

What Am I Working On?

The Gil Girau Chronicles – The series formerly known as the Surveyors’ Guild Chronicles. Renamed partially because the Surveyors’ Guild doesn’t play quite as big a role in the second and third books (this will be a trilogy, as one does) and partially so that I can use that series title if I do a “so here’s how this guild was founded” story. I’m currently rewriting GGC Book One. Not all of it, but I realized I needed a few new scenes and was rushing a couple of developments. It also felt slightly aimless after a certain chapter, so I’ve adjusted some reasons for doing things. It’s going slowly – I’m writing little chunks at a time rather than trying to NaNo it, but it is, slowly, coming together.

Salt 2: Electric Boogaloo – Still on standby. I happen to know that a certain cat is in progress so it shouldn’t be too long, now. I may have to speedrun Urien’s book so that I’m ready to do rewrites after I slide this half-draft-half-outline to my dad.

And that’s about it. I’ve always got other ideas brewing but I’m doing my best to focus on just Gil Girau right at the moment. (That and Skyrim, but that’s ongoing.) Nagoa is patient, though his feathered, sickle-clawed sidekick might not be. I’m trying not to think too far ahead of myself here. See you in a few months, probably! (Ha-HAH past-me, I did make an update before July.)

Keep on keeping on, y’all.

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April Update – Duck Herding

Howdy!

How’d it get to be April already? Last time I checked it was November. And then I blinked. I’m going to assume I’ve just been in autopilot and decompression mode since then.

NaNo update – I completed NaNo! My final total was 67,805 words. The only problem is that I did not actually finish the book. I got pretty close to where I assume the end of it is, but I’m to this day still poking at the first draft. More on that later.

Decompressing – The last few months, I’ve been watching my dad get his strength back, if not his taste buds. He’s back to writing and walking and baking bread. (It is really good bread.) I couldn’t be more proud of him. It’s been a weird year. I hope I’ve learned something from it.

What Am I Working On?

The Surveyors’ Guild Chronicles – That’ll be Urien of Escathir and the rest of the trilogy. (Tentative titles: Shades of Salrohis and The Dragon of Gil Girau.) Titles are very much a WIP, much like the rest of it. I think I’m a few hundred words away from the end of the first book, as of writing this. It’s had a few setbacks. For example: a character that I thought was going to be a POV character ended up… not? Which means I need to rethink my outline for the rest of the series. I may not need to change much, but after a certain point this draft feels… a little bit meh. I’m looking for ways to diagnose the problem and tighten up the plots as we speak. (And watching a certain writer’s BYU lectures on YouTube, which has been very enlightening.) I’m learning a lot.

Barbarians 2: Electric Boogaloo – I’ve still got my half-a-draft sitting in my documents folder idling. Dad’s on a roll with his new stuff and I’m waiting for him to get the cat settled before I chuck this in his direction for Tan and Wazor’s half. My hope is that I’ll have Urien’s first book out before then and will be able to apply what I’ve learned to what I’ve got going on in Iron. (Title WIP.) Sukhetai is my problem child. I will find a way to make him Better.

Nagoa – I’m definitely not already planning Strongholds of the Sun or whatever Nagoa’s series ends up being called. I’ve done test writes of him with a friend and… Oh Boy. He’s fun. I’m excited to see what kind of story I can tell with him and his crew. All I have right now is a cast and a setting. I could discovery-write a first draft, just chuck ’em all into the jungle and see what happens, but I am very much an outliner. His “noodling” document currently consists of a bunch of names and ideas for what might be cool. Same world as Urien’s story, which means I can use the same magic system, but this takes place about a thousand years prior and on a different continent. With dinosaurs. As you do.

Other Noodling – I’ve started a folder full of ideas. Physically. It turns out my brain works better if I can see stuff in front of my face, which I learned when I put up a white board of sorts next to my desk so I could take temporary notes. I now have an actual folder with loose-leaf paper in it where I’ve started collecting story ideas. I’m excited. Stories will Happen. (Assuming I can get Urien’s hammered into shape.)

That’s all from me! Tune in in July when I remember again that updates are a thing I’m supposed to be doing. 😀 Which is mostly a joke… but we’ll see. Keep on keeping on.

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Belated October Update – NaNo NaNo

Howdy, folks!

In spite of life continuing to happen between the last update and this one, I managed to plot out a book. And build the local world around which the story takes place. Is this update mainly to inform everyone that I am, in fact, doing the NaNo? Yes. Yes it is.

NaNo – for clarity – being short for NaNoWriMo, which is short for National Novel Writing Month, wherein the goal is to hit 50k (50,000) words – traditionally in the first draft of a new novel – before the end of November. I’ve participated 8 times (including this one) and actually completed… three? Which is not a great track record, truth be told. I did eventually complete all of the books I started in bygone years, but not necessarily in the same month. (Or year.)

“Belated” update because I probably should have made this update in October, but I was mega-focused on clothing construction, architecture, local flora and fauna, climate, religion, politics, and barbeque – all sorts of other things that one can talk about in worldbuilding but not in polite company. I am now 4600 words into my first draft and done with Chapter 01, which I knew going in was going to be the most difficult. Sometimes, one just has to buckle down and start pedaling to get up that hill. (I say, not actually being able to ride a bike.)

Also for some reason comments seem to be closed on my last post. I’m confused, it may just be something on my end, but if it isn’t I suspect I need to do something behind the curtain to fix it. I just don’t know what. If comments are enabled, assume I’ve since stumbled upon the solution by sheer coincidence.

What Am I Working On?

Urien of Escathir – The NaNo Project. Potentially the first book in a series that may or may not end up being called the Surveyors’ Guild Chronicles. We’ll see what happens first – the end of November or the end of the story. I have a suspicion 50k is going to be easy, this time around… knocking on wood and barring more life happening. My outline has at least twice as many scenes in the list as All’s Well in Asgard did, so it’s going to be a doozy, I just don’t know how much of a doozy. Chapter – and, incidentally, scene – One is almost 5k. If each scene ends up being a whole chapter long (I don’t think they will) and of similar length, this whole project is going to be something on the order of… an absolutely mind-boggling (for me) 520k words. I highly doubt it’ll be that long. I give you all of this math business in lieu of an elevator pitch because I’m still trying to figure out how to condense a plot that long. Let alone where to split the books, if I need to. First story in a new world and it’s… going some kind of way!

The Rest of Uthir – The world of Uthir is bigger than Urien’s little corner of it, and has a lot of history that one could potentially explore. I have a couple of ideas for stories, one of them more prominent in my mind than the others. The story of Nagoa the Ranger and his “bird” Aiwi in the Sasokoyu Stronghold Wars is probably the one I’ll end up writing after Urien’s story, because the setting was heavily inspired by ARK: Survival Evolved (a game/setting I feel very much at home in) except it contains magic instead of tech. So instead of people knocking your walls down with C4 and large therapods, one has to worry about people knocking down walls with fireballs… and large therapods. I’m a dinosaur nerd at heart and fitting big stompy bois into fantasy is a thing I wish to do. (Thanks to Keenan Taylor for blazing that trail with his anthologies. I like this genre Much.) After that… Ehh? I have a couple of characters that I might necromancy from my middle school attempt at novel writing to slap into a fantasy buddy cop type story, if I can find a plot for them. Ancient carnivorous astrologer-mages may be another thing I attempt, if I can find a plot. We’ll see what happens between now and then.

Grifters – Currently on hiatus due to Life and also NaNo. Scheduled to return… probably halfway into December, if not in the first week of January. That’s my current ETA. If I hit 50k before the end of NaNo I’ll pre-record some episodes and then flip-flop between working on finishing Urien’s story and continuing Grifters. Because I… like to make stuff. Or something.

That’s all from me, this month. The grind continues! The stories are taking shape. The troubles continue to require copious bonkage with spanners. Keep on keeping on.

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September Update – All of the Things

Howdy, folks! It’s uh… it’s been a while.

I did kind of expect to get lost in pre-production for a few things last year at this time, but I didn’t expect to fall off the face of the planet quite as thoroughly as I did. So you may be wondering…

What Happened?

So, September of last year we accidentally adopted a cat. His name is Cannoli, he’s (now) a little sweetheart with very sharp toes and a big voice, but when my brother brought him home a year ago it was because nobody expected him to last the night and he wanted to give the little bean a chance. That little cat said, “stomach surgery WHOMST?!” and proceeded to become… my problem. 😀 He’s a good problem to have. A lot of the last year has been taken up caring for the wee lad and trying to introduce him to the other – far more senior – felids of the house. With… mixed results, so far. It’s an ongoing project.

In November, I wrote my half of Iron (title WIP) – the next book in the Barbarians series. It will be a series, don’t worry, it’s just that Life Happened in the meantime. I think my dad was writing – or trying to write – the Wizard’s Cat at the same time? I don’t really remember.

In December, I finally got to the conclusion of the Dawnbreakers’ Saga, took about a month off to recover from that, and then started on my new Skyrim series – Grifters. It has a slightly different tone, and is a lot more simple to produce, this time. Which turned out to be a very good thing because…

Just after I started Grifters, Life Happened. Those of you who are more familiar with my dad’s works/blogs than I am already know that he was diagnosed with cancer. Since then, I’ve been focusing on the YouTube uploads while also doing my best to step up and do some of the things that dad usually does/did around the house. (Right at the moment his biggest priority is recovering – a priority I fully support.) I haven’t really had the brain space available to sit down and write something (that wasn’t scripts for Grifters, anyway) for a while, but I’ve been noodling away on things anyway. Trying to find stories to write.

It’s a weird thing, life happening. A lot has changed in a year and I’m not sure what kinds of stories I want to write, anymore. I know where I want to write them, but not what the stories are or should be. I’ve basically put Omnia and its stories in the, “It was a good first try,” box, but I’m ready to move on to another world. More on that below.

What Am I Working On?

Grifters – Obviously. I need to update my Music page and a bunch of this website in general to make it easier to find the new things, but that’s a project all on its own. I’m actually quite proud of the music I made for Grifters – it’s definitely some of my best yet, and I think Atlug’s character theme might appeal to Solar Clipper folks even if the rest of her doesn’t. 😀 Yes, she does sing sea shanties. She’s fun. They’re all fun.

Uthir – Uthir has become… far more than Urien, who may or may not end up getting renamed at some point. It’s become a full-on worldbuilding project, which has kept me more or less sane between all of the things. Uthir is now a planet in a solar system with a couple hundred million years of evolutionary history, a few thousand of cultural history, seven language groups sprouting out of the ether, and a bone-colored moon. It’s all still kind of nebulous at the moment, but there is magic, there are dragons, and I’m hoping I find good stories to tell in the course of building the bare bones of this world. Uthir is becoming my love letter to geology and paleontology, which is something I’ve never really tried to explore in a fantasy setting before in spite of it being something that Really Interests Me, and has for as long as I’ve been alive, as far as I can tell. The roots of the world go deep, and they are fascinating.

Iron – I have half a draft sitting around waiting to be looked at again. At some point, I’ll come back and see how I left Sukhetai and company. It may not be until next year at the rate I’m going. Maybe until November. We’ll see.

And with that… I return to my anvil. I have a lot of words to build so that I can name things and people properly. Keep on keeping on, folks.

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August Update – SALT!

Big News!

My dad and I finally got our first collaborative work done! The whole process was rather enlightening – particularly getting to see comments from an Actual Legit Editor, which wasn’t actually as harrowing an experience as I expected. (No surprise to anyone, the neurodivergent person writes like a neurodivergent person.) With any luck the next book of the series will enter the planning phase before November so that I can write my half for NaNoWriMo.

And with that, we return to the irregularly-scheduled update.

What am I working on?

The Dawnbreakers’ Saga – Still going! This month marks the four year anniversary of this absolute madness. With any luck, the final episode of this series will go up on the last Wednesday of 2021, and then I’ll be able to take a break for a while. I’m feeling the burnout more and more with each production-heavy episode, but I’m determined to see this thing to the conclusion in a timely fashion. Four years is a Long Time and I’ve learned a lot from this story/set of stories.

Urien: The Dragon of Norwood – I’ve made my peace with the fact that this is going to be in pre-production at least over the winter if not until next August. (Seems like my best-luck things tend to get going in August. Superstition? Maybe. Jars of dirt all around.) I decided to buckle down and hammer out the most relevant worldbuilding for the part of the world (which has been named Uthir – or, “All-Home” in Tireni) in which the story takes place – in particular the clothing, because That Matters for a visual medium. That and the architecture are my two worst sticking points because I’m mostly a character artist. Which is good, but it’s not everything. One tinker at a time.

Worldbuilding Channel? – One of the side-effects of me falling into my ill-managed chronic Worldbuilder Syndrome is that I’m contemplating making a worldbuilding channel specifically to showcase some of the weird/cool stuff I’ve come up with for parts of Uthir that aren’t relevant to the main plot. Like, the Rohitian Sand Riders. (Basically, I want to make the universe in my head pay its rent for all the space it takes up.) Do I regret any of this worldbuilding? Absolutely not. 😀 I might write other stories in Uthir at some point. It may become my next “main” world since I’ve learned a significant amount about myself, life, and storytelling since writing anything in Esper’s world.

And with that, I once more become an internet cryptid. I really should address that at some point.