Allan Joyal's Blog

My next book is finally in that stage where its almost ready to publish. This one is a bit of a change up as its a coming of age/adventure tale (as opposed to a straight up adventure tale I guess.)

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Matthew knew he was different from his classmates. He looked forward to reading the works of Shakespeare and discussing the magic of the era in which they were written. Unfortunately he soon found that his classmates dislike could turn into anger when he was accused of making a report that saw the star of the football team removed from school in the back of a police car.

He knew that his life was changed, but when one of the other football players demanded he fight to prove his innocence he had no idea that it would be his last few minutes on Earth. Or that his new home would be a galactic reality show where swords and sorcery ruled. He's in a ruined castle and given a quest to revive the kingdom. With no friends and only his own wit, he must find his way and become the King.

I've completed another book and sent it out for editing. Its set up in a new world and ends on an open point (not a cliffhanger, but it does leave space to expand the universe with additional books.) My plan is to post in 2-3 weeks once I get it back.

I am working on other books, including the 3rd book in the Living Dungeon tales.

well, I'm back at writing after having been majorly abandoned by my muse. I have one story that's almost complete which I hope to send out for editing this weekend. It looks like it will be published in early/mid August.

And I'm not allowing that to be the only work that I'm putting effort into. I'm adding to two more stories and have 5-6 more that I've put some thought into although I haven't been writing anything in those files.

Hopefully my readers haven't completely forgotten me.

Wow, my latest book has been a strange ride compared to many of my earlier books. It started out very strong and I had hopes it might have the kind of following that A Living Dungeon produced.

Unfortunately, it seems that after receiving mentions on some Dungeon Core Genre fansites, I got a number of new readers who disliked my style and who appear to make assumptions on just how widespread knowledge of dungeons is in my world. It resulted in a lot of poor reviews on Amazon and has definitely killed momentum for book sales.

For now, I can't instantly fix this. I am going to try to be more aware of character conversations, but it is not always possible to remember every interaction. Or you find that you need to repeat it as its a way to handle information exchanges between characters.

Of course, I also have debated pushing out a new book based again on Dungeon Core mechanics, but do it more as a satire on the genre, and the complaints. Have things like all characters openly refusing to tell anyone any information (resulting in a lot of death and dismemberment) until one breaks the fourth wall and explains that powerful spirits called "readers" will punish the world if they say more than the absolute minimum. (I definitely need to NOT write this for a while, but it is tempting.) I have a few other little genre quirks that I'd try to break down, but if I wrote it now, I'd probably just anger people.

So instead I'm trying to work on a few other ideas. We'll see what comes out though. Its been too hot to write anything today.

Well, A Living Dungeon's Madness has now been out for a week and its definitely getting some interest. Not as much as any author dreams about, but its selling better than most of my tales do.

I do ask anyone who reads and enjoys it to leave a review. Part of me hates to ask this, but the way Amazon works, the more reviews a book receives, the more it gets pushed by the sorting algorithms. So more views, translates into more people seeing the book and hopefully more people deciding to take a chance of it.

Anyways I do have a few more books in the works. (my muse loves to whisper ideas in my ear.) I have what I hope will be an amazing and fun scene just bouncing in my head. Its been stuck there all day. Unfortunately for lovers of my currently published series, it will be for a new book/series if I complete the first book.

I've finally gotten in touch with an artist to get the cover made. The manuscript has been reviewed by my first readers and they all say its ready.

Expect it to come out in 2-3 more weeks.

I just saw a sketch of the cover. This was a black and white proof and it was amazing. I am very happy with how it turned out. The editing process is well along and I can now promise that Seafaring on Jord will come out sometime in December.

A Living Dungeon's Madness is also getting close. I broke the 88,000 word mark today and really just have a few remaining scenes, although as this is the climax they might take some time to write out, but my progress the last few days has been solid. Hopefully we are looking no later than early January, although I might just wait that long so I don't flood the market with 2 new books right on top of each other.

Anyone who looks for my books on Amazon will find that they are missing. I have been unable to obtain full information, but Amazon has sent me e-mails indicating that they believe some illegitimate activity involving the reading or borrowing of my books was occurring and they have suspended the account pending review.

This may take some time to resolve. I have not been engaging in much marketing because I figure my books should be able to interest readers for their quality and plot. Sadly, some algorithm that Amazon uses has them suspecting a problem and until I have it resolved my books will be missing.

I have to admit that I have run into more than a few distractions these past few months. I believe part of the problem has been just figuring out which of the too many story ideas I have that I wanted to work on.

I am still going to eventually finish a sequel to A Living Dungeon, but it might not be my next book. I'll have to see how my muse feels about my various ideas over the next few weeks.

well, I have cleared off a couple of old projects and can once again try to focus on writing. I had a plan to work mostly on a science fiction tale that has been in the back of my mind for a couple of years, and to finally get Seafaring on Jord finished.

However, after the response to A Living Dungeon my muse appears to want me to add to the universe.

Now, I make no promises on when I'll finish. I do want to offer my readers more scenes from Faestari's life, but my writing tends to be erratic at best. All I can say is that I'm hoping I'll have something to send off to my editors in September.