Emily B. Martin's Blog

Meet Sunshield's sequel: FLOODPATH.

From the outset, I envisioned The Outlaw Road as a two-part story---book one, where I set up and then broke apart my protagonists, and book two, where they have to figure out how to rebuild themselves. Despite Sunshield releasing in the early chaos of COVID-19, its sequel is in its final stages of editing and is on track to release in March of next year. This is your first look!

As a reminder, here is the cover of Sunshield: We have Lark's buckler...

Sunshield is out in the world! We had a great time during release week, with several awesome events hosted by bookstores, blogs, podcasts, and Reddit. You all showed up throughout the week to ask questions, share photos of your books, and help me figure out what to wear to the virtual launch. We ultimately went with a combination of the two--sparkly dress + ranger hat. Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard from so many of you as you progress through the book. I’m so grateful to every...

Well, life has changed a lot since my previous blog post just a few weeks ago. I hope all of you are safe and well. It's been challenging to write and create in this new physical and mental reality, with my kids out of school and all kinds of anxiety. But I've been fortunate to have a lot of good news on the publishing end of things, starting with this exciting new sneak peek of Sunshield! Now you can read the first three chapters, meeting each of the three protagonists I've introduced to...

A desperate outlaw. A sheltered diplomat. An imprisoned heretic. If you’ve been following my blog posts over the past few months, you know we have one more Sunshield protagonist to meet. I’ve introduced you to Lark, the dreaded Sunshield Bandit, and Veran Greenbrier, the earnest court translator. The final cog in this trio is Tamsin Moropai—poet, musician, and the epicenter of an ambitious political coup. ​I was worried about Tamsin before I started writing her, and it was...

Last month, I introduced you all to Sunshield and one of it’s protagonists, Lark. But she’s not the only main character. The book is written in rotating perspective among three characters, and while it’s Lark who gives the book it’s name and muscle, there’s another narrator who might strike a chord with readers of the Creatures of Light trilogy. His name is Veran Greenbrier, and he’s the son of Mae, protagonist of my first book, Woodwalker . ...

Hey writers! Got a tricky scene that isn’t working out, and you can’t figure out why? Confounded by your characters’ inexplicable desire to do the opposite of what you want them to do? At a complete blank at what your protagonists are destined to do next? You might have a pivot point!

I’m using my last post of 2019 (written in 2019 but obdurately posted in 2020) to talk about this little writing nugget, partially because I haven’t done a post for writers since the summer, and also because ...

Writers are busy, distracted beasts.

There’s never been a time in my writing career that I’ve had less than three manuscripts going at once. That’s not to say I’m writing them all at the same time—they’re always at different stages, from concept to drafting to editing to publication (for a peek at some of my strategies at each of these different stages, check out My Strategic Author Shoebox). This was true in the very early stages of Woodwalker, back in 2015 when it was just a baby manuscr...

If you've been following along on social media this month, you've seen my daily Inktober pieces focused on climate change. It's been tough spending every day researching new ways we are poisoning our planet, which is why I wanted to use all that time and effort for something good. I hope we can all commit to making small changes in our lives while working toward large-scale changes in our communities and countries. Pick just one small action you plan to take to combat climate change, shar...

While I can often come up with content for my “For Writers” and “For Artists” blog posts, I sometimes have trouble figuring out what readers are interested in. Do you want character sketches? Deleted passages? JK Rowling-style exposés on secret and possibly irrelevant backstory?

This month, instead of guessing, I decided to let you all tell me what you’re looking for. I finished out September with an Instagram Ask Me Anything, which I promised to answer in this month’s blog post. See your ...

Thanks to a summer of posting ranger photos and hashtags, I’ve had quite a few people get in touch to ask about becoming a park ranger. Since I’ve already scrambled this summer’s blog post topics anyway, I decided to take a detour from my usual posts and reflect a little on this season and the many routes to get into the coveted flat hat.

All statements and opinions are my own and are not endorsed or maintained by the National Park Service. All photos are my own.
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Read it all after the jump...