Chris Fritz's Blog - Posts Tagged "update"

The road I went down to publish my debut fantasy novel the Universe Key was an arduous and confusing one. At first I tried the obvious route of traditional publishing. This lead to an extremely long and painful list of rejection emails from companies and literary agents. Oh for months it was just rejections as far as the eye could see. Mountains on mountains of rejections. If I had a dollar for every rejection I received then I could just skip publishing and finance a movie based on my novel. I think it could have been for the better though. I don't want just any run of the mill literary agent. I need an agent that understands my visions and wants me to achieve my goals. An agent almost as unique as me. That is just something that money can't buy. I also did talk to some vanity publishers with hilarious results. I swear all those vanity presses should be shut down, they're scams one and all. I did have the chance to show them how I really felt though. Any sleazy con artist who sent me an email or called me on the phone got a permanent headache worth of tolling from yours truly. So watch out for scams guys. Two companies I'll name are Dorrance publishing and Fulton books. Avoid them like they just tested positive for COVID 19. So with all my options seemingly exhausted where was I to go? It seemed like my last hope was indie publishing. I started off as a true novice in the indie publishing world. I only stumbled head first into how I could self publish on amazon. But the moment I hit the button and published the Universe Key I realized something. I absolutely love indie publishing. I love editing down and formatting what I wrote. I love designing my own covers and once I published the Universe Key I had this calming peaceful feeling wash over me. A feeling that told me now I can publish anything I want whenever I want to. That is the feeling of freedom. Now to end this blog post I have a message to the literary agents of the world. Get off your 15% taking butt and sign me already. So I can finally bring excitement, prosperity and wonder into your short meaningless life.

Little side note I'll give you guys an update of what I'm working on. I'm 80k words into the sequel to the Universe Key. I still have a lot to write so I think I'm going to hit 100k words.

I've written a sequel to my first novel. The new book is called the Well of Destruction and it takes place exactly where the Universe Key left off. This is my covid-19 book. I've been gifted with some extra time to write recently and this is the end result, congratulations lucky readers. I have to say that with this new book I think I've outdone myself. Critics might say that some sequels don't live up to the original but I say this objectively that this second book takes all the greatest things from the first book and cranks them up to eleven. You guys are going to have so much fun reading the continued adventures of Brilan, Clara and the rest of the group. Also in my writing process I've come up with a name for this series. I'm calling it the Magic Metal War. What do you think of it let me know in the comments. Now I'm not ready to release the book just yet, I need to go through my extensive editing process and I need to design a cover. But I am ready to give you guys a little sample of what I've been writing.

“Are we there yet?” Clara asks Brilan.
“No.” Brilan says shortly.
“Are we there yet?” Clara asks again.
“No.” Says Brilan
“Are we there yet?” Clara asks.
“No.” Brilan says.
“Are we there yet?” Clara asks.
“No. Are we there yet?” Brilan spurts out in a moment of reversal.
“No.” Clara says instinctually. “Hey you messed me up!” Cara says as her annoying farce is unraveled.
“Hey I can play games too. I can keep it up all day. Just try me.” Brilan tells his sister to put an end to her annoyance.
“But I’m bored and hungry.” Clara wines to her brother. “When are we gonna…” Clara tries to wine more but she is interrupted when a ten foot tall Ferean comes stomping out of the trees and into the path that the siblings walk. Adrenaline pumps through the hearts of the kids as they see the beast that threatens them.
“RRRRREEEEEEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!!” The ferean calls out as he finds his young prey.
“CLARA DUCK STAY HIDDEN!” Brilan yells to his sister as he draws the universe key and gets in between her and the ferean. Brilan pushes his sister away into a bush aggressively encouraging her to stay away from this horror. The monster swipes at Brilan with one of its claws and he bats it back with the universe key. The young Zaubator must quickly defend against the attacks, come up with a strategy to kill it and keep Clara safe all at the same time. He keeps bashing at the beast with his key but after a few hit he can’t keep it up. The ferean uses one of his claws to swipe Brilans feet out from under him. The boy falls to the ground as the ferean looms over him.

Pretty suspenseful right? I'm going to tentatively say that this whole thing will be out by the end of the year so you'll have to wait a little bit to see how this part gets wrapped up. I'll tell you right now it's worth the wait.

I’ve written a lot about Star Wars. I admire how it’s been around for so long and how many lives it’s touched throughout the generations. A series that has been going on for so many years has had to change in so many ways. Now there’s one way it has changed that evolves one of the ideas that is at the stories very core and that transformation comes in the form of the Mandalorian. Now the basic story of the Mandalorian follows a bounty hunter named Din Djarin who has taken it upon himself to to care for a small child that the fans have affectionately named baby yoda. I don’t think that it’s a stretch to say that this Mandalorian bounty hunter has adopted this little baby and acts as a father to the child. This is contextually significant to the over all story of Star Wars. Now let’s go back to the original trilogy. The plot of the first three movies can boiled down to the relationship between our main character Luke sky walker and his father Darth Vader. The audience can live through and relate to the story through Luke as he grapples with his father. He specifically has to grapple with the sins of his father how Darth Vader committed evils acts the son doesn’t want to follow in the footsteps of the father and go down a righteous path.
The father also tries to corrupt the son as if it were destiny that they were meant to walk the same path. The son ends up redeeming the father and proves that even the most corrupted people can choose to come to the good side. A story as old as time and a good lesson learned by all. Now lets fast forward fourth years in our time but five years in their time and we are given the story of the Mandalorian bounty hunter and his child. The audience is made to relate to Din Djarin as he goes on his adventures and raises his baby. We love to watch the bounty hunter make his way in the world trying to make good choices and mold the child into a good adult. Now on an essential level the relationship between Luke and Darth Vader is the same relationship between Mando and baby yoda. A relationship between father and son but here’s where the evolution is. The viewpoint character has changed from son to father. Luke portrays the son as a protagonist and Mando portrays the father in his own story. In the old days the Star Wars audience was mostly made up of children who could relate to Luke. Identify with this young man and his troubles with his father. They relate to the son.
But time passed and those fans grew up. The fans became more mature and maybe even some of them became parents themselves. So they are in a prime situation to relate to a character that goes through parental drama. So star wars was in a prime position to oblige. Now a perfect character to through into the show is Boba Fett. From what little we’ve seen Boba’s relationship to his father is very vital to him. He follows his father’s path becoming a mandalorian bounty hunter. He wears his fathers armor, flies his fathers ship and does his fathers job. There are even points when he tries to avenge his father’s death. The relationship between Boba and his father is very static and stagnant. Boba tries to be exactly like his father not doing better or taking a different path. Boba and Jango take the same path and their path even ends the same way. They both die fighting. This relationship acts as a foil to the main father son relationships in Star Wars. Boba is not like Luke because he doesn’t feel conflict to change his path. Jango isn’t like Din Djarin because he doesn’t want to radically change his ways for the betterment of his son. One could even say that relationship is the worst case scenario of what a father son relationship can be. Patterns of behavior are repeated throughout the generations. The cycle of violence that encapsulated them both keeps turning and swallowing them up. The end result is degradation and stagnation. Luke and Din Djarin break the cycle of violence that has tried to swallow them up and do damage to their family members. Luke succeeded in this and maybe as the show goes on the Mandalorian will succeed and save baby yoda. This story tells as that a relationship between a father and a son is important. This is the way.

Just as an addition I thought I'd give you guys an update. I've just started my third book in the magic metal war saga. I'm really excited to write this third instalment but some things might get in the way. The Covid 19 pandemic is coming to an end as more people get vaccinated. Things are opening up and getting better. Also my day job has me going back into the office full time so that is definitely going to put a damper on my writing. I'm also getting more opportunities to do stand up so that's also going to take a big chunk of my time. With all this starting up I do have some concerns about being able to finish writing my third book. I'll try to keep you guys updated on how it's going but as many of us have learned the hard way recently the future is impossible to predict.

Hey what's up everybody. I got some really good news to share with you. Just in time for the holidays I'm happy to announce that I'm offering hardcover versions of both of my books. The Universe Key and the Well of Destruction. I am so excited for this. Now my first two books can be enjoyed in long lasting hardcover versions for all the readers out there that prefer reading hardcover. I am so grateful for this opportunity to make hardcovers. Now I'm going to be honest with you guys these new versions are a little bit pricier than I'd like to admit. Printing costs really got me in a bind. So I'm going to give you something else. I am slashing prices on the paperback versions of both the Universe Key and the Well of Destruction. Now is the best time to get the paperback versions. I am so excited to be offering all of this. Here's the amazon links to check out my new hardcover versions today.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HQ95Z5D

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JF22JSD

Hello everybody, with 2021 coming to a close I thought I would give you guys a look at how this year went for me. For a long time, I’ve heard the cliché that this year just few by but holy shit that was true this year. This year was a fucking blur man. I did some good things this year. I released my second novel and the second installment in the magic metal war saga called the Well of Destruction. I did start up a Patreon account here’s a link to that so if you want to support on independent author this is a great way to do so for just a few dollars a month. https://www.patreon.com/chrisfritz The page is kind of in the beta stages of production right now so I’m working on beefing it up. Stayed tuned for more on that. I also did some more stand-up comedy. That is a major improvement over last year. I’ve gotten a lot more opportunities to do that, so we’ll see where that leads. I’ve also started writing the third installment in the magic metal war saga. It’s called the Sun vs the Moon and I’m a third of the way through writing it right now. My prediction is this one will be ready to publish in the later end of 2022. Don’t hold me to that that’s just a preliminary prediction. So, I do have a lot of irons in the fire that will keep me busy for the next year. There were some bad things that happened this year. I wanted to start a twitch channel, but I didn’t have the time. I still want to make a twitch channel someday but for now the project is in turnaround. This year has given me a lot of time to think. There are many things that happened this year that didn’t really go my way. Maybe the biggest one would be Netflix making a live action version of Cowboy Bebop and then canceling it after one season. Overall, I’m very optimistic about what the future has in store, and I hope 2021 treated you all well. So, what was your year like? Feel free to talk about it in the comments.

I've discovered a new resource called hero forge minis. It's a website that helps you create digital models of fantasy characters and even print them out into tiny little mini figures. It's a great service and I've become quite addicted to it. It's so much fun to use this as an outlet of my creativity. Once I heard about this thing, I immediately used it to create my characters from the magic metal war books. I've considered selling these minifigures, but I've decided that they wouldn't be cost effective. So, for now I'll just give you guys some digital renderings to look at. I have considered creating merchandise centered around the magic metal war saga but at this moment I don't think there would be much demand for it. On a much deeper level I believe that playing with toys growing up was a fundamental basis of how I became a fantasy writer. When I was a kid, I played with legos, nerf blasters, and transformers. When I played like that it gave me the ability to comprehend characters and stories in a much more elastic way than anything else I think back on. So, here's a link to my glorious hero forge creations on twitter I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed digitally designing them.

https://twitter.com/chrisfritzcomic/s...