Elizabeth C. Mock's Blog

Hello, gentle readers. Since last we spoke, a lot has happened—a global pandemic, a Master’s degree, a career change, and more loss and grief than I care to recount. The pandemic, as it did for so many of us, put everything on pause, including Resolve. I thought the lockdowns would lead to me having more time and space to finish the book. It did not. But it did force me to reflect on what I really wanted. The end of that journey led me to working as a psychotherapist in partial hospitalization for youth and adolescents who are survivors of trauma and living with severe mental illnesses. To get here, I upended my entire life at nearly 40 years old to go back to graduate school. My new profession (to do it the way I want to) requires numerous licensure exams, trainings, certifications, consultation hours, and supervisory responsibilities. This has left little time or energy to devote to my writing since 2020 when I first applied for grad school.

But 2025 makes fifteen years since I published Shatter. Now, had I chosen to, I could have made the decision to not finish the series given the significant demands of my new life. I could have walked away. That is a choice I am allowed to make. That is not the decision I have reached. This year, I plan to publish Resolve. I have worked on it on and off for the last six years, and it matters to me to give this story, these characters, and you, my readers, closure—especially those of you who walked this journey with me over nearly fifteen years. I won’t be updating my blog or social media frequently, but I will post announcements for things like cover reveals, pre-order release dates, etc.

I want to thank you if you’ve stuck around over the last decade and a half. Life doesn’t go as we planned. We cannot predict or control the future. I hope to honor these characters who have lived with me for twenty years. I hope to honor their story. I hope to honor you, my readers. But, most of all, I want to honor my own journey, my own struggles, and my own ambitions.

Thanks for sticking around.

Greetings, gentle readers! There have been several questions in the wake of Forge's release, so I figured it was time for a Forge FAQ.

Forge Frequently Asked Questions1. Is Forge the final book in the series?No. Resolve the fourth and final book in the series will be coming out in 2020. The first draft is already written.
2. Weren't you going to finish the series with Forge?That was the plan, and I drafted Forge and Resolve as one messy, messy draft which clocked in at well over a quarter million words. It was too many words. While digging into rewrites, I realized I had, unsurprisingly, drafted two books, not one.

Originally, lo these many years ago, I had planned on writing The Children of Man as a quartet. I had hoped I could somehow finish it as a trilogy, but, it turns out, it is going to take me four books to tell this story.
3. Noooo. We've already waited forever. How long are we going to have to wait for book four?My plan is to release Resolve within the next year in 2020. March is looking like a realistic release target, but it might be next summer due to some production constraints that are out of my control. 4.  How long are we really going to have to wait for Resolve?I know you probably have very little reason to believe it will actually be coming out in 2020 given the deadlines I've missed over the last three years. I cannot fully explain the different place I'm in now due to years of therapy and having started medication for my c-PTSD, GAD, and ADHD. I say with no hyperbole that meds in conjunction with EMDR therapy have been absolutely life-changing for me. 
I have never been this consistently productive in my entire life. I asked my psychiatrist, after I started meds in the spring, if I had really spent my entire life having to work ten times harder than other people to get the same things done. And she said she hated to say yes, but yes.5. Is there a paperback version of Forge?Yes! (Amazon Links Here) The kindle and paperback pages should, hopefully, merge within the week. Other retailers will start carrying the paperback soon. I'll update once I have live links.

I may add more to this FAQ as repeated questions come in!

Forge Paperback is Live on Amazon Outlets! Forge Paperback (US) Forge Paperback (UK) Forge Paperback (DE) Forge Paperback (FR) Forge Paperback (ES) Forge Paperback (IT) Forge Paperback (JP) 
Dear readers, I have a surprise for you! Two days until Forge is released on ebook, and due to printing lag, the paperback edition of Forge is live on amazon outlets!

Out August 8/13, 2019!
Good morning, dear readers! One month from today, Forge will be released to the wilds. Let the countdown begin! I cannot wait for y'all to get to read it. To begin the countdown, I wanted to give y'all a treat: the first chapter* of Forge!


Needless to say, there are massive spoilers for both Shatter and Render below. YOU WERE WARNED.












Chapter One 

“My son is dead.”Eli Westington nodded. “Yes. Nikolais is dead.”The warehouse district along the western docks of Lanvirdis, the capital of Nabos, was empty this late at night. So was the alley where the two men talked. Shadows cast by gas lights and a dilapidated roof partially hid the face of the older man standing in front of Eli. His sandy blond hair was woven with silver. He had the look of a Mergorian, sturdily built with rough, heavy features and pale skin. The man nodded, once. As if determining the impact of a lost shipment of iron. Irritated by the loss, but weighing how much would be required to balance the scales.Gratien Baudin, the Head of House Nightmist, was a cold man.Eli would never understand the Merchant Houses. The loss of his son should be met with disbelief, grief, horror, rage. Not calculations.The memory of Faela Durante standing over him like a vengeful god of the Salju snows and ice flashed in his mind. He flexed his hand. Its newly grown bones ached. Several Tereskan healers had worked an entire day to repair what Faela had crushed beneath her boot.Baudin finally asked, “How?”Not who. That would have been Eli’s first question. Then again, he wasn’t an assassin. “Gunshot.”Baudin’s wiry eyebrows shadowed his green eyes. Mouth a tight line. “Evensong.”Who else? “That is where he died, yes.”Baudin pinned Eli with a gaze. “Tomas Segar promised us Evensong if I sent my son to seduce the Durante witch. My son did his job. He secured a blood claim to Evensong. But the child is dead.”Eli felt grieved at the mention of Faela’s son. That was an appropriate response, he thought, at the death of a child. But Eli had done what was required. The few for the many. Tomas Segar, Scion of the Daniyelan Order, the keeper of the flame of justice, would save this world from itself.“Now,” Baudin continued, “my son is also dead, and we are no closer to acquiring Evensong. An alliance with the Daniyelans has yet to benefit my House.”And there it was. Not an outright accusation, but close enough. Tomas had feared this reaction. “Master Baudin, you will have it. In order to deliver you Evensong, we must ensure the Durantes lose support within their own House, so the rest of Evensong views them as too tainted by controversy to govern.”Baudin studied Eli. “I presume your Scion already has a plan in mind.”“Rafaela is a Gray, a heretic. She—”“The religious spats of your Orders don’t concern me.” His eyes hardened. “And the rest of the Houses will not care.” Eli swallowed back his admonition. He shouldn’t antagonize the man. The death of Nikolais Baudin had been unforeseen, and Tomas needed Nightmist’s loyalty. “She orchestrated the murders of the Nikelan Scion and her Grier as well as the massacre at the Tereskan Temple. She did so by making an alliance with Irondawn.”Baudin grunted his disbelief. “That’s a lot of work for one woman.” He paused. “Although, she is the great-granddaughter of Hugo Durante.” Anger sparked in his eyes at the name. Eli dimly recalled some old dispute between Evensong and Nightmist instigated by Hugo Durante. Baudin looked down, thoughtful. Then his head snapped up in realization. “You want us to make a claim for Evensong.” His eyes narrowed. “How?”Eli smiled, pleased. “We require your House’s specialized skill set. Two men must never stand trial, and there cannot be a whisper of our involvement. When it is done, Tomas Segar, Scion of the Daniyelan Order, will tell the world that Rafaela Durante and House Evensong are responsible. In Judgment he will revoke the Durante family’s claim to Headship and appoint you as interim Head as Rafaela’s father-in-law.”“The quarry?” Baudin asked.“Phineas Greyson and Gifford Beale, they await trail for colluding with Rafaela and her dissidents in the murders of the Nikelan leaders and attempted murder of the Daniyelan Scion.”Baudin crossed his thick arms across his chest. “You want my House to assassinate the king and high minister of Nabos.”“Then Evensong is yours.”Baudin extended his hand to Eli which Eli took. Orange bands of fire twined up their arms. Baudin looked in his eyes. “House Nightmist will see justice done.”The wording surprised Eli. He never would have thought Nightmist, or any Merchants, were concerned with justice. The fire fell into ash. Binding them both to this path.Neither saw the man with glowing golden eyes, cloaked in the shadows, retreat.

*If you've read the first chapter from the end of Render, this is obviously not that chapter. That chapter got scrapped because I cut the plot arc it began. Trust me when I say this is vastly better. Enjoy the old chapter as a what-might-have-been, a blue glimpse of a possible future that never came to be.

I am thrilled to announce that Forge (The Children of Man, #3) is now available for preorder at these fine retailers! AmazonBarnes & NobleAppleKoboSmashwords
I know. I know this is not the date I originally announced last week, and I apologize for that. I ran into some difficulties on the technical end which required pushing the release back to August. HOWEVER, this is the final* release date. Full stop.
Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go run around in circles until I pass out. PREORDER NOW!

*The reason Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords' release is a few days after Amazon and Barnes & Noble is due to Smashwords' longer time frame for delivering to all of their retail outlets.

Leading up to the release of Pre-Orders for FORGE this week, I wanted to give y'all a surprise.

Without further ado, the cover for Forge (The Children of Man, #3)!

It's Monday! That means it's time to announce the release date for the third book in The Children of Man series, Forge.
Without further ado:

I could not be happier to be able to announce the release of this book that's been a long time coming. Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with me through everything. You mean everything to me.
As we approach the release of the book, I will be announcing more information, like preorder details, a cover reveal, and so much more! So watch this space and my social media for more goodies!

Monday, May 13 2019, I will be announcing the release date for Forge, the third book in The Children of Man series!

Leading up to that announcement, I will be posting songs and snippets and tidbits about Forge and the process of writing this book on my FaceBook author page and various other social media accounts.

Today's post is a song from my Forge playlist. I'll leave it to your imagination as to who it's from the perspective of and who it's about. ;)

PTSD Brain: "No. The answer is No."C-PTSD makes seemingly simple things very difficult. It makes it hard for me to feel like I’m allowed to feel to safe. Safety feels like a dangerous state of affairs. Because if I let myself feel safe, Doom™ will occur. Somehow, by always being hyper-vigilant, my brain believes I can avert disaster. And from time to time, though it’s getting less frequent, my brain is very sure disaster is lurking just around the corner. Sometimes, it feels like there’s a specific doom. Like say, I’m going to lose my job. A fact that is very unlikely.
My brain doesn’t take this assertion of reality as a fact and call it a day. It takes it as a challenge. It might be unlikely, but what if...
Doom™. 
It goes like this. My brain is convinced I will fail to meet a deadline, or some authority figure’s expectations, which will lead to a chain reaction (And this Doom-Saying Conspiracy Theorist part of my brain can, and will, explain every step—of which there are many—in minute detail.), which will ultimately lead to me getting fired, unable to pay my bills, a failure at everything, and everyone hating me. And my brain will draw from adverse results that have happened to me before to beef up its evidence that this doom will, in fact, occur. 
“But what about that one time when…?” 
Past events that did happen give my brain the receipts to prove that this Doom™ is coming—unless. Unless we control everything, I guess? That’s the specific doom scenario. This specific chain-of-events will lead to inevitable, inescapable doom? That’s catastrophic thinking. Which is, not always but can be, a symptom of PTSD.
Sometimes, there’s just looming, undefined Doom™.  There’s no discernible cause or reason. There’s nothing to be done. It just feels like I have to be ready for anything. For what specifically? Who know! What should I do to stop it? Who knows! Certainly not me. 
It feels like this: 1. I let my guard down.2. ???3. Doom™.
This can make it hard to focus. This If-I-Feel-Safe-Then-Doom™ sensation can make it challenging to get work done. Before I started therapy, I used to ignore the feeling and power through. (Trying to brute force my way through situations and life? The “if I throw an unhealthy amount of hard work at it I will survive” mentality? Common for people with PTSD.) Funny thing about therapy, though, is that it makes you very aware of your emotions and of the truth that you can’t opt out of emotions. 
Feelings are optional; that’s the big lie of a lot of well-meaning advice out there. I read it phrased that way the other day, and I can’t get over how true it is.
They aren’t. Feelings aren’t optional.
Ever think about how we call emotions “feelings”? I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It’s a startlingly accurate word for the experience. Because emotions are a physical, somatic response of the body. It’s not just a psychological state; it’s a physical sensation. We don’t really have a choice about whether they’re happening. We feel our emotions not exactly like we feel a cold day or we feel a hug, but because our emotions are also a bodily, tactile, sensory response to our experiences. (Thank you, Vagus Nerve. Look it up, if you’re unfamiliar. It’s a trip.)
And those feelings are predictive. They’re based on our past experiences, and what we think will happen next. This grieves me about my PTSD. My brain is trying to protect me, not from imaginary experiences, but from experiences that did occur, from events that did happen. Experiences I was unable to process at the time. Experiences which became trauma. My brain, by itself, did the best it could. It was, and is, trying to keep me from having those experiences again. It’s trying to keep me alive.
In many ways, PTSD makes me a time traveler in my own life. Sometimes, my brain doesn’t know when I am. Despite being nearly 37 years old, my brain will think that it’s 1984. That what happened to me then is happening now. Or that it will definitely happen to me again in the future. These are emotional flashbacks and flash forwards. Both set up the Doom™ dominos. Things from my past pushing my brain to feel like it must know and control the future. That this is the only way to get to the mythical state of Safety™. My Doom-Saying Conspiracy Theorist is right in a sense. Anything could happen. There isn’t a state of Safety™. Safety is a feeling.
Feelings are optional. This lie leads to repression and trauma.
Feelings are information. Feelings are physical. Feelings happen. That doesn’t mean I’m helpless to my feelings. That doesn’t mean I’m helpless to my PTSD. I have tools now to interface with my feelings and my PTSD.
When those Doom™ dominos get set up, however, it can be hard to remember to pick up those tools. The old tracks of behavior in my brain that protected me are well worn and deep. It’s hard to remember to change tracks. It’s harder to do it. Not feeling safe, as odd as this sounds, feels very comfortable. It protected me.
And it no longer serves me.
Said Post-ItsSo, I have post-it notes all over my office. Things to help me identify if I’m triggered, if I’m in an emotional flashback. Things to help me remember what’s true. Things to help me get back to the present. To keep me grounded in the present. To keep me from being a time traveler. Things to help me remember that I’m allowed to feel safe. That this will pass. To thank my brain for trying to protect me, and that this behavior no longer serves me.
So, why have I taken us, dear reader, down this rabbit hole about feelings and my PTSD? Because for nearly the last three weeks, when I sat down to write, I felt unsafe. (I felt unsafe when I wasn’t writing, too. But that’s beyond the scope of this post and what I’m comfortable sharing with the entirety of the Interwebs.) I still got revising done as I navigated the ebb and flow of these feelings and my PTSD. It’s exhausting, but I kept making progress. The last two days, however, have been particularly hard.
There are a lot of reasons why, but one of them is that we’re less than two months to my deadline to publish Forge, and some developments have occurred as I’ve been finishing the continuity revisions and rewrites. As I’ve previously said, the first draft of this novel clocked in at around 260k. That is a monstrously long book. At the beginning of November, I realized something. This is not one book. This is two. Which was the original plan. 
I know, I buried the lede.
From the beginning, I had intended this series to be a quartet, not a trilogy. I had thought, I had hoped, I could wrap up Faela and Kade and Jair’s story in three books. This draft is two books. And you know what? I’m happy with that.
I’ve been afraid to announce this because Doom™. And because I’ve been afraid about this decision, revising felt dangerous. (Making a “wrong” decision has very high stakes in the world of PTSD. See earlier comments on needing to control the future.) My Doom-Saying Conspiracy Theorist has many dominos set up regarding this decision and this announcement. All ending in, as you’ve probably guessed by now, Doom™.
So. Forge is now split into Forge and Resolve. Back to the original plan. They even have their own scrivener files. And let me tell you, putting Resolve into its own scrivener file was a big step and a very big deal.
I’m still shooting for a 2018 publication for Forge. (It might be January allowing for the unpredictability of life and recovery.) These two book are already drafted, and I’m nearing the end of the Forge continuity revisions. This means Resolve should be released sometime in the spring of 2019. There won’t be a seven year gap between the two this time. That I can promise. 
It is hard for me to post this. I can’t control what will come of these decisions, and I believe they’re the right ones for me and for these stories. Alongside the fear, I’m excited about this draft being two books again. I’m excited for how much better the conclusion of this series will be. I’m excited, and I’m still scared.

Making these decisions doesn’t mean Doom™. It just feels that way right now. And my feelings will change. Whatever comes of these decisions, I can handle it. Because I am not alone. Amidst this, I’m allowed to feel safe. And that’s really hard.

So, it’s September. Kids are returning to school. We’re all waiting for relief from 90+ degree weather. Well, maybe not all of us. But I sure am. Bring on sweater weather and pumpkin spice. No irony. Complete earnestness. I love anything and everything pumpkin spice.

Look, I just really love autumn. I love getting back to teaching. I love watching the leaves turn. I love foggy early mornings. I love a warm mug of tea on chilly evening. I love scarves and boots and coats.

Bring me the fall.

As we’re on the cusp of this seasonal change, I wanted to post an update about where I’m at in the process to publish Forge. Although 2018 has been a intense year on a personal level, I’m still on track to publish in late December.

Scene breakdownsMy mental health is the best it’s ever been, but healing from c-PTSD (Yeah, my diagnosis has evolved since we last talked.) takes the time it takes. Life takes the time it takes.

My biggest hurdle in any big project (like, I don’t know, publishing a book) is the barrier to entry. It’s starting, or it's what I have to do to get back into the project after interruptions occur. Which is basically just a different kind of starting. Many things came up this year, as happens in life, that interrupted my progress and momentum.

For me, my ability to finish a big project, or to figure out how to finish, comes down to turning the project into something concrete instead of abstract. Breaking down the output (finish and publish Forge, which is abstract) into its discrete input steps (revise three scenes a day for X, which is concrete). Once it’s concrete, I can make an action plan. With said action plan, sitting down to work becomes vastly easier to do. Because I have a direction. And I actually feel like I'm making progress.

"13 Week" CalendarI wrote in January about starting a fire as a metaphor for overcoming barriers to entry or reentry. So, today, I took my own advice and mapped out what I have to do in the next 118 days before 2018 is over in order to publish this book.

Even though the next 118 days are going to challenge me, for the first time, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can actually visualize publication for this book. Which I hadn’t been able to do before.

Today, I started burning paper to restart this fire. I mapped out my plan. I’m tracking that plan in concrete, visible places using: a PlannerPad, a whiteboard calendar, a Self Journal, the Self Journal “13 Week” calendar, and a handwritten list of the next batch of scenes I need to work my way through.

Today, I finished the list of things I need to do each day in order to publish Forge in 2018. And I finished the things on the list for today. The paper has lit the kindling. Tomorrow, I feed the fire. Feeding it every day is how this gets done.

Thanks for sticking with me through this journey and all my ups and downs as I heal. Forge is still on track for a 2018 release. I’ll keep you posted as I move forward. It’s in the plan.