Vincent Trigili's Blog

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Recently I asked you this question and presented you with a picture of a stick, and a second picture of litter. We talked a bit about how when people first see the stick, they see a stick, if they see it at all. A stick on the ground first looks like a fang, a tooth or perhaps a weapon of some kind. The litter looked like the jawbone of a massive sea creature.

But this time when I ask the question, I am going a level higher. I walk the streets of the city where I work during the day quite often. I see all kinds of things as I wander about. Some mundane, some unusual and some beautiful.

What I see the most is people rushing from here to there without ever noticing the path. I am sure they all have very important places to go, things to do, and people to see, but they miss so much on the way there. Like the picture at the beginning of this post. I took that on a bridge in my town. I wonder how many people walk right by it and never see the googly eyes watching them?

What else are they missing? Or perhaps I should ask, what are you missing?

The world is a wondrous place. There are amazing things around us all the time. Whether I walk through a poor neighborhood or a rich one, there are always things to see and hear. I encourage, spend more time looking around and listening. You may just find your next adventure before you even finish your first few steps.

One question I get often is “Where do your ideas come from?” I am sure most if not all writers get that question. Probably often. I am also sure you get answers like, “from the world around us,” and “I do not know.” They probably never give a good answer in the eyes of the non-writer who think there is some magic formula or something.

So, let’s play a game here. Tell me when you see this picture, what is the very first thing you see? The very first thing, without cheating. 

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99.9999999% of people (and do not forget 83% of all statistics are made up on the spot) who see that will think “stick laying on the road,” or some variation there of first. Other thoughts might come later, but that is the very first thing they see. Furthermore, had they been walking down the road, they likely would not have noticed the stick at all. It is too mundane, below notice. 

I was out for one of my runs when I saw it. When I saw it, the very first thing I thought was “man that is a big tooth” and the second “or maybe a tusk.” It was my fourth or fifth thought to think of it as a stick. 

I am sure you can see it now, and some of you might have guessed that was where this was going before I said anything. Let’s try another one. What do you see here? 

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Most people (I really do not have any actual numbers) would see a river with litter in it. They might notice the rocks and plants. They might even mistake the garbage for rocks at first. Being this is the second picture you can probably guess where I am about to go. 

My first thought, the very first thing I thought when I saw that was “Man, that must have been a big creature to have a jaw bone like that!” It actually took me several moments to realize it was not a jaw bone. Long after the serpentine neck was well formed in my mind. 

Understand I did not look at it and think “That litter looks like it could be a jaw bone” – that is what normal people do. What I saw was actually a jaw bone, and later had to convince myself it was merely litter. 

The world around us is a wonderous place if you can set aside your pre-conceived idea of reality and let your mind reach out. Even if you see litter first, let your mind wonder at what it could be and soon you will begin to understand that there is so much more to the world. Litter is bad of course, but when you see a flower in your yard, is it a weed or a home for a Who?

So next time a skilled novelist tells you they get their ideas from “the world around us,” or “I don’t know,” you can refer back to the jaw bone in the river and the fang on the road and perhaps understand. 

One question that people ask me often is: “How long does it take to write a book?” This is actually not a very clear question to ask because there are many ways to answer it, depending on what a person means by their question. 

For example, I just finished the rough draft of book two in the Mantidom series. It is roughly one hundred and fifty thousand words, or in the ballpark of five hundred and fifty pages in print. It took one hundred and seventy hours of hands on keyboard to write. You might say it took roughly a week to write. 

But of course, you cannot write for a solid week without any breaks. So, it must have taken longer than that. If you assume a forty-hour work week, one hundred and seventy hours is a little more than a month. Stretch the work day a little every now and again and you could say it took a month. Okay, then it takes a month to write a book.

But that is not really true either. The vast majority of authors never make enough to write full time, so we have regular jobs to help pay the bills. This greatly cuts into writing time. Also, there is the problem that creative work does not follow a strict schedule. Some days you are hot, and words are flowing, and other days you are not. So looking at my records, I started writing book two on October twenty-third. Today is April nineteenth. That is just shy of six months. 

But that is not really true either. After all, I can not release the book today. I have to complete several editing passes, get it to my first pass proofreader still and then off to my pre-readers. Then when they are done with it, it will go through two more editors. At the same time as all that I need to get the various artworks completed. Then when all that is done there is formatting and publishing still. I know from experience that is at least a three-month-long process.

So now we are up to about nine months for one of my epic fantasies. I would say, for me and the kinds of stories I write, that is on the optimistic side of the scale. One book a year is likely closer to a sustainable pace for me assuming I continue to write books that are.

So there you have it. It takes anywhere between a week and a year to write a book, depending on what you mean by the question. Clear as mud, right?

I was never part of the Harry Potter generation. I guess I was just a bit too old when it first came out. Despite people today claiming that my book “The Academy” is Harry Potter in space, there is no influence of Harry Potter on the book. The writing of Enemy of an Enemy actually predates Harry Potter’s release by over half a decade, and when I wrote the Academy, I had no knowledge of the series. 

I know for many of my readers they cannot imagine a world where Harry and his lightning scar is not famous, but there was such a time and that is the time the Lost Tales of Power came out of. 

But time moves on, and in the world we live in today being an author in the genre that I write and knowing nothing about Harry Potter did not seem wise. So, a couple months ago I started the series. I of course knew a little about the world at this point. Enough of you talk about it that I could not avoid a few major plot points over the years, but I only had a passing knowledge of the series.

If you have not read it yet, do not worry there will be no spoilers in this post. The one thing I can say though is that J. K. Rowling’s writing improved greatly as the series progressed, but she also delved into darker topics. While the writing was inferior in the first book, I enjoyed its story far more than the last book. Book one is light and happy, but the series gets dark and somewhat sad as the books go on. 

I guess that is the nature of the market these days. Popular movies and books tend to be dark and dreary. Even the lighting is such that you have to adjust the brightness on your TV if you want to see everything in the scene. I do not understand this desire for darker and darker. 

I still write what is known as Noble Bright books, and I plan to continue that for the foreseeable future. The Null was a bit of a departure from that, and who knows, maybe I will write more in that genre someday, but even The Null was roses and rainbows compared to what is popular today. 

Anyways, if you have not read the Harry Potter series yet, it is well written and enjoyable. It is not nearly as dark as some stories today, but there are a few very hard deaths in it to prepare yourself for. Three of them stick out to me, but I will not mention them as they would definitely be spoilers.  

Hey all!

I am often invited to various group promotions, sales, contests, and so on with other authors. I turn almost all of them down because I do my best to never send any spam to anyone. However not sending it means that those of you that want to see those deals, miss out.  So to address this, I have decided to create a second newsletter.

The new newsletter will be called “Deals and Steals” (I know not very original, but eh, I never was any good with names) and will have all the promotions that I think are worth sharing. It will be sent somewhat randomly, but at most once a week. To join that list click here:



Deals and Steals



My normal list, which is still called “Vincent’s Newsletter” will have promotions, contests, and giveaways but will be limited only to my own books and significantly less often. It will also contain my general ramblings, interesting news and other things I want to share with you. If you do not want these emails you can always unsubscribe. You can join that one by clicking below (if you are not already on it).



Vincent’s Newsletter



Please note there will be a month or two of transition where both lists will get the promotions, but in time that will all filter to just the deals and steals list. 

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Rise of the Goblin King is live for pre-order at most major stores right now! As of the writing of this email, only Apple remains to put the book up. They have it listed as “waiting for review” so, that means, well absolutely nothing at all. *shrugs* It is out of my hands now, just have to wait on them.

While on pre-order most stores have it at the discounted price of $1.99. After release it will go to its full price of $4.99 so grab it while you can!

There will be a paperback and hardcover edition, but they always lag behind the ebook by a month or so, just due to the nature of the medium. Click below to order your copy today!

Amazon Kobo Nook Google Play

Hey everyone!

Now that the holiday madness is behind us, maybe we can all catch our breaths a bit! All I know for sure is that it seems like Old Man Winter has come back from his holidays ready to work. The temps have fallen well below freezing and we have been getting snow. You know, the kind of weather one in colder climates expects in the winter, unlike the fall like weather we have had up till now.

Rise of The Goblin King is with my final editor now. She probably needs another week or two with it but I do have the final draft of the map that will be included! It is very impressive. Our artist, Tessa, has shown like the star she is once again! I am still waiting on the cover art from one of our other artists. I hope to have something to show you there soon. I have some rough sketches of it and it is looking great.

So it is still all up in the air, but I am hoping to have it up for pre-order by February, with a February 13th release date. Time will tell! I will hold it back if everything is not ready.  While wrangling all the things to get Goblin King out I am working on book two, which is tentatively called The Horde. I hope to have that for you by summer.

And after that, it is back to the dragons! I am hoping to have a Christmas or early 2020 release for Dragon Masters season 3, but that is too far into the future to see clearly yet.

One more thing, I have restarted posting to my YouTube Channel. Please check it out and let me know what kind of things you would like to see on it. In the past, I have done reviews, vlogs, commentary on news, and other random things. Let me know the kinds of things you might be interested in and I will see what I can do. Thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am personally very thankful for all of my readers, so this year I have put on sale

The Silverleaf Chronicles for 99 cents!
The Lost Tales of Power: Boxset: Volumes 1-3 for 99 cents!
The Lost Tales of Power: Boxset: Volumes 3-6 for 99 cents!

Enjoy and share!

New release!

[image error]The promised ninth book in the Lost Tales of Power series is now up for pre-order! The pre-order window is pretty short, and only exists so that I can give you a chance to buy it for 99 cents! Upon release (11/13) the book will go to its normal price of $2.99, so grab it while you can.

Just as a reminder, this book was originally intended to be part of a Sci-Fi anthology. That anthology got canceled due to most of the other authors not coming through with their stories. As a result, I am releasing The Cerulean Mines as a novella. It is around a hundred pages long in print form (there will be a paperback released at a later date) which makes it about a third as long as the majority of the other Lost Tales books.

So without further ado, click a link below to get your copy!

You can find:

The Cerulean Mines on AMAZON KINDLE
The Cerulean Mines on KOBO
The Cerulean Mines on APPLE IBOOKS
The Cerulean Mines on GOOGLE PLAY

Other stores coming soon…

Hey everyone!

I recently got the question, “It has been a year since you put out a book, did you give up on authoring?”

First, let’s set the record straight. My last book came out on April 10, 2018. Given that it is only July 2018, I would say it has been less than a year since my last book. In case you missed it, you can find the links to it and information here:

https://www.vincenttrigili.com/glimpses/

Second, no I have not given up writing. In fact, I have three books in the works right now.

One is top secret and I will not be speaking of it for a few more months. Currently, only my wife knows of its existence, and she is not talking.

The second will drop this Fall and is a Lost Tales of Power story. Some of you have read this already as part of my pre-reader program.

The third is Season Three of Dragon Masters which is so ridiculously behind schedule now that I had Lyrroth the Younger just burn the calendar. It is better that way. Now we all feel less stress.

So, I hope that clears things up. I am planning to keep writing long term. There are more books for Lost Tales to come, and I have at least two more series I plan to write. In short, I have well over a decade’s worth of material to write still.

I hope that clears things up for everyone!