New Stories, New Adventures

It’s been an eventful few weeks since my last blog post, where I shared my new shift in strategy regarding my writing goals. Since then I’ve been pretty busy, mainly getting Blades for Hire ready for publication.

As it turns out, there are a lot of things to manage in an anthology featuring works from several different authors, and a whole lot of questioning whether you missed something after you clicked publish. In some ways I’m relieved to be done with the project, in others I miss it. The experience of working with so many talented independent authors was one I am going to miss, and one that taught me a lot.

I want to thank every author who contributed their hard work, time, and dedication to Blades for Hire, as it simply could not exist without each and every one of them. I also want to thank our critique partners, ARC readers, and anyone who has picked up a copy since release. If you haven’t yet, you can grab yours here: https://a.co/d/ciyrVBP

I also have an Amazon author page now, which you can find and follow me on here.

As mentioned before, all royalties from book sales of Blades for Hire will go directly to BookTrust, a charity whose mission is to provide equitable access to books of choice to children around the world.

& For those of you who didn’t catch it, we held a special episode of Quill & Query with several of our fellow anthology authors. You can check it out below or on your favorite podcast platform.

With my first published work out in the wild, I do feel less bad about my website and social media handles using the word ‘author’ (though I only did that so I wouldn’t need to change it at a later date), so there’s an added bonus there.

So I guess that begs the question: what’s next?

Well first, a break. After that though? I’m itching to be back in Valethria, with Tharin, Sara, and the rest of the cast of A Night of Knives. It’s been too long since I was immersed in that world, and I have a lot of exciting plans brewing there.

Writing for Blades for Hire has also sparked an interest in exploring a more lighthearted fantasy story. Most of my works-in-progress share a grimdark tone and setting, and while I will always lean in that direction, I think it could be a fun exercise to try something a little more uplifting and unserious and see where it leads. I enjoy variety in my consumption of stories, and would like to explore it in my writing of them as well.

Lastly - and not writing related - I plan on making some quality of life improvements to this website as the year goes on. Expect a full newsletter launch soon, some new pages, and some overdue design tweaks. Also hoping to start back the Fantasy Author Plays streams, I am just waiting for a worthwhile streaming game to come along - though I may just give in and go back to an old favorite. I’d be open to suggestions here as well.

That’s going to be all for now, but I look forward to sharing more updates soon.

~Brandon