Oh, hey, what’s going on?
Happy, er, uh…Spwinter? That weird place where it’s winter but starting to become spring.
Oh, such a fun time.
As 2022 keeps rolling onward and the seven seals keep getting released one by one I find myself knee deep in the edit for the new book. I had hoped to have it locked in by the end of this week but alas, a bug caught me and I have been laid out so it will fall to next week to hopefully wrap this thing up.
The plan is to get this edit completed and then sit on the book for a bit and let it sit in the back of my head again for some time before I give it one last look before I start putting the cover art together and format the book for release.
I wrote this book in November of 2021 during NaNoWriMo on a lark. I had no plan to write it during that month but once I started doing it I realized I could probably finish it on before the month was out. I can’t say I ever had any aspiration to participate in NaNoWriMo. Not that I am better than it but that I just didn’t like the idea of being stuck in a thirty day box where I had to write a book. That this came together was a total shock. I went into the book with a name for it and a vague idea of what I wanted to do but what that turned into is SO much different. It doesn’t even relfect that initial idea outsid of the name and that’s OK. I really like what this book is. It has needed a lot of work, and needs even more as I head towards the finish, but I like what it is. I have had to add a lot to it and have had to do a lot of patchwork to make it make sense. It’s weird in situations like this because I don’t usually do a lot of notes on books and don’t have a plan when I head into one and that was clear here. In editing it I found that I was still grappling with the themes and how I wanted to get from A – Z and the path I took didn’t always make the most sense. It’s my hope that as I soften the edges it is starting to come into focus more clearly and will better reflect what I was thinking with my intent.
Another interesting thing I have found is how many themes and ideas are echoed here from my book A SHADOW OVER EVER. Both Shadow and this book deal with religion and Christianity in really big ways, which is funny since I grew up generally irreligious and am an atheist now. I just follow the story where it wants to lead and see where I end up. I am definitely trying to balance a lot of plates this time out and am hoping for the best.
So what it is the book?
I don’t even know what you’d call it as far as genre.
Dark fantasy?
I guess?
The book is the story of a child of two beings in the heart of Hell and the path this character must take to find out who they are and what their purpose is. That’s the broadest of strokes but not inaccurate. This is a story of self discovery, of finding one’s place, and in what it means to be free. This is the story of Heaven, Hell, and the children of God and how those things are connected and why.
It’s another big book – coming in near to 400 pages before I force it into a book format – but this is a book that feels like it needed a little room to breathe. There’s a lot going on in it and a lot of setpiees that have to come into alignment.
I have the idea for the cover in mind and will need to figure how the heck I can accomplish that but then that’s part of the fun of the process for me. Thart’s the reason I have done most of my own covers – that little bit of the artist that still resides in me and the challenge of seeing my vision come to life fully.
I am excited to get this book out into the world though I am a little bummed that I am not sure that it’ll get any eyes on it since I am not doing shows anymore.
Here’s hoping.
We can hope against hope, even in the dark.
These are very dark days, friend, and while the new book may take you into dark places I promise that it will hold your hand through it all not let you travel alone.
Take heart.
There is still a spark of life out there, it just needs a vessel.
As you wait for this book, check out the older stuff!
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 