Sunday was a whirlwind. With focusing on finishing my shows at the Blue Ridge on a good note and getting all of my school stuff out of the way and ready for me to miss a week and a half, I hadn’t even started packing. On top of that, Mrs. Phillips had planned a big party to send me off. Everyon...
2023-12-25 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
So I think how I'm going to do this is images of new/important characters and locations, I'll put into their own concept art postings (this is stuff that's important series wide, so it will only be tagged for that series). Images that are scenes from specific chapters that I used when writi...
2023-12-23 16:47:01 +0000 UTC View PostWilliam stood among the gathered nobility in the Great Hall of Starhaven, waiting for Serwyn’s coronation to begin. The cavernous hall had changed since William’s last visit, when he paid his final respects to Serwyn’s father. It was, if anything, more grandiose than it had been for Gavric...
2023-12-23 16:46:01 +0000 UTC View Post
I finally got around to getting a map for Imperium, which hopefully will make it easier to know where some of the places are (it's mostly based on books 1-5, since I just started writing book 6, so important new places won't be listed. But it should give some idea.
2023-12-22 15:06:48 +0000 UTC View PostI’d spent a lot of time over the last week working on Willie’s last song, trying to nail down the sound of it. Even a week after his funeral, it was nice to have this little piece of connection with him. The problem was, Willie and I had very different voices, and it felt wrong trying to fini...
2023-12-21 13:58:01 +0000 UTC View PostGalveston, Texas
Seven hours later, Taylor and Whitaker were escorted up to the top floors of the Houston field office. They’d managed to get a nap on the short plane ride from El Paso to Houston, and it looked as though that was all the sleep they would get for now. The ...
2023-12-20 19:14:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's the initial concept art for The Veilguard Saga. I'm doing this for most chapters of the two fantasy stories, so I can see in my head what stuff looks like when I start writing it. Is this something you guys would like to see with most chapters (as I have it)? Rarely? Neve...
2023-12-19 15:17:00 +0000 UTC View Post
This is for my new series, the The Veilguard Saga. It's a high magic fantasy, a throwback to the classic stuff from the 80s & early 90s like R.A. Salvator, Dragonlance, Pern, etc. Although this book is limited in its scope to s small corner of this world, it will expand as the series co...
2023-12-19 15:15:01 +0000 UTC View PostTaylor stepped over Matthews’ body, a dark stain still slowly spreading across the man’s shirt, and looked out the window. Ruiz and the military seemed to have things well in hand. The firefight had ended, and the Mexican soldiers were rounding up the few cartel members that remained alive, c...
2023-12-19 01:25:09 +0000 UTC View Post
I didn't do this for Country Roads or Imperium, but the two fantasy series, I started with some concept art so I could get a better feel for things (I also have a map for both, the shattered lands map I'm still working on, but it should be out in a few weeps) before I started writing. I put...
2023-12-17 23:19:35 +0000 UTC View PostMonday, things started to get back to normal. I was still sad about Willie’s passing, but I had things to do. The competition was coming up soon, and I needed to make sure I got all of my ducks in a row, specifically at school, before I left. Plus, there was Kat, who I’d barely gotten to see ...
2023-12-17 14:22:01 +0000 UTC View PostTo his credit, Ruiz moved fast. It took him only two hours to have a Mexican army jet do a high-level flyover of the hills, locating a villa in a dip in the side of the large hills west of town, on the western side facing the opposite side of the hills from Juarez. Taylor was a little surprised b...
2023-12-14 17:22:00 +0000 UTC View PostTaylor paced back and forth in the Ruiz’s cramped office, his agitation growing with each pass around the small room. His fingers twitched and flexed as he expelled the restless energy that coursed through him. Watching him, Whitaker sat patiently in one of the chairs facing Ruiz’s desk as Ta...
2023-12-14 02:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostTaylor was dead asleep, sprawled across the lumpy hotel mattress with one arm dangling off the edge at the elbow. The drawn curtains did little to block the bright afternoon sunlight filtering into the room, not that it did anything to keep Taylor and Whitaker awake. The motel they’d found woul...
2023-12-12 15:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe morning was gray and overcast as I pulled into the church parking lot for Willie’s funeral service. I’d driven alone, letting Hanna and Kat, who had come back into town for the service, get there before me while I tried to mentally prepare myself for the service. It had been almost a week...
2023-12-10 16:44:01 +0000 UTC View PostTaylor gave one last look at the body and pulled out his phone. Matthews might have escaped, but he’d made a mistake. Until now, Taylor had been focused on accomplishing the goal they’d been sent out here to do; find out about the bombings and stop whoever was behind them. For him, it had jus...
2023-12-08 14:23:00 +0000 UTC View PostThough it had been several days since his father delivered the news, William was still unsettled by his uncle’s passing. Once again secluded in his rooms, he grappled with the loss, trying to make sense of what it was going to be like now that the king was gone.
Gavric had been the closes...
2023-12-06 17:20:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe drive home after my audition was pure bliss. I had the windows down and the music cranked up, singing along at the top of my lungs. I still couldn’t believe how well it had gone, better than even my wildest dreams.
After I’d gotten off the stage, the producers had pulled me aside an...
2023-12-04 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe apartment complex was asleep when Taylor and Whitaker pulled into the lot. They made their way to Salamanca’s darkened apartment, which was just as quiet as everything else.
“Let me take the lead,” Whitaker said.
Like the motel, this was more of the traditional law enforceme...
2023-12-02 13:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostSo I've had a big update to the planned books page (I put the text of what I wrote below, so you don't have to go searching for it) I know I'm spreading myself thin, story wise, and I welcome any input you have here and will listen and take your thought seriously. On the other hand, I...
2023-12-01 19:40:48 +0000 UTC View PostParking in Atlanta was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I ended up blocks away from the auditorium where the contest was being held, in an area that I wasn’t one hundred percent sure even my crappy car would be okay when I returned.
The area in front of the arena was a madhouse. P...
2023-11-29 16:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostMonday, I was still preoccupied with everything that happened over the weekend. I was worried about Willie and what going into hospice meant for him. I was worried I wouldn’t get to see him again and tell him what he really means to me. I was also worried about Hanna. The bombshell that she was...
2023-11-26 15:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostMiracle of miracles, school did start turning around for me. It took an angry phone call from Kat on Wednesday because I was already falling behind her study schedule, but I did really well on my math test. Or at least I felt I had since I wouldn’t get the grade back until the next week.
...
2023-11-23 13:19:01 +0000 UTC View PostI got home that night, after stopping to check in with Warren and visit Willie, with a problem on my mind. After talking to Mr. Jensen, I went by to talk to some of my other teachers and get some kind of idea where my grades were at, and they definitely weren’t where they needed to be.
I ...
2023-11-20 17:08:00 +0000 UTC View PostMy first day of school went … surprisingly well. Even with Dr. Wallace’s assurances, I’d just assumed something was going to go terribly wrong, based on the last two years. Instead, I had normal classes, wasn’t singled out; and by lunch, I’d had no run-ins beyond the one with Harry that...
2023-11-17 15:47:01 +0000 UTC View PostI got hit with the flu over the weekend and feel like I've been hit by a bus. I don't think it will last long (I hope), but there will be a few day delay in the next chapter. Sorry about that.
2023-11-13 13:10:34 +0000 UTC View Post“Thanks for listening to us tonight, folks. Y’all have a good night now,” I said into the microphone as we wrapped up our Sunday night gig at the Blue Ridge.
The scattered applause and whoops from the crowd made me smile as I unplugged my guitar. Even after playing here for several ye...
2023-11-11 23:05:01 +0000 UTC View PostHours later, Taylor and Whitaker made it back to El Paso, exhausted when they finally got to their hotel. Unfortunately for them, that didn’t mean an end to their evening.
They both wanted to go home, but they couldn’t until they found Sullivan’s leak. Taylor had spent most of the dri...
2023-11-09 21:11:01 +0000 UTC View PostFinally, the day arrived for Kat to move to school. I’d been ignoring it, enjoying the month or so we’d had together before she moved away, but I couldn’t keep pretending it wasn’t happening. She had practice starting on Monday with the UNC swim team and wanted a day to be there beforehan...
2023-11-07 15:26:00 +0000 UTC View Post