10/10/2024
Zombie Spider in the Space Maze
My goodness would you look at the time! Far too long without an update, and boy-howdy am I excited for this one.
I'm deep into the current draft where I start to polish things like character interactions, abstract descriptions or ideas/concepts, and generally dial in the atmosphere. And man. Is it crushing. To put a frame around it, I've been binging nothing but brutal death metal, OSDM and deathcore for the entirety of the draft. I've let it drench my mind, the imagery, the themes, the heavy darkness... it's bled through into the writing in such a fantastic way. We're going to the edge and committing seppuku into the septic abyss.
I've taken the feedback readers provided off of book 1 and have implemented the necessary changes in book 2. While it can be difficult to take those punches, they're worth more than their weight in gold when it comes to shaping the story. There may be plenty of this current draft to get through, but I can already see how much of an improvement it is over the previous book.
To pace along with the building excitement for book 2, we've been doing a bit of screen printing. I'm always over-excited to commission artwork that can give us neat little peeks into the Shine, and the shirt design below is so far my favorite of those we've had so far. We're only making about 100 total shirts across all sizes per design. They'll be priced and shipped at or below cost (or thrown in randomly with signed book orders along with a number of other goodies).
That's all the news I got for now. Until next time, here's a teaser quote from book 2. If you're an elite book-one completer, they your sexy ass will know who this is.
"After a while my inner monologue just stopped. I sat in the dark of that vault, the only sound the clash of memories in my head, and one by one they went quiet.
Such quiet. A sleep deeper than death.
In that sleep, a dream: through a little white keyhole I glimpsed a thread spiraling between chaos and form. I thought it belonged to the old worm, but then... so do you. Don't you?"
(Email SpacePunk with the answer, get a free shirt when they print!)
2/21/2024
New Year, New Draft
Hello again and happy new year to all!
Hope everyone had a restful holiday season. Progress on Skin for a Demon has been rather slow, but I am happy to say that the third draft is complete! Alpha reader feedback has been tremendous, both in signaling the narrative's strong points as well as areas for improvement. Very excited to be one step closer to the final product. The release window will continue to move as I work through the next drafts; it has become difficult to predict how much time any given chapter/scene will require to bring it up to a level where I would personally feel rewarded for the purchase and time investment involved. That said, the whole trilogy is getting rounded out as a whole. I can already see where the next drafts of book 3 are going, and I am thrilled to say that it only gets so, so much worse.
That's all for now, talk again soon!
- MB
8/8/2023
End of Summer Update
Howdy howdy!
Hope everyone has been having a great year. Just wanted to swing by and say that yes, I am still alive and working on Skin for a Demon. Currently wrapping up the last 1-2 chapters of this draft. Middle books tend to be a bit beefier than opening books, but I never expected this one to be over 25% longer. We'll see how much fat I can trim from the final draft, expected to release at the end of 2023.
A couple content highlights, just things to look forward to in the next installment: we've got an absolute grindfest featuring magic battles, dungeon worlds, a zombie spider and a zombie war chief, time travel, the siege of a drowned city, power armor that gets you high, and one very cheeky, blood-drenched demon.
I've also been on an absolute binge of death/slam/techdeath metal recently. The influence bleeds through on the page pretty heavily. Top picks if you listen to that guttural, sludge-blasting, kind of thing:
Nithing: Agonal Hymns
Abominable Putridity: Parasitic Metamorphosis Manifestation
Tomb Mold: Planetary Clairvoyance
Undeath: It's Time... To Rise From the Grave
Stabbing: Extirpated Mortal Process
- MB
12/7/2022
Another Dimension
Howdy y'all!
Hope everyone is having a great holiday season. Today's update isn't so much about the progress of book 2 (which is banging along on all cylinders-- a bangin' hoot to write, even this deep into the draft work) as it is about reading in general. It's pretty rare that I read or write without music. Most of the Definitive Host trilogy was written to darksynth, death metal, vaporwave and, the oddball out, classical (Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven etc.). I feed off the energy and mood of the music when I'm visualizing a scene or putting myself in the mind of a character. Generally, I try to pair the music with the intended mood, texture or level of energy that I envision.
Before I begin a book, I do something very similar to what I do when I write: I look at the subject matter and try to pair it with an album that comes close to what I expect the universe to feel like while I'm there. For scifi I lean towards vaporwave or darksynth. For fantasy, it's often classical. What this does is add another dimension to the narrative. As the selected album repeats every hour or so, it slowly becomes the book's soundtrack. Soundscapes form the background to the prose, and when the pairing is just right, the words sing.
I wanted to suggest a few albums for the Definitive Host trilogy. Obviously, you should listen to whatever you like, but if you're looking to be in a similar headspace to where I was when I was conceptualizing and writing these books-- if you want to feel what the characters are feeling, if you want a more cinematic experience out of this strange universe, then I'd start with the below (in no particular order):
Perturbator: Dangerous Days
HUBRID: COSMIC MEMORIES and/or COSMIC MEMORIES 2
Volkor X: This Means War
Magic Sword: Volume 1
Oscillian: Ad Astra or Escape from Antarctica
These are all absolute bangers that I recommend listening to regardless of whether or not you intend to pair them with any reading or writing. I hope you enjoy the rabbit hole I've opened here, and I look forward to updating you all again soon-- hopefully with a soft release date for Skin for a Demon!
- MB
10/3/2022
Twice the Destruction
Hello all!
Hope you've been enjoying this slow-burn apocalypse as much as I am. My wife and I have recently welcomed another son into our home. Needless to say, we are in a period of adjustment and progress on Skin for a Demon has slowed somewhat-- but the work continues! While I cannot fathom any way that book 2 releases this year, I have my sights set on spring-summer of 2023. There is still a lot left to do; a few new maps/diagrams to commission, maybe a new shirt design, two rounds of draft polishing, proofreading, formatting, proofreading, general panic, then release! If you're new to the Shine, don't worry, there will be plenty of sales leading up to the release of Skin for a Demon.
This series has always been a passion project for me, as it will always be, and I would like to share part of the creation process with everyone. If you've read the first book (even just a few pages) and have feedback, please please let me know either via a product review, email, twitter, instagram-- tie a note to a rock and huck it real hard. What did you like? Hate? What would you like to see more or less of? All honest feedback is appreciated.
- MB
6/30/2022
Update on Skin for a Demon
Hey y'all! It has been a little while, and I just wanted to swing by and let everyone know how things are tracking with the second book. As the fourth draft nears completion, it continues to evolve. I'm very excited for how it's turning out, but I must say that it's going to be quite the dense read. We've opened the can of worms labeled "Lensing" and, as Hugo will soon tell us, time gets a little tangled when you're dealing with equations spanning the whole of existence. Wraith Company is headed for The Seam, where reality begins and ends, and we're going to see what happens when Lensers and Reapers from different times and universes clash-- what Siro will really do to win the oldest Lenser's game. And by now we all know, he's not the hero of this story.
Release window for this one is currently end of this year, beginning of 2023. But it is going to be worth the wait. If you liked Shadow of the Mad Reaper, then you'll love Skin for a Demon. It's pure evil.
I will update y'all again when this draft is complete and I'm beginning the final layer(s) of polish. Oh, and for those of you that are looking for early access, I'll be doing a pre-release of the book, exclusive through this blog. To keep an eye out for that you can check back here or follow my Twitter @magblackmagic.
Lastly, I just wanted to thank everyone for your time. It has always been and will always be my policy not to release a book that I myself wouldn't feel happy with reading, purchased or not. If you've got feedback on the first book and would like to share it with me, please feel free to email me or shoot me a DM on Twitter. All honest feedback is helpful. The things you liked or hated, it all helps me become a better writer and deliver a better experience.
Until next time!
- MB
