Waterstone Media

Stories Matter

Primal Dawn & Baby Kirk

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Hey Everybody!

First of all, a warm welcome to all the newcomers to this email list!  It’s been quite a while since I wrote (which I’ll explain below), and this list has grown substantially.  My sincere gratitude for allowing me into your email inboxes!

This email is going to be longer than most I send out, but it’s because I have both business and personal news to share.  I’ll do business first, so those of you who only want that can read it first and skip the rest of the email.

Primal Dawn!

I’ve hinted at this a little, but as of yesterday, my newest work, Primal Dawn, is available for pre-order on Amazon. Check it out here.  It officially releases on Sept. 26.  Primal Dawn is a shorter story, sitting somewhere between a novella and a short novel, depending on who you ask (about 50,000 words).  It’s a sci-fi story about first contact, with an advanced race coming into contact with a far more primitive one.  But, not everything is as it seems.

The cover and synopsis and link to the book are below:

Tev is a hunter, one of the best in his clan. Trained since birth in the art of tracking and killing, Tev has never met a challenge he couldn’t overcome. But when a mysterious fireball falls from the sky, Tev will question everything he has ever known. For the first time in his life, he isn’t the one doing the hunting.

He is the prey.

Primal Dawn is the first short novel of the Primal Series, spanning centuries of conflict following first contact. Each novel tells a complete story in the ongoing saga of two cultures learning to explore the vastness of space together.

Also, for those of you who are curious, I’m a little over halfway through the first draft of a new book set in the world of Nightblade.  I’ll have more on that later.

 

Welcoming the newest member of Waterstone!

The really big news in my life is that a few weeks ago, my wife and I welcomed our little baby girl into the world.  Baby Kirk came in at 7 lbs, 7 oz, and arrived exactly on her due date (I like to joke that my wife really is a rule-follower!).

There were some minor complications after she was born, but everyone is happy and healthy now, even if I’ve forgotten what a full night of sleep felt like.  But, because of her, I haven’t been as active writing and interacting as I’d like.  I expect that as I figure out this whole fatherhood thing, that will improve.

In any case, as always, I’m grateful for all of you.  Thank you for your support, and I hope you are all doing well as well!

 

With sincere gratitude,

Ryan

The Humbling Experience of Becoming a New Author

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Hello everyone, Bryce again.

As I mentioned in the last post, I finished my first fiction novel last week. The rough draft came in at about 125,000 words. I’m incredibly proud at the moment, but I’m sure a harsh dose of editing will bring me back down shortly.

I just wanted to share a few things I experienced during the writing process. These were things that I didn’t anticipate at all. I have written 10,000 – 20,000 non-fiction books before, but the process is so different that they hardly compare.

By far, the most frustrating aspect was maintaining the story line throughout the entire book. It took me roughly seven months to complete, and in that time I had a baby and started a new job. I was a completely different person when I started the book! I managed, but it was a struggle to make sure I was writing the same story at the end as I was at the beginning.

Another interesting thing happened to my writing mindset. I no longer thought I was going to finish the book, but I wrote with every bit of passion and interest I started with. I literally thought that I would be writing the book forever. Oddly enough, I was OK with it. I was invested so much in the characters that I didn’t mind visiting them every day. I don’t view this as a bad thing, but I had to remind myself that there was indeed an end goal.

Lastly, as I reached about 80% completion, I began splitting my time looking in to publishing ideas. I researched cover art, launch strategies, Pokemon Go, key words, Amazon algorithms, and a the list goes on. At first, I didn’t think anything of it. Then I realized that my progress halted completely. I refocused my energy on finishing the book. I had to fight my urge to look too far ahead.

In the end I finished the thing. I enjoyed myself the entire way. There is nothing quite like finishing something you have written for so long. I hope everyone can experience it at some point!

I’m sure the editing will be a different story… With me luck!

Thanks,

Bryce

The Importance of a Mentor

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Hello everyone, this is Bryce, and I will be writing the post for today. Ryan is keeping busy, but he will return soon!

I recently finished the first draft of a fiction novel I’ve been working on for seven months.

There were many reasons why I succeeded this time. I have a child. I’m more mature. I have a supportive network of friends and family. I really wanted to create something that would inspire and entertain others. I was willing to put in the work… no matter what.

I also had Ryan as a mentor.

Would I have finished without him? Maybe. The world will never know. However, I am certain that the end product with be much better off because of him.

I’ve attempted many things, and all the great successes can be traced back to great instructors. When I earned by black belt in Shotokan Karate, I had some of the best instructors in the world.  I landed an interview with a particularly awesome company, so I turned to someone with great, proven interview skills. On a side not, I got the job and it sucked, but that is a story for a different day.

The point of this post is to stress the importance of finding a mentor. With any endeavor you might take, find someone with proven experience in the field. Be it business, fitness, finance, relationships, or anything, don’t go in alone.

Good luck,

Bryce

Why Fantasy and Sci-Fi are the best Genres Ever

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Ever since I was little, I’ve always loved reading. It’s a love I’ve never lost. I was a voracious reader, and went from easy chapter books to adult fiction at a pretty young age. My first adult books were military fiction that sat on my dad’s bookshelf. I read a lot of Tom Clancy growing up!

But as I got older and I started to develop my own tastes, I gravitated towards science fiction and fantasy. In particular, I started reading a lot of Battletech novels, and I still own most of the series.

As an adult, I still consider myself a voracious reader. I have less time than I used to, but I still generally read somewhere between sixty and eighty books a year, including a fair number of massive books, (Thanks Neal Stephenson and Brandon Sanderson). Today I read a wide variety of work, and a lot more non-fiction than I used to, but I still always come back to Science Fiction and Fantasy (SFF from here on out)

While all genres are pretty cool, I really do think SFF are the best, and here’s why:

  1. They make us ask and try to answer big questions. Can Artificial Intelligence be considered human? What will our future look like? All good literature can ask big questions, but I’ve always found some of the most imaginative questions and answers exist in SFF. I love being able to read about these ideas, which always brings me back to the genre.
  2. World-building. Again, every novel has world building, but the creativity that goes into the world building of a SFF universe is unparalleled. The setting of these books becomes integral to the story, and at least in me, create a sense of awe and wonder. It’s a whole new universe, right at my fingertips.
  3. They inspire us. There are plenty of tropes in SFF (Farm boy saving the world, anyone?), but they exist because they are so powerful and so inspiring. When I was young I tried to model myself after some of the characters I read about. I think this has even improved in recent years. With the rise of more multi-dimensional characters, like in Game of Thrones, it’s easier than ever to imagine yourself as the hero of your own story.

As I’ve implied, none of these are unique to SFF, but they are stronger in SFF, and the combination of these factors will always keep me coming back.

Disturbing Trends in Indie Publishing Series

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Today I have a little bit of a bone to pick with the publishing community.  I’ve run across this a couple of times now, and it feels entirely inexcusable, at least to my sensibilities.

I’m worried and concerned about the way series books are being handled these days.

First of all, I need to state for the record that I love series.  I love that they give you the time to dig really deep into a group of characters, and I love how immersive they can become.  I think TV (HBO, Netflix, Amazon) is really picking up on this with long-form storytelling, and it’s so much better than weekly TV.

But I worry because I’ve come across several series as of late that take advantage of the idea of a series to sell more books.  Game of Thrones is a notable culprit, with book four becoming so large that Martin actually had to cut it in half, making it books four and five, and leaving avid readers scratching their heads as to where all their favorite characters had gone.

I recently read part of another series (which I’ll leave unnamed.  It’s an indie author and I’m not out to spread bad vibes in the community).  I was reading the second book of what will be a seven part series, and absolutely nothing happened.  No major plotlines were resolved.  There were no major character changes.  There was action, and minor characters died, and there was the prerequisite cliff-hanger ending, but it all felt hollow and pointless.

I believe it is our responsibility as storytellers to tell stories.  Not parts of stories, whole stories.  A series can do this, often better than stand-alone books.  But even with a cliff-hanger to pull readers to the next book, every entry in your series has to tell a whole story.  If not, I think you’re cheating readers out of a complete experience.

Again, I think series can be some of the best literature around, but if you’re writing a series, at least respect the form.  Stories in a series need to be able to stand on their own, otherwise you’re just pulling money out of trusting readers.

 

How Game of Thrones Changed Fantasy Forever

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It’s a name that you either love or hate, but it is a name that you’ll recognize.

George R.R. Martin

This isn’t about Game of Thrones, at least not directly.  If you want my thoughts on the series itself, feel free to click here.  What I’ve been thinking a lot about is how Game of Thrones has changed the world of fantasy.

I’d argue (and plenty may disagree with me) that Game of Thrones has been a great asset to fantasy as a whole.  It’s certainly not without drawbacks – but I think that when you consider everything, it’s a gain for the genre.

First, Game of Thrones introduced gritty, complex, dark, character-driven fantasy to the masses.  George R.R. Martin certainly didn’t invent dark and gritty fantasy, but he is the person who brought it into the mainstream, more so than any author before him.  He made it possible for people to write fantasy where not everything ends well and still be commercially successful.  This is entirely speculative, but I don’t think the Nightblade series would have done nearly as well if Game of Thrones hadn’t come first.

Second, I believe that Game of Thrones really challenged what people consider fantasy to be.  Again, it’s not that George R.R. Martin invented any of this, but the series does mark the first time these concepts became mainstream.  I think for me a great example of this is how magic is largely relegated to the background (especially earlier in the series).  You ask most people to think of fantasy and they think elves and wizards and trolls.  Martin got rid of all of that and created a complex world that could almost, almost be our own medieval world.  He showed the world how wide of a genre fantasy could be.

Third, and by far the most important in my book, is that Game of Thrones has taken fantasy mainstream.  Unlike many best-selling fantasy series (Harry Potter), these are adult books that have been wildly successful.  Game of Thrones is a cultural touchstone, and it has drawn tens of thousands (at the least) readers and viewers into the world of fantasy like never before.  There’s plenty to say that is both good and bad about Game of Thrones, but everyone is talking about it, and everyone knows it.

I am glad for Game of Thrones.  While it’s author (and even the stories themselves) have what many consider to be terrible flaws, I believe it has changed the genre for the better, and for that I’m thankful.

Until we meet again, keep reading,
Ryan