Hello, Patient readers,
Above, you see Mochi in one of his favorite sleeping locations (the shower) in one of his favorite sleeping positions (double helix?). He truly is sound asleep here. What a goofus.
If you're thinking you haven't heard from me in a while, you're not imagining things. I took about a month away from email. I got a real vacation in there when some friends came to visit, but mostly I was writing. I finished the newest Hunters Universe story, which now has a name (Legacy). It turned out to be a respectable 67K novel. This one is going to live on my Patreon for a while before a clean it up and officially publish it. How long? If I had to guess, I'd say a year, but I'm really not sure.
For those of you who are fans of this series, that's actually good news. The reason I'm not going to publish it for a while is that I want to write a couple of short stories that come first chronologically. And, also, this story is leading into a larger novel. So I'll come back to it when I'm ready to write those, but at the moment, I really do want to write at least the first 3 books in the Sleipner series.
In the meantime, Legacy stands in its own right as a complete novel. This is a high-stakes, high-drama edition to the Hunters saga. If you're current through Arcove's Bright Side, and you don't mind reading semi-final (typo-rich) drafts, feel free to read it on Patreon. It's all tagged and includes my author's notes. Here's my working description:
Two and a half years after the events in Arcove’s Bright Side, Halvery loses a challenge fight to a nomadic troublemaker and his coalition. The victors manage to keep news of the fight from spreading for two days. By the time Arcove and his officers learn of the events, Halvery has been missing for an ominous length of time and his mates and cubs are being held hostage. Wisteria’s new den council is put to an extreme test in dealing with this dangerous situation.
Meanwhile, Halvery’s friends search frantically for him. His survival seems unlikely, and the future of all aging members of the creasia council is called into question. Leadership has always meant strength in Leeshwood. If an alpha cannot win fights, is there any place left for him? Read the whole thing here.
Also check out the gorgeous fan art Iben Krutt did for the story.
And if you do come aboard the Patreon now, you'll also catch Arcove's Bright Side audio, which will be starting this month. Rish makes this one an absolute delight to listen to.
Finally, I updated the rewards summary page on Patreon, which was 8 months old and badly in need of revision. I've been on Patreon since 2015, so it can be hard to find all the cool stuff I've posted over the years without links.
My stealth-favorites of the new stuff are the essays I wrote on lion biology while I was doing research for the latest Hunters books: "Population Genetics and Inbreeding Depression in Creasia" - https://www.patreon.com/posts/64404539
"A Bisexual Lion is Just a Lion" - https://www.patreon.com/posts/64453967
"More Lions (sorry)" - https://www.patreon.com/posts/64686850
If you are wanting to get into the Hunters universe for the first time, the best place to start is still this enormous sample.
What else is happening?
I'm working on the Arcove's Bright Side paperback. Also experimenting with hardcovers of these books.
There's an entire blog devoted to collecting Hunters fan art. I do not know who is running this, but they have collected the pretties.
I'm returning to writing about human beings now. For realzies. I was 12K words into Julian and Tobias's story when I got derailed, so it's not even a standing start.
Shoutout to my fellow storyteller, Elli Jaybird, who has drawn much Hunters fan art and just finished her first big animation project, called Egg. It is heart-warming and sweet, and you should take 5 minutes and watch it. Then you should check out more of her beautiful and fascinating art.
Yours, an author finishing one thing and starting something else,
Abbie