It’s the time of the year where I update everyone on my writing progress. I wish I had more of an update on actual releases. A finished, completely-edited draft of Soul Crystals: Atlantis Risen has been with my publisher for about a year and a half now. I still haven’t heard anything about a release date. I hope that all my readers will get to see the end of the Soul Crystals trilogy soon. I will announce a release date as soon as I hear from my publisher.
Just because I have one book tied up doesn’t mean that I haven’t been busy. My editor and I have been editing a Soul Crystals prequel novel with Gregory Luper as the protagonist. We are around a quarter of the way through. We have a title picked out, but I haven’t had the go-ahead to release that yet.
I always try to have a new project to work on outside of promoting and editing. I am stepping away from Soul Crystals for at least the moment. I am open to do more prequels or side stories if I think of any ideas, but I’ve been adamant that the series chronologically ends with Atlantis Risen. The four books were my original plan, and I haven’t really deviated from it.
I am now starting work on a series that I am describing as a high fantasy action comedy. It is inspired by a few different authors like J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, John Flannagan, and Hiro Mashima (Rave Master, Fairy Tail, Edens Zero). Those first two have been probably the biggest influences on fantasy literature for the past several decades. The second one wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who likes YA fantasy. Unless you are a fan of anime/manga, you probably haven’t heard of Mashima, and I don’t know of anyone writing his brand of fantasy in novel format. After the heavy anime inspiration in Soul Crystals, I am keeping that up in this new series. It just may be less obvious. I will say that this one is more lighthearted overall. I got good reactions with some of the comic relief moments in Soul Crystals, and I want to explore that in my writing a little bit more.
I have no idea how long this current project will take. My current outline has the series going on longer than a trilogy with each book maybe double the length of a Soul Crystals book. That is going to take some time. I actually started some prewriting and rough draft chapters back when I was in college and working on Soul Crystals as part of a way to keep me out of writer’s block. It’s just taken a backseat for a while.
And so, I don’t have any updates about published works. I will make announcements when they happen. Just know that I am always working on something that I hope to get published. I will try to put out several blog posts this year. The only thing I have against doing them is that they seem to take up strangely large chunk of my time that could be spent on writing. Anyway, we’ll see what 2024 brings.
LaTrobe Barnitz 