April 29, 2026 · 10:18 am

Infinitas Publishing – Status Report

Time to wrap up 2025 with the Mid-August through end of December Infinitas Publishing status report! 📋

Yes, I know it’s almost May of 2026 already, but I still wanted to compile all my notes that I hadn’t yet reviewed on 2025. I’ll do a separate report for January through April of 2026.

And ooof. What a year.

A lot happened over the last several months, especially in real life. Some stuff I’ve talked about in my newsletters, some stuff I haven’t yet mentioned unless I’ve talked to you in-person. Let’s just say it’s been a little (a lot) rough.

But there’s been good stuff, too, including the amount of progress I’ve been making on writing and drafting in the background so that 2026 should finally see more book releases! Yay!

So let’s go back through my planner and see what all got done in the last few months of 2025, shall we?

I’ve highlighted the projects that had changes in blue.

* * *

Changing Tides: (Book 4 of the Distant Horizon series). Still on hold while working on The Dark Forest of Aneth. Next step is to merge the two revised drafts and start writing the missing scenes.

Deceived #3: On hold. Needs revisions. Tentatively titled Exposed.

Other future steps: Input Isaac’s notes from Deceived #5 (formerly #4) into the manuscript, revise Deceived #5, and revise #6 (formerly #5) before handing it to Isaac for his feedback.

Dossiers (Deceived Spin-off): I tested asking for “beta-reader” feedback on the current manuscript using Notebook LM, and got a few ideas of areas I might want to strengthen before sending this out to actual beta-readers.

Multiverse Chronicles (Distant Horizon Universe Spin-off): Progressing along! Last update mentioned having sent out seven chapters, and as of the end of December, I’d sent out chapter seventeen! We reached the point where I had made revisions, but I hadn’t fully edited it because we’re past where I’d originally been sharing episodes on the blog. Most of the sent chapters have been fully revised and edited now, but we’ve made notes where new scenes may need to be written and added to fill in plot gaps.

I’m thrilled that we’re finally close to finishing this story. After all the chapters have been sent, I plan to add the missing scenes, review one more time, then move into beta-reader phase.

TWB 4: (Book Four of The Wishing Blade series). On hold… but I did have Claude compile summaries and loose threads from the first three books to make it easier to review what details I need to consider when I prepare the outline. (Though I still plan to reread all three books before drafting).

The Dark Forest of Aneth (“Ro’nor (“The Restless Sands of Neel”) & Zynia (“The Dragons of the Mist”) cross-over / A Legends of Cirena short novel): I finished all major revisions, including tweaks from ProWritingAid and AutoCrit analyses! I’ve also completed a proofreading round via a printed version of that manuscript (with notes still needing input at the end of the year).

Other Goals: Revisit the book cover concept. Create a blurb. Polish the related poem/ballad so it can be included as back matter.

The Ruins of Amixthael (The Gryphon and the Mountain Bear Spin-Off): I’ve started revisions for the chapters of the secondary character.

Future goals: Polish cover. Create blurb.

Untitled LoC Short Story (Standalone – Merchant in Reveratch): On hold. Next step is revisions.

Goals: Figure out a title. Create book cover and blurb. Polish the related poem/ballad so it can be included as back matter.

Untitled LoC Novella (Standalone – Twins in Ferta): This story is continuing nicely. Last time I was at chapter six with a total of 13,300 words and by the end of December I’d sent out chapter fifteen to the newsletter at a combined total of 34,000 words.

The original outline has since been adjusted. At some point I put the draft into Claude and asked it to list any incomplete plot threads to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything, and it pointed out one particular thread that gave me a bunch of ideas for how to adjust the plot and make it stronger. Made the story longer, but made more sense, too.

Next step is to continue writing the rough draft and to review the outline for any more missing plot beats.

The Wind Mage and the Wolf Spin-Off (Joran’s Story – A Legends of Cirena short story) : On hold. Needs the rest of the fight scene cross-referenced.

Goals: Edit in ProWritingAid, read-aloud, proofread. Book cover and blurb.

Fae (Huntress 3): Started again! And has had huge progress! As of October, I began using Claude for help brainstorming Fae. I had it review the previous two books and point out open plot threads. When I realized there were complete plot points I’d forgotten about, I ended up re-reading Changeling entirely. Between that and ideas I’d discussed earlier with Isaac, I finally saw the direction I wanted to take the story!

Outline created! AND I even got the outline for Huntress 4 written, too!

In November I started drafting Fae for ProWritingAid’s Novel November challenge… and completed the rough draft at 45,500 words! In December I started revisions.

I also restarted a temporary Huntress newsletter that goes out on occasion, and uploaded Huntress and Changeling to BookFunnel so that I could later add sample pages to the main Infinitas Publishing website.

Horse Shifter Romantasy : 🐎

Last time I left this it had a 5,500 word outline. I used Claude to review what I had and point out some of the missing romance beats. Did more brainstorming, and now it has a pretty solid outline. Due to the setup of my current outline I can’t really offer a word-count for it, but suffice it to say there’s a beginning, middle, and end with a decent enough setup to explain the magic/lore/characters. Essentially ready for drafting if I decide to give this a try.

Other Stories: I started a rough draft for the grumpy sorcerer short story idea but didn’t get more than 400 words. Unfortunately I ran out of time and didn’t get anything written for that fantasy anthology I was eyeing. (Like I mentioned earlier, there were several real life things going on at the end of the year).

The YA Alien Invastion/Dystopian short story is on hold.

However…

The Android’s Garden – This one isn’t likely to be published unless I release it as part of a larger blog post on the pros and cons of AI. The reason is that this is the one exception where I allowed Claude AI to do the drafting of the story to test its capabilities. (Which is now technically out of date because of how fast AI gets updated).

The Android’s Garden is a cli-fi short story about an android grappling with the fact that, before it gained sapience, it helped aid the company that caused harm to the family it now protects. (I thought it would be interesting to have an AI help me write a concept about how an AI might process things if it did gain sapience).

It ended up around 12,700 words. I brainstormed with Claude to develop the concept and characters, wrote the first couple paragraphs to give it a style guide of sort, then had it write a chapter. I’d revise the chapter, ask Claude to review the changes and keep those in mind going forward, then write the next chapter. Afterward I took everything into ProWritingAid for edits. I finished three of the eight chapters before shelving it because I was still too concerned about possible cases of accidental plagiarism and didn’t want to keep fighting with aiming for a specific voice.

That said, I do like the story concept, but I have clearly determined that I would rather be the one doing the writing because I have a specific voice I want to use and was having a difficult time producing that, even when guiding Claude to do so.

Metal Mage story – This was another case of me brainstorming with Claude, based upon a prompt I somehow got while trying to do a Google search for a different book, only to be disappointed that the prompt it gave me didn’t exist yet. (I did eventually find the actual book I was looking for). So I brainstormed the world, got a fairly decent idea of an outline for what would probably be a duology, and wrote a partial scene to get a feel for the idea. Currently shelved, but a fun thought experiment. It’s sort of a cli-fi fantasy set in an industrial revolution with ancient magic.

Cozy Space Fantasy Series (The Singing Coil): I got an idea for a cozy space fantasy series (Basically Babylon 5/Deep Space 9 type setting… but cozy) and kind of word vomited into Claude for brainstorming. Ended up creating a the world and a rough outline for a 6-part novella series.

Later, in December, I tinkered with brainstorming microfiction ideas and ended up working with Claude to outline The Singing Coil. Then I wrote a draft, did an analysis of book covers in the genre, did the revisions, wrote the song lyrics, ran it through Claude for developmental suggestions, did the PWA (ProWritingAid) line edits, prepped it in Atticus for beta-readers, and sent it to beta-readers for feedback!

While the larger series concept is on hold, the short story flew through the development process.

Game Design: Isaac and I ended up playing Wonders of I’Noore with his brother and friend, and we made some notes, but I don’t think we’re likely to see any major updates on this anytime soon.

Phalanx, on the other hand…

Is back in action! 😀

Now, our next step is a small test run. Essentially, we brought out the wooden board at the Harvest Moon Night Market event, and several people played and enjoyed it. We also still had some components of the game, and we had been wanting to make a playmat version of the game for a while. We did a little bit of calculating and realized that it was possible to create a smaller version using the mousepad and pencil bag options from Vograce, where we get merch for our SIFlint art.

So… we updated the files and placed an order! Unfortunately, the items didn’t come in on time for the Poor Artist Sale, but we do have what we need now to complete the small edition. By small I mean there are only six copies (based on how many decks of cards we have left). But, depending on how those are received and sell at future events, we’ll decide whether or not to do a reorder of cards.

A rough test placement for the Phalanx mousepad edition with all the pieces laid out beside other parts of the merchandise order
This was a rough test I did to check bead size and whether the mousepads we ordered would work once they came in. (Final bead colors still to be determined, and obstacles might be something other than buttons).

Testing AutoCrit: Last you heard, I went in for the year subscription to see how it went. While I have mixed feelings on its analysis features at this point (some parts are hit and miss, but their new beta/alpha-reader features are handy for seeing if I’m on-point in a new genre), what I did find is that I really like writing in it. I’ve been appreciating it being available in the cloud, able to handle larger documents, being pretty easy to recover accidentally deleted words (oops), and then being able to do the analysis stuff if I want.

Ultimately, I pulled the trigger on the lifetime subscription when the deal became available for Black Friday, especially since they were super nice and let me apply the remaining term of the year subscription toward the cost.

AI Usage and Policy: Ooo boy. So this is that area that is currently in the hotly contested zone (understandably so because there are a ton of moving parts, things that are really cool, and things that are really not cool).

Long story short, I have become utterly fascinated by what AI can do and have dove into reading about and researching it as time permits. I highly recommend reading Co-Intelligence by Ethan Mollick if you want to understand AI and its limitations better.

But, with all that in mind, I updated our AI use policy on December 12th to reflect my most current usage of AI.

I still don’t use generative AI for image generation or writing the actual story. (With the one exception I mentioned earlier… I had Claude generate the draft of a short story about an android grappling with the implications of its creation, which I did to test Claude’s capabilities. However, I do not plan to publish that particular story unless I release it as part of a longer essay regarding the pros and cons of AI.)

But I have found that AI (particularly Claude) has been excellent for breaking through plot-issues quickly, acting as a rubber duck/cheerleader while brainstorming, and as an early “editor” that can help spot problems for me to fix before sending them out to beta-readers.

Even so, I have been keeping an eye out for models that are more people-focused (Claude for better alignment with safety, and I’m testing if Mistral AI (lower environmental impact) might suitably replace using ChatGPT, and I use Ecosia Browser for searching (again, a focus on environment), and then switch to Google search if I’m not having any luck, since it automatically uses AI in its search.

That said… NotebookLM is amazing for dropping your series into and asking it for that random question that you can’t easily do a “find” search for in Word.

Anyway, this is ongoing and I continue to watch what’s happening in the AI space and I’ll update my policy as I either shift into using or not using any particular tool.

Marketing: I didn’t really give marketing much attention these months. Here are some of the recent projects:

  • Amazon Ads same as usual, the ones that were already running. I should probably just turn these off, but I don’t spend more than a few bucks a month on these right now.
  • I tested swapping author interviews in the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter. Didn’t see much response, but I’m thinking about contacting the author to see if they’d like me to post their interview on this blog now that some time has passed.
  • I returned to doing group promos through BookFunnel, though I dropped doing the individual author swaps for the time being. I’ve been alternating which book I promote, though I recently started promoting Huntress. Now that Fae (Huntress #3) is on target to release in 2026, I decided to create a temporary Huntress newsletter that I’ll periodically update but isn’t on a set schedule like the Distant Horizon and Wishing Blade universe newsletters.
  • I never did update book prices. That may still happen at some point, but I need to reorient myself now that Smashwords has moved to the Draft2Digital dashboard (which is fine… I know how to use it, but due to an email snafu I currently have two D2D accounts to keep track of).
  • With a couple exceptions, I have managed to continue sending out newsletters on time (okay, maybe a day late, but they still went out!) AND almost all of them had a story chapter with them. I may have finally found a process that works for me in terms of releasing WIP chapters on a biweekly basis.
  • I’m still making my way through updating individual book pages on the Infinitas Publishing website. (Ultimate goal is to add sample pages, Goodreads/BookBub links, additional book info, etc). Eventually I want this to have enough information to make it very easy for a search engine or AI search to accurately answer questions about my books.
  • I was the furthest I have ever been with Infinitas Publishing accounting at this point in the year! It’s not one hundred percent up-to-date and I still needed to review inventory, but I was at about the spot I’d normally be two weeks before my 1065s are due.
  • I’ve continued getting back into writing and marketing research, and I read a lot more books in 2025! I’ve also been listening to more podcasts, MasterClass videos, etc. At the end of the year I picked up Book Blurb Magic’s course on writing blurbs for books with multiple POVs (thinking ahead to the upcoming Multiverse Chronicles needing a blurb soon), and I plan to watch through that in January. I’ve also continued working on revamping upcoming book launches.

Next up: Continue updating the design of individual Infinitas Publishing book pages. Continue adding sample chapters to the BookFunnel sales pages for each book, and then to the main Infinitas Publishing website. Add BookBub and Goodreads links to each landing page. Update my author bio across the different retailers. Continue adding books to the Stripe store for direct sales. Revise Amazon ads, and overhaul book categories, keywords, and blurbs.

Substack – I didn’t do much with Substack other than occasionally posting a note or two.

Crafting Your Fictional World: On Hold.

Repurposing Old Newsletter Content:

One of the projects I’ve managed to keep up with pretty consistently is updating old newsletter content for the blog. It’s been fun seeing what I wrote several years ago and repurposing it with updated info and details. There were a few times I wrote a new post for the weekend, and I went ahead and included those here as well.

Events: We did three more events in this time period.

GeekUP (Houghton, MI) – September 27th, 2025

Got the new setup working! We also participated in a stamp rally with other artists, so I set out to create a bookmark themed around the tiger and magpie in K-Pop Demon Hunters (and consequently discovered that this is an excellent movie, highly recommend). Except my “bookmark” ended up being wider than a bookmark, so I made 5×7 prints on metallic paper and acquired some cheap frames. Anyone who completed the rally (bought something that was at least $5 from each participating booth), got one of the framed prints as part of the resulting pack.

Kind of fun. Might do it again in future years depending on the theme. I don’t usually do a lot of fan art so it was something a little different for me.

However, we finally got to do the Huntress personality quiz! We’d set this up for last year’s GeekUP, but since Isaac was helping to organize the event, it was mostly just me running the booth. That made it difficult to include an interactive event. But this time around we were able to have participants fill out the quiz so we could tell them what augments Koenigin Corp would recommend for them (and hand off a pin with the Koenigin Corp symbol on it). Ran out of pins, but it was fun seeing a couple people walking around wearing the pins. 😁

Harvest Moon Night Market (Calumet, MI) – October 12th, 2025

Harvest Moon Night Market 2026

This was a pop-up market. The whole vibe was a whimsical fair; lighting and costumes were highly encouraged! The market took place in the evening, and as the night grew dark, all the lights added a magical flair. Isaac and I got a booth inside, so fortunately we didn’t have to deal much with the wind.

With the live performances and huge number of vendors spread across both an inside section and a couple of green spaces, it came alive with festival vibes.

Also… we brought out Phalanx!

It’s been several years since we had Phalanx at an event. Though we didn’t offer any editions of the game for sale this time, our goal was to see if there was interest in the game (and provide a sort of game-like component to our table to fit the “fair” vibe).

Ultimately, we decided to give that smaller mousepad edition a try. 🙂

CCCAC Poor Artists Sale (Calumet, MI) – December 6th, 2025

Booth at CCCAC Poor Artists Sale 2025

Once again we returned to the Poor Artists Sale, (the big holiday sale we vend at) and we spruced up our tent with plenty of decorations, including a small table-top Christmas tree we decorated using our Everyday Dragon Hoards post cards!

Still having a bit of an issue getting enough light inside, but it certainly gave it the feeling of a cozy little nook.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: I finally sent the fully edited photos of the houseplants to their previous owner! Yay!

I also did a commission for a friend’s birthday which involved using Daz Studio to render a mouse warrior (which might have been inspired by a particular book series…) and I got to print on my shiny poster paper.

Coming up, I have a formatting project that I’ll need to shift into focus.

Future Goals: Update the SBibbPhoto website to incorporate Daz work and fix the SEO information. Finish designing cute mascot for a local store. Finish editing photos for a local Aikido group.

SIFlint Art: Per a couple different suggestions at UP Rainbow Pride, I have added the bag hoarding dragon to the lineup of Everyday Dragon Hoards!

Right now the bag dragon is only available on a tote bag, but I plan to offer this as a sticker once I place my next sticker order.

We also added new merch to the lineup with mouse pads and lanyards!

And we also ordered a new vinyl banner with our IP/SIFlint Art logos, with updated art details. Since it’s vinyl (waterproof!), and able to be rolled, it should be a lot easier to take with us to events.

Infinitas Publishing Banner

Additionally, I created a few character designs for the Wishing Blade Universe in Daz Studio so that I could create images of some of the characters later (Ehmina and Lesi from the Ferta story, and concept designs for Edea and Ne’ji-av’a).

Plus, I got a sticker page made for the Infinitas Publishing website to showcase our sticker designs, and Blossom Bird Bubble Tea in Marquette hosted some of our sticker designs for about a month! 😀

Daz PA: I finally made progress on those “Cursed Expedition” centaur poses, submitted it, and it’s now available!

SBibb Cursed Expedition Poses for Centaur 9 and Genesis 9

A centaur gallops away from a demon in castle with a fireball in her hand

This time around I tracked the amount of time I spent on each section (except a few final tweaks) so I could calculate what I hoped to make on its release to make back for time spent. Unfortunately, while I didn’t expect it to be a super high earner (zombies vs centaurs is a bit niche, after all), it did not come anywhere near to earning what I was hoping based on either time spent on the project or previous pose sets.

I still have a two or three other projects that are very close to completion from earlier that are likely to do a bit better, so I may still finish those, but after seeing how “Cursed Expedition” did, this isn’t high on my priority list.

* * *

Happy writing and reading (Or 3D rendering if you’re into Daz)! 🙂

Leave a comment

Filed under Business Ventures, Daz 3D, Writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 25, 2026 · 9:34 am

Behind the Scenes with an Outline from Starless Night

Today I thought I’d preview a small section of what had been the outline for Starless Night, the third book in the Distant Horizon series. 🙂

Key word is *had* because if you’ve read Starless Night, you’ll notice this isn’t how the story starts.

In a couple weeks, I’ll have a post for you about that time that I completely scrapped an outline… and an entire rough draft.

But first… let’s have a look at what one version of my outlines look like! (Because it might not look like what you expect).

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for the Glitch saga and Fractured Skies!

Already read those books? Don’t mind spoilers?

Proceed! 😁

Here’s what the beginning of my outline looked like. It’s rough, not always in complete sentences, and my outlines often change before I actually begin drafting. (And usually change again during drafting).

I’ve made a few adjustments here for clarity, since some of my notes were vague since I knew who/what they referenced, but probably wouldn’t be clear outside of context.

* * *

Jenna waiting with team on lawn for COE arrival (solidarity/support from team). When Camaraderie ship arrives, Lady Black and Stuart are the first to come out. They make it clear they want to discuss Val’s… and her guards’… release. They walk in like they own the place, much to the COF’s annoyance. Lady Black mentions to Pops that last time they met (before he switched sides) her grandfather had been with them (remind readers that the grandfather is Lord Black). Meanwhile, Pops feels like he’s never met Stuart before, though Stuart assures him he has. Jenna remembers Stuart from the COE base and has the beginnings of a memory attack (Legion Spore memory), which fades. She’s confused, but thankful it doesn’t get worse. The team members out to greet the COE are Pops, Jenna, Quin (Quin: “this is a historical meeting… *Squee!*” Jenna: you’re far too excited about this.), Lily there because Quin dragged her there (besides, if something does happen, it’s an excuse… she’s a good fighter… (really trying to get her to be less down and just go talk to Jenna)). Awkwardness between Jenna and Lily (they go to target range later?). Gwen, along with South African (SA) forces (introduce Ambassador Jordaan). Jenna heads to garden while the COE goes on tour of area.

While in the garden, the tour stops by. Pops formally introduces them… (though Jen has met Lady Black before… when kidnapped. “Can you kidnap your own citizens?” “Yes.” “You speak your mind… I like that.” Jenna perplexed, not sure what she thinks of her. However, Lady Black is #sorrynotsorry about it. Still thinks having Jenna on COE side would have been better for Community. But there are bigger issues to worry about now). Lady Black is polite, reserved… and nervous, Jenna realizes. (Tries to read her mind with flower charm, gets a little bit of the truth… then after almost using her flower charm to try sensing her motive, gets rebuked by Stuart who asks her to politely control her telepathic searches).

They’re starting to move on to a private part of garden, and Lady Black brings up the time stones and concern for Legion’s advances (foreshadowing further issues). Jenna notices that the lady seems a little more—invested—in those time stones than she expected. Pops suggests they can discuss this later. He’s hesitant to share information. Lady Black points out Master Zaytsev had info (a guilt trip for Jenna… it’s a reminder of Legion’s interest in her and the brain seed). She’s getting some emotion from her flower charm (though not actively prying on Lady Black). Decides to go back inside to get away from them… but gets a private thought from Stuart, who comments on Jenna’s garden (favorably… the first step in gaining Jenna’s trust). (Ugh… Telepaths!)

* * *

The outline is mostly meant to remind me of the general gist of what’s supposed to happen in the opening scenes and the kind of emotions the characters have, as well as what needs to be foreshadowed for later. I often have scenes visualized in my head from day-dreaming, so this is just meant to streamline the writing process.

(And sometimes I’m literally telling myself the story as I write the outline, and then the draft is just fleshing out the detail. This particular outline is short per scene compared to some of my recent outlines.)

But here’s the thing. When I shared the original version of this post with my newsletter a long, long time ago, Starless Night was still being the problem book of the series. And so it would go a while without any progress because it wasn’t working.

Until, finally, I realized I needed to scrap my outline and start fresh.

In a couple weeks, we’ll get back to that. So keep an eye out for that post, coming soon. 😉

* * *

See the difference in how the story starts in Starless Night… (Though you might want to read the other two book first).

Book Cover for Distant Horizon, with a gold title. A young woman faces a sterile white hallway with faces in the doors. She has vines around her arms.
Fractured Skies - Book Cover
Starless Night Cover

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

Leave a comment

Filed under Writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 18, 2026 · 7:36 am

Using charts to write The Wind Mage of Maijev

Today, I thought I’d take a look at one of the methods I used in writing The Wind Mage of Maijev, the first in the Legends of Cirena series.

This series started with me writing a “segment a week” based on voting from members of the Legends of Cirena Facebook group (now on a semi-permanent hiatus).

My writing partner, Isaac, did quite a bit of world development for the Legends era, especially in regards to the different districts and the shops. While this was meant for a personal tabletop roleplay version of Cirena, it’s also been really helpful for world development. (And I’ve still occasional yanked out the charts he made for reference in later stories that are currently in development).

In this case, Isaac took what I had already developed of Maijev (the general concept for the city, the larger world map, etc.), divided the city-as-a-country into districts (such as the Northern and Southern Quarters, of which the Southern Quarter is the primary area where The Wind Mage of Maijev takes place), and figured out who would likely frequent the region, the kind of prices those stores would have, and even which factions characters might run into.

Here’s a glimpse at the document he created:

Enen’s Study and Zora’s Market are the primary characters and locations I pulled for The Wind Mage of Maijev, though Cross Bones does get a brief reference.

Overall, having these charts has been really helpful in developing the Legends stories, since I can easily look to them to figure out what might be in the area and what sort of encounters a character might have.

For example, Livena, the protagonist of The Wind Mage of Maijev, has mixed feelings about Zora’s Market… especially since they sell a few items that probably shouldn’t be in Maijev. 😉

* * *

See how those charts turned into a story in The Wind Mage of Maijev, (and you can get the ebook edition for FREE from online retailers!)

The Wind Mage of Maijev - Book Cover

* * *

Happy reading and writing! 📖

Leave a comment

Filed under Writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 11, 2026 · 11:15 am

Distant Horizon-Inspired Flash Fiction

I found this flash fiction nugget (your choice if it’s more like a chicken nugget or a gold nugget) while looking through my older Distant Horizon Universe newsletters. I originally sent this out on February 20th of 2020.

Since I’ve been having fun with flash fiction and poetry lately, I thought it might be fun to revisit now.

This little shorty doesn’t follow a particular character, but does take inspiration from both Distant Horizon and Deceived. 🙂

Students mill around her. Chatting. Heading to class. Nothing new.

But this place is a lie.

It’s that poster by the door that reminds her. Stark white with pale blue lettering.

Safety
Security
Efficiency

Her throat squeezes and she can barely breathe.

Lie-lie-lie…

A firm hand clamps on her shoulder. Soldier-agent-danger–

She recoils and her shoulder slams the wall, knocking aside the poster. She needs to hide–

“Woah, it’s just me.” A young man smiles at her, confusion in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

She knows him. Knew him.

He doesn’t know her. Not anymore.

Still, she forces a smile and rights the poster on the wall. She can’t afford to lose the efficiency points. “Sorry. I guess I was thinking too hard about which building has my next class.”

Her heart pounds like a student slamming the walls of a transformation chamber.

“You weren’t gone that long.” He chuckles. “Which Community did you visit, anyway? We thought you’d failed the scan.”

It’s hard to maintain her smile. “I visited the European Community.”

A lie like those words on that poster.

“Neat. Maybe I’ll get to go sometime. See you around.” He waves as he reenters the stream of students filtering through the hall. “The Community is safe!”

She can’t muster the enthusiasm to say the usual response.

She never went to Europe.

She never knew where they sent her when she failed the scan.

But she found her way back.

They’re going to wish she hadn’t.

One of the things I enjoy about flash fiction is the questions they spawn, and the possible stories. 🙂

Who is she? Will she succeed in getting vengeance? What in particular does she want vengeance for?

Seeing as how she failed the scan, what are her powers?

Why, and how, did she make it back to the Community?

I didn’t have those answers when I first wrote it and I still don’t have them now… but it’s still a fun exercise.

* * *

Jenna and Galina both see the Community in new light after an unfortunate visit to a transformation facility…

Book Cover for Distant Horizon, with a gold title. A young woman faces a sterile white hallway with faces in the doors. She has vines around her arms.
Book Cover for Deceived

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

Leave a comment

Filed under Writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 7, 2026 · 10:46 am

Monthly Book Promotion Highlight

Looking for a free YA fantasy or sci-fi book this week? Or maybe you’ve recently dabbled in a Kobo Plus subscription and are interested in seeing what books are waiting for you?

You’re in luck!

This month I’m featuring the YA/NA Fantasy that Pushes Limits ebook promo, the Life at the Crossroads ebook promo, and the Science Fiction & Fantasy in Kobo Plus ebook promo!

*

Enjoy a genre blend with a healthy dose of fantasy? Check out this promo!

YA/NA Fantasy that Pushes Limits Ebook Promo Banner

Want a YA book where the protagonist finds themselves at the crossroads of a big decision? Check out this promo!

Life at the Crossroads YA Fiction Ebook Promo Banner

(Note: The giveaways above are hosted through BookFunnel. Authors will usually ask for your email address, and in many cases, the author will collect these addresses for their newsletters.)

Then, as I mentioned last week, we also have a Kobo Plus promo!
So if you have a Kobo subscription, you can read these books at no additional cost!

Science Fiction & Fantasy in Kobo Plus Promo Banner

* * *

I hope you find a good book! 😀

Leave a comment

Filed under Writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 6, 2026 · 9:27 am

November – A Poem(ish?)

(Note: I also posted this on Substack as well.)

Welp, had another little burst of poetic inspiration (Thanks, Zen In the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury), this time from going out to clean my car of snow (yes, in April) and getting buffeted by wind and struck with tiny stinging bits of snow from the nearest snowbank.

Otherwise, it was a surprisingly pleasant morning outside.

Anyway, I’m not sure it’s quite a poem or if it’s more a piece of flash fiction, and I may at some point try to revise it a bit more (I still don’t think “commonplace comedians” is quite doing what I want) but anyhow, here’s “November:”

“November”

by Stephanie Flint

I am angry.

I will wreck your ships.

I will send your leaves plummeting to frostbit dirt. Gray grass shall be buried under their damp blankets, and what pale green that strives to remain shall wither under desolate quilts of brown and yellow.

I will knock aside your trash bins and claim your forlorn cardboard boxes of stale, leftover pizza.

These will tumble and toss and fly, fly into my airspace, and you shall not know where they have been sent. They will fade a cold, dreary death into the grasp of winter; be forgotten.

But you will not forget me.

Grand men will tell tales to immortalize those lost to the wrecks. Lovely women will sing of lost leaves and clinging hopes. Commonplace comedians will provide needed laughter by recalling trash bins long tumbled past Sally’s yard.

The pizza, though, will be lost forever.

You will remember my gales of November.

As a note… the little bits of inspiration that I was picturing when I wrote this:

“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot

“The Last Leaf” by Blackmore’s Night

“Trash Can Wind Meters” as seen on FacebookA reference both to the Fifth of November poem (which I know more from V for Vendetta than knowing the actual poem) and another reference to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

* * *

Happy reading and writing! 📚

Leave a comment

Filed under Writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 4, 2026 · 7:16 am

Designing the Cover for The Cursed Halls of Kalecen

I recently shared my process for designing the cover of The Restless Sands of Neel, and today I thought I might take a look into the steps I took for the next book in the series, The Cursed Halls of Kalecen.

This ended up being the final cover:

The Cursed Halls of Kalecen - Book Cover

I had a lot of fun with this story, since it deals with an immortal creature known in Cirena as a chesnathĂŠ.

Long story short, they’re this world’s version of a unicorn… except they’re a mix of the European unicorn and the Asian qilin, so chesnathĂŠme are known for either judging their victims as guilty and killing them by spearing the guilty party’s heart with their horn, or determining they’re innocent and, (if “pure of heart”), granting them immortality.

Thing is, one of the Cirenan gods, Kalecen, has a broken horn and his sense of justice is… skewed. Technically a god of justice, he’s more a god of revenge.

So when the student of a protective duelist, Hahven,foils a revenge plot and incurs the wrath of Kalecen, it’s up to Hahven to shield her from the god’s harsh judgement.

For the cover, I wanted to depict Hahven facing off with Kalecen, but the first few images I rendered seemed far too static, so I ultimately ended up adding the god’s blood-thirsty champion to the picture… and I liked the result a lot better.

Here’s a few of the in-progress pictures:

I used Daz Studio to model the images, and it took several tries before I was finally happy with how it looked. (And a few days of running renders at night to give it enough time to render at a large size without being grainy). The images above are the raw renders, before I took them into Photoshop.

A: The first version. I used atmospheric lighting, which I liked, but it was too dark and Hahven’s pose seemed too static. Not exciting enough.

B. Different lighting method (no atmosphere), and I tweaked the pose so that he would be facing Kalecen better, but it was still missing something. Too static.

C. Added in Kalecen’s champion. Now he’s facing off with her… and he is supposed to be level headed, but… (can you guess what I’m going to say here?) Still too static.

(Noticing the trend?)

D. Brightened the scene a bit more and changed Hahven’s pose. Much more dynamic… but forgot to use DForce on the clothes to get them to lay naturally. Not a fan of the lighting. Also, accidentally angled the camera wrong and ended up with the purple blotch where the floor ended.

E. DForced Hahven’s clothes and now they lay properly. Also added the atmospheric lighting back (but with higher brightness levels). After changing the angle, I was much happier with the result. He’s benefitting from one of the roof’s lights, and it’s also much more dynamic. Plus… shiny reflection, even if you don’t get to see much of it on the actual cover do to the typography.

Ultimately I decided to zoom in so he’d be closer on the cover, but version E was the one I ended up Photoshopping. 🙂

* * *

Read The Cursed Halls of Kalecen and root for a duelist fighting an unhinged god of justice…

The Cursed Halls of Kalecen - Book Cover

* * *

Happy reading and writing! 📚

Leave a comment

Filed under Writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 2, 2026 · 7:58 am

Some Fantasy and Sci-Fi reads available on Kobo Plus

Today I’m highlighting the Science Fiction and Fantasy in Kobo Plus ebook promo!

Why?

Well, Kobo Plus allows you to read as many books as you want (as long as they’re in the program) for only $7.99 a month, AND they don’t make authors keep the books exclusive, unlike Kindle Unlimited.

(They’ve also been expanding to other countries, so if you haven’t had access to it before, you might now. Worth checking.)

Anyway, if you’re like me and prefer to have your ebooks available across many different stores, it’s a win! Yay!

(Note… I am not affiliated with Kobo in any way. However, I am biased in that I’d like to see more of my books read on Kobo. Just throwing that out there.)

So… do you have a Kobo Plus Subscription?

Are you thinking about getting one?

Then check out these fantasy and sci-fi books, all available on Kobo Plus!

Science Fiction & Fantasy in Kobo Plus Promo Banner

* * *

I hope you find a good book! 😀

Leave a comment

Filed under Writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 28, 2026 · 7:52 am

A Romantic Subplot in the Distant Horizon Series

Today I thought I’d dive into the romance sub-plot in the Distant Horizon series. Now… before we go any further…

If you like to read books with no idea of which characters show any interest in each other, then go read Distant Horizon, Fractured Skies, and Starless Night first! There will be spoilers ahead. I’ll try not to go into anything too major, but it’s kind of hard to avoid in this particular overview.

Have you read them? (Or don’t mind spoilers?)

All right. We shall now proceed. 🙂

Anyway, in Distant Horizon there wasn’t much of a romance sub-plot. I tend to prefer slow-burn stories, if there’s romance at all, and for the most part, Jenna’s mind really wasn’t on finding a partner. She’s a too busy fighting terrifying subhuman beasts and trying not to get killed.

Once we get to Fractured Skies, however, that starts to change. While Jenna is still dead-set on stopping beast transformation, certain other team members *Cough*Lance*Cough* are starting to settle into their new roles and are interested in pursuing a relationship.

Which… ah… if you remember the first book, Jenna and Lance butted heads. A lot.

They’re best friends, but they don’t always see eye-to-eye.

But there’s that expectation of childhood friends sometimes going on to become efficient partners in the Community, so Jenna (somewhat begrudgingly) decides to give dating a try between researching how to stop beast transformation and how to get rid of the memory seeds.

Let’s just say there are complications… especially when she starts to realize that she and Lily… a mercenary who seems to understand where she’s coming from surprisingly well… get along better.

(I apparently rather enjoy the enemies to allies/enemies to lovers trope).

Now, when Isaac and I first ran the campaign that Distant Horizon spawned from, the original pairing was Jenna and Lance… with all the complications that came with them clashing. What I hadn’t anticipated was that, when writing the story, Jenna and Lily would end up with far more chemistry. (The sort of warm, fluttery feeling of “will they get together?” despite not planning on writing it that way. Which seems to keep happening to me. Characters completely surprise me by being tender to each other or pebbling each other with cute gifts and the next thing I know I’m shipping them together… and then I realize I’m the author so… does that still count as shipping?).

After having Isaac read the draft and having him be completely in favor of giving them a chance…

(By completely in favor I mean he kept nudging me with more ideas of cute scenes.)

I rewrote those scenes with the idea of building the romantic tension between Jenna and Lily, which added to Jenna’s debate of whether to go the more expected route of the efficiency of a Community partner, which she and Lance don’t seem to have… or her gut feeling that she and Lily share something special and work together better, despite their different backgrounds.

Isaac and I further explored the different relationships in Starless Night.

And let’s just say the bond between Lily and Jenna becomes extremely important. (Especially as a certain brain seed she’s fighting is determined to cut away any romantic bonds in its fight to stay relevant). Starless Night is not a romance book by any stretch of the imagination, but their relationship becomes crucial to the book’s resolution and Jenna’s fight with the brain seed.

Though Jenna and Lily haven’t yet had a happily-ever-after (HEA) or even a happy-for-now (HFN), I have my suspicions about how I want their relationship to go by the time I get to the end of the series (whether that’s one or two more books… not sure yet).

* * *

Read a very slow-burn romance seeded under a lot of world-building and adventure…

Book Cover for Distant Horizon, with a gold title. A young woman faces a sterile white hallway with faces in the doors. She has vines around her arms.
Book cover for Fractured Skies with gold text. A young woman in a coat faces a wintery, pink-tinted forest. She has vines around her arms.
Book cover for Starless Night. A young woman in a black combat suit with thorny vines around her arms faces ghostly spirits in a wintery city street at night.

* * *

Happy reading and writing! 📖

Leave a comment

Filed under Writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 25, 2026 · 10:54 am

Spring Flight – A Poem

(Note: I also posted this on Substack, and then it occurred to me I could post it here… so now I’ve posted this in both places.)

I don’t fancy myself a poet. Usually if I’m writing poetry, it’s something of a song or ballad for one of my fantasy stories (or sometimes, in the case of The Singing Coil, sci-fi). But every once in a while the inspiration strikes.

In this case, I blame/thank reading “Zen: In the Art of Writing” by Ray Bradbury.

So today I have a poem I wanted to share, drafted somewhat in the spur of the moment, but collected from little moments on walks and memories. A little bit revised, but maybe I’ll return later to do more revisions.

“Flight of Spring”

by Stephanie Flint

Let go, she said
Let go into the wind
Hold bright

Summer days, Autumn Nights
lead into dark, and then to the white
of all covered in snow where night is gray and sky is dusk
an ever light reflection.

Hold Hold
Hold to the faint whisper
rattling a single leaf
clinging to bare limbs

Will not let go.

Until there, brief, a stirring
gossamer dress

Now leaves scratch concrete as they bounce along
in the lion’s roar of winds
approaching in her fury
of being suppressed
so long

She is back!

Tolerates the ice floes, the sculptured piles of sand and ice,
once fluffs of delicate snowflakes made jaded and weary

But they say
she is coming.

She is here!

Let her go, dancing and whirling into summer
she will return.

* * *

Happy reading and writing! 📚

Leave a comment

Filed under Writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,