Category Archives: Writing

Episode 10: A Friendly Game

The next episode of The Multiverse Chronicles is now up! (And this one includes Phalanx!) 😀

SBibb's avatarThe Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

Season One: Episode Ten

“A Friendly Game”

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The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel - A Friendly Game

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Buford examined the black glass dragon tears sitting on the etched, wooden playing table before him. On either side of the table were two diamond-shaped slots, each covered by a silver coin. The diamond closest to him was his city-state. The coin was to buy the lady across from him a drink, while the glass dragon tears were to ensure he didn’t have to.

The general turned his attention to the cards in his hand. Each card had a path-symbol on its face, a series of black dots, dashes, and Xs. He placed one of the cards on the table, moved a dragon tear along the path of the symbol, and then replaced the card. He smirked. This game was going rather well. He already had four black dragon tears lined up in a row—a phalanx—the…

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Thoughts on Publishing – Infinitas Publishing Status Report

Wow, hard to believe it’s time for another status report. Time sure does fly. Anyway, here’s what we’re up to with Infinitas Publishing. 🙂

The Shadow War: So… I’ve got a lot of plotting done for this (actually, I’m more-or-less working on the first set of edits), and a lot of plotting for the next two novellas after this (including a character that I am really looking forward to introducing), but not a lot of editing or writing. I’m hoping that I can make headway on this project in April. I’m tempted to try Camp NaNoWriMo to see if I can get the rough draft of the next book ready, but I know I’ve got a bunch of stuff I need to complete first.

As a side note, I’m testing marketing Magic’s Stealing as an upper middle-grade, lower young adult novella. We’ll see how that goes, and if it makes a difference than marketing it strictly as YA.

The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel: We’re currently on episode 9 and moving forward. We’ll need to make polishing edits on more episodes soon so that our beta reader has a chance to look them over. We’re debating doing one season a year, rather than trying to do one season every six-eight months. That way we have a little more time to prepare the second season and have the Battle Decks equivalent ready at the same time.

Phalanx: Isaac’s hard at work getting ready for the release of our latest game, Phalanx. It’s a board game that combines ideas from Tetris, chess, and the luck of the draw of various card games. You move your pieces across the board with the intent of capturing your opponent’s city-state. There are three versions of the game: the board game, which we will sell on our shop page on The Game Crafter site; wooden boards, which are carved by Aaron at Snyder’s Garden, a local woodcrafter; and game bags that Isaac sewed together, both of which we’ll sell at local events.

Speaking of which…

Old Drum Days Festival!  We got our Missouri sales tax licence and our Paypal Here this week (so we can accept credit cards) and we’re going to be selling Phalanx and Magic’s Stealing while we’re there. As a bonus, any of the Phalanx games we sell there will come with a set of “Friendly Game” cards, a special promo card for Battle Decks that are exclusive to the Phalanx games.

Old Drum Days Festival is on April 9th, at the old court house in Warrensburg, Missouri.

Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel: We’re currently testing out possible card options for the deck building expansions, and having fun deciding which ones to include first.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Still working on book covers. Still working on formatting. Yep. It’s a never-ending cycle.

Beta-Reading: We’ve gotten the latest draft of the book I’m beta-reading from the author, and we need to get started making notes.

Distant Horizon: Isaac and I have found a proofreader, and once we get notes back, we’ll make our edits and move forward with preparing to release this novel soon (which means a cover is coming soon, too!).

Video Blogging: I recently uploaded Chapter 16 of my reading for Magic’s Stealing, and I’ve been showing a lot of sneak peeks of the upcoming Phalanx game in the previous couple blog posts.

That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed this post. 🙂

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Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post – Reading Chapter Sixteen of Magic’s Stealing

Today I’m reading chapter sixteen of Magic’s Stealing. Enjoy. 🙂

Click here for the link if you can’t see the video.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

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Episode 9: Forbidden Realm

Episode 9 of The Multiverse Chronicles is now up! 😀

SBibb's avatarThe Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

Season One: Episode Nine

“Forbidden Realm”

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The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel - Alfons and Alia

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Alia, Alfons, and the cinnamon-colored rat stared at the glowing, approaching eyes. The closer the eyes came, the more visible the automatons grew. Their metal limbs clanked and whirred. Though their bodies were painted in alternating splotches of greens and browns—difficult to see through the foliage of the woods—they most certainly looked to be five mechanical men.

Alia and Alfons exchanged glances. Neither of them had seen any such creature before. Sure, the Prussian army was fond of their tactics generators with basic computing spirits and gigantic metal hulls, but these…

These were another being entirely.

The automatons had slender, mechanical arms and legs. Their eyes faintly glowed with enchanted gold. They wore dark green, metal helmets like any soldier might, and they carried rifles in their spiny hands.

But their faces were blank, with a…

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Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post – Reading Chapter Fifteen of Magic’s Stealing

Today I’m reading chapter fifteen of Magic’s Stealing. Also, we’re going to have a booth at the upcoming Old Drum Festival in Warrensburg, MO (April, 9th)! We’re going to be debuting our Phalanx game there, which we will be selling game bags (see the video for an example!) and the wooden board versions, along with copies of Magic’s Stealing.

Like our Facebook page if you want to hear all the latest updates. 🙂

Click here for the link if you can’t see the video.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

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Episode 8: Friends, Acquaintances, and Nemeses

Episode 8 of The Multiverse Chronicles is now up! 😀

SBibb's avatarThe Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

Season One: Episode Eight

“Friends, Acquaintances, and Nemeses”

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The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel - Cart Ride

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A horse-drawn cart—loaded down with supplies and a sleeping pterosaur—ambled over a series of potholes in a well-worn road. A warm breeze ruffled the fields of barley on either side, the lazy sun painting the land vivid gold. The cart bumbled along, its two sorrel mares uninterested in the stiffness of their cart’s occupants.

Trish craned her head to the pale blue sky. Above her, mere silhouettes against the noonday sun, a team of pterosaurs and riders flew toward their new home. They coasted on the warm currents, occasionally flapping their wings to maintain formation.

She let out a breath as the pterosaur brigade flew onward. She was part of this now, even though she was not up there with the rest of them. The old, musty book in her lap—the one she was supposed

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Episode 7: Perplexing Conundrums

Episode 7 of The Multiverse Chronicles is now up! 😀

SBibb's avatarThe Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

Season One: Episode Seven

“Perplexing Conundrums”

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The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel - Dungeon Door

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Captain John Bess rolled his letter into a thin tube and shoved it into a small green canister. He screwed the canister shut, strapped it onto a pigeon, and checked that the harness was tight. Then he opened the cage and sent the pigeon on its way.

Your Majesty,

 

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that your daughter, Princess Cassandra, has been murdered.

 

At this time, we are uncertain as to the identity of the perpetrator. However, we are working closely with Prussian security in this investigation, and they are fully cooperating with our efforts. Current evidence suggests that the rogue agent who killed our princess may have been a Prussian defector. We are unsure of the perpetrator’s motives, but I will keep you informed of any updates.

 

 Regrets,

Captain…

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Thoughts on Publishing – Infinitas Publishing Status Report

Normally I’d have posted this last week, but since I was doing a cover reveal on the designated post day, I decided to do the report today, instead. 🙂

The Shadow War: Not much progress in regards to actually writing this one, however, Isaac and I have discussed the idea of splitting The Shadow War into two books. Seeing as how it’s already at 45,000 words, (with the series meant to be a set of novellas) and it’s only going to get longer, I’m inclined to agree.

So I’ve been doing a lot of plotting for what’s going to be the new book three, and I like where it’s going. As such, there’s a good chance that there will be four books in The Wishing Blade series instead of three. The Shadow War looks to be around 35,000 to 40,000 words, and by splitting it where I think it would have a decent beginning/middle/end, I can effectively say that I’m actually working on the second draft, rather than the first draft (since I had to go back reread what I wrote to continue writing the story).

While I still have a little ways to go before I release this one (as I’m not finished polishing it for beta-readers yet), it’s a whole lot closer than I thought it was.

The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel: There are currently six episodes out so far (Read them here), and more on the way. Missed last week’s episode due to lack of time to properly edit said episode (and due to a character’s dialect being difficult that may or may not sound Scottish), but if all goes well, the seventh episode will be released this Friday.

The season as a whole is a work in progress, and it’s entirely possible that we’ll make small edits to the season once it’s complete and before we release the ebook and print editions. So let us know what you think as you read the episodes. 🙂

Phalanx: If you’ve been following our Facebook page, or if you watched my latest video blog post, you may have seen us talking about our upcoming Phalanx game. This is a project Isaac’s been working on (I’ve mostly just helped with touch-ups). We still need to proofread the rules and have someone do a blind test from the rules (rather than us showing them how to play), but we’ve got the beta version of the game on order. This should be available by early April, since we’re hoping to have it available for sale at a local event during that time. More info coming soon!

Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel: The starter game is available now, and Isaac has been working on creating rules and card ideas for a deck-building expansion. We’ve been meeting with our group of beta-testers to see how the new cards play and which ones we’re going to want to release in the first expansion. We’re still in the early stages of the deck-building part of the game, however.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Majority of the book covers I’ve been working on are now complete. In the meantime, I’m working through several formatting projects. Or, I will be as soon as I finish writing this post…

Beta-Reading: Put on hold temporarily so author could make changes. We should be getting the new chapters to beta-read shortly.

Distant Horizon:  Finally finished working on changes to a scene later in the story. I need to proofread and polish that scene, check it with Isaac to make sure he likes the finished version, and then I’m ready to hand this off to a proofreader. I’ve also got to do a few more things for the basic ebook formatting, but the majority of this is already complete.

Video Blogging: I just released the audio reading of Magic’s Stealing: Chapter Fourteen on Monday, and I plan to continue reading Magic’s Stealing, one chapter a week, until the story is complete.

In other news, we just finished our partnership tax forms! All we have to do is give them one more look-over and then mail them in. Woot! 😀

That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed this post. 🙂

 

 

 

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Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post – Reading Chapter Fourteen of Magic’s Stealing

Today I’m reading chapter fourteen of Magic’s Stealing and showing off the first wooden board for the our upcoming game, Phalanx (Check out our Facebook page to see a couple sneak peek pictures!) Enjoy! 😀

Click here for the link if you can’t see the video.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

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Cover Reveal for A Fellow Author – The Goat Children!

Today I’m doing a cover reveal for fellow author, Jordan Elizabeth! I didn’t make this cover, but I quite like how it looks!

In the meantime, onward to the reveal! Take it away, Jordan…

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GOAT CHILDREN

A YA Novel with a touch of Fantasy

When Keziah’s grandmother, Oma, is diagnosed with dementia, Keziah faces two choices: leave her family and move to New Winchester to care for Oma, or stay in New York City and allow her grandmother to live in a nursing home miles away.

The dementia causes Oma to be rude and paranoid, nothing like the woman Keziah remembers. Each day becomes a greater weight and love a harsher burden. Keziah must keep Oma from wandering off or falling, and try to convince her grandmother to see a doctor as her eyesight and hearing fail, but Oma refuses to believe anything is wrong. Resentful of her hardships in New Winchester, Keziah finds herself drawn to Oma’s ramblings about the Goat Children, a mythical warrior class. These fighters ride winged horses, locating people in need, while attempting to destroy evil in the world. Oma sees the Goat Children everywhere, and as Keziah reads the stories Oma wrote about them, she begins to question if they really exist.

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GOAT CHILDREN will be released March 25, 2016 from CHBB.

This story means a lot to me.  Many of the events are taken from my own life when I helped out my grandmother.  She was one of my best friends and in many ways, my world.  It still hurts to think about how the dementia made her suffer.

As she would have said: without further ado, I present the cover for GOAT CHILDREN.  The talented Rue Volley created this cover.

Book Cover Reveal For A Fellow Author - The Goat Children

I can’t wait to share this book with all of you!  You can mark it as TBR today on GoodReads.

Author - Jordan Elizabeth

About the author: Jordan Elizabeth, formally Jordan Elizabeth Mierek, writes her nightmares in order to live her dreams. With an eclectic job history behind her, she is now diving into the world of writing. It happens to be her most favorite one yet. When she’s not creating art or researching her family tree, she’s updating her blog. Jordan is the vice president of the Utica Writers Club. She roams Central New York, but loves to travel.

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Win a paperback copy of my first novel, ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW.

Click here to enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway.

All winners will be notified after verification of entry at the end of this promotion.  Prizes have been supplied by and the responsibility of delivery are solely that of the author and/or their representatives. Blogs are not liable for non-delivery on the part of the author. No purchase necessary.

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