Tag Archives: Distant Horizon

December 20, 2025 · 7:28 am

Changing the Scenario – Updating Anna from Role-play Game to Book

Previously I’ve talked about how Distant Horizon got its start as a role-play game between me and Isaac. Many plot points changed, but many stayed the same. In today’s post, we talk about how, in Fractured Skies, Jenna and Lance met Anna…

Who had a few changes along the way.

I’m pretty sure Anna started as a way for Isaac to keep my character, Jenna, from getting herself hopelessly captured. Let’s set the stage, shall we?

In the game, Jenna and Lance have returned to their hometown in search of her parents, who she knows might be in danger. Security guards have started to notice Jenna looks really familiar (she’s the granddaughter of a rebel leader, so they’ve been given her profile), there are a set of conspicuous mercenaries on her tail… and she is very good about demanding information in a not-so-subtle way. Not a good combination.

So Anna, an old friend from her high school, shows up and manages to (unintentionally) whisk Jenna and Lance to safety.

This despite shouting “Jenna! Lance! It’s you guys!” across the same room with said guards and mercenaries.

Needless to say, I can only assume the guards failed their notice rolls or smarts rolls.

Anyway, Isaac and I realized that wasn’t going to be very believable in the actual novel, so we made a few changes.

One, we gave Anna powers.

Surely Jenna and Lance weren’t the only one who didn’t take their daily pills in a huge city, right?

Two, we decided Anna isn’t an old friend… at least not that Jenna remembers… and that Anna knows more than she first lets on… allowing her to get them away from the guards a little more naturally while still arousing their suspicion as to her real intentions.

Here’s an excerpt from Fractured Skies:

One of the guards looked toward us—the one who had examined our IDs earlier, but before he could question us again, a young woman our age plopped into a seat across from me. She had shoulder length brown hair pulled into one of the few “stylized” cuts the Community allowed, and she wore a pale blue shirt and pale gray pants, nothing that stood out.

I blinked. “Uh… hello?”

“I can’t believe you’re back! Chris… Kate…” She propped her chin on her knuckles. “So good to see you again.”

I stared at her, dumbstruck. How did she know what our fake IDs said? Was she a Special Forces agent in disguise? A telepath?

Lance chuckled nervously. “I’m sorry. Do we know you?”

“Of course!” She laughed. “It’s me, Anna. Don’t you remember? We shared chemistry in high school.”

I tried picturing my classmates from chemistry, but honestly, I couldn’t remember more than a few of their faces. I certainly didn’t remember this “Anna.”

Lance and I exchanged glances. Quin seemed to be fast-talking the guards toward the exit, both groups too busy to worry about us. Was Anna a merc? If so, she fit in way better than the others.

She gave us a mischievous grin. “Now that you’re back, there’s a question everyone wants to know—are you two dating?”

I blinked. Why would anyone care about that?

Lance shrugged. “Sort of.”

I froze. What was he doing?

Anna’s eyes popped open. “Seriously? Oooo… just wait until I tell everyone! I told them it was bound to happen.”

“Yeah…” I shuffled uneasily in my seat, suddenly wishing we were dealing with the mercs. At least it was clear what they wanted.

“That’s so exciting!” Anna clapped her hands together and glanced over our shoulders. She quickly diverted her eyes back to us. “You should totally see my room here. It’s great. I’ve been living on my own ever since I moved from my parents’ house.”

“I’m not sure—”

“Sounds cool,” Lance said smoothly. “Why don’t we go check it out?”

I glared at him. What if this is a trap?

Lance flinched. “It’ll be fun,” he murmured, his voice forced.

Dear Community—

This flower charm was obnoxious. Technically, it was a telepathy artifact—artifacts were objects enchanted to mimic certain powers—and I’d accidently used it to project my thoughts. At least I had directed the thought rather than broadcasted it across the room. That would have been terrible. What if everyone thought they had theophrenia? I shoved the charm between my shirt and my coat, where I wouldn’t have to worry about accidently using it.

“Come on!” Anna grabbed us both by the wrists and yanked us from our chairs. Since I didn’t want to cause a scene and attract more guards, I didn’t resist. She dragged us through the hall and into an apartment room a bit bigger than our old dorm rooms combined. Her walls were covered in pictures of similar people with similar hairstyles—all smiling like cheerful leaders on cheesy self-help brochures, except these were beauticians’ posters.

If I took off my hat, it would be painfully clear I did not fit in.

Anna’s come a long ways from the original campaign.

Right now she only shows up in Fractured Skies, but she’s an example of some of the changes we made along the way. 😊

* * *

Read the series that started as a role-play game…

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!

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December 6, 2025 · 7:04 am

Music for Plotting in my Distant Horizon and Wishing Blade Universes

While plotting, I often enjoy listening to music. Sometimes it helps me invoke a particular mood for a scene, come up with new ideas, or simply picture scenes better in my head.

For example, I often listened to Rush’s “Subdivisions” while working on Distant Horizon, especially on scenes involving the Community (It seemed to fit the Community quite nicely).

Then, for a while, I enjoyed listening to DragonForce’s “Through Fire and Flames” while working on the end of Fractured Skies and Spirits of a Glitch. Isaac introduced me to that song and which scenes he thought it fit best. Epic battle scenes… determined character montages in my head… that sort of thing.

(Also makes for a great… and difficult… custom Beatsaber level).

Other times, music helps inspire titles. For example, there’s a line from Styx’s “Brave New World” which inspired the title for Distant Horizon. (I don’t like coming up with titles for books. Seriously… they’re illusive little critters that like to hide away and have to be dragged out from their cozy caves for me to find them).

I’ll admit my tastes in music are eclectic. I’ve listened to a lot of Gordon Lightfoot songs. My favorites are “The House You Live In” and “Race Among the Ruins”, though these tend to inspire me more with the Wishing Blade Universe. I’ve also listened to a little bit of Tarja Turunen (“I Walk Alone”) which almost always makes me think of Ivy Man’s character from Fractured Skies (as does the song “Darkness” by Blackmore’s Night). Both are quite useful when writing any scenes that involve that character.

And sometimes songs might not… really fit, but they still work great for me to plot to. I like “Anti-hero” by Taylor Swift for the character of Sanjorez, even if it doesn’t exactly fit. And… even if I put together an animatic in my head of him dealing with the rest of the Camaraderie whenever I listen to that song.

Once I find a song that works for me, I tend to listen to it on repeat, as I did with Nightwish’s “Escapist” as performed by Alina Lesnik & Guitarrista de Atena (Great for plotting with Shevanlagiy’s character in the Wishing Blade Universe), as well listening to as Joan Baez’s  “Rejoice in the Sun” and “Silent Running” (on repeat. Several times. Because when I like a song, it usually ends up looped).

I think I like music I can picture a story to, even if the song might not normally be paired with a particular character or genre. And even if I don’t hear the lyrics right and that spins off a whole ‘nother idea.

There was that one time I listened to Skye Boat Song and misheard “Over the sea to Skye” as “Over the sea to die” and BOOM… new character! (Who, ironically, hasn’t yet shown up. Maybe eventually. That particular story arc took a major turn from the original plan).

And sometimes music gives me ideas for magic systems. Really. The concept of Magic’s Lure and the Wishing Blade spawned from singing “Rainbow Connection” during voice lessons. And the idea of shadows got their first inklings from listening to the song “Shadows” by Gordon Lightfoot.

There are so many more songs I could list as inspiration… But I’ve got to wrap up this post sometime.

Lately I haven’t really listened to music a lot when writing or revising, unless it’s background coffeeshop music, but I still like listening to music while plotting, or if I’m trying to get in the mood to write a certain scene. Or if I’m trying to plot out a stuck spot.

So there you have it. A few songs that I’ve enjoyed listening to while working on these books.

How about you? Do you ever have a soundtrack that reminds you of your favorite books? Do you associate a certain song with a certain character?

* * *

These two series both got a lot of inspiration from listening to music:

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 Magic's Stealing

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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November 22, 2025 · 8:30 am

Distant Horizon RP Campaigns of the early days…

Recently, I was thinking back to some of our early role-play campaigns… including the one for Distant Horizon.

See, the game started as me and Isaac wanting to plan a one-shot campaign that was something of a cross between The Giver meets X-Men.

Actually, that’s not entirely accurate.

The very first campaign set in this universe was a group campaign that followed the terrible exploits of superheroes from the Super Bureau who did more damage than the villains. It was great fun, and ended up providing a bit of lore you occasionally see in the Distant Horizon series.

(For more about that campaign, check out my blog post from 2016)

There’s even an easter egg regarding the Super Bureau campaign in the Glitch saga (Ghost of a Memory), when Tim is researching previous encounters with spirits:


After reviewing an article about a spirit that possessed a brain-dead child, I find several related articles from the time shortly before EYEnet was founded. One is about a man listed as Agent Knight. According to the text, he took an unruly team from the Super Bureau to remove a cult leader who tied the spirits of his followers to metal photographs—some superstition about photographs stealing a person’s soul. But the methods weren’t magical. The cult leader used life-spirit powers to bind his followers to a separate object, where he could better control them.

Long story short, though the actual events have been tweaked to better fit the story (as a great many of the campaign events have), and we don’t actually see all of the members of the ill-fated Super Bureau, some of the basic concepts of that campaign remain.

There is still a possessed, brain-dead child (at the time, she simply had a ridiculous level of power, rather than being possessed) who has a large role in the backstory of this universe (a back-burnered work-in-progress titled Little One). I have Isaac’s notes on the current version of the manuscript, and eventually I’ll need to work on those revisions. There, the investigation of the cult leader who stole souls continues… though he’s already dead (more-or-less) by the time Little One begins.

That said, we do get more Easter eggs regarding Little One’s story in Starless Night… and it’s a plot point that has some weighty significance for Jenna in dealing with the brain seed she’s trying to thwart.

There’s plenty of other little references as well. Jim mentions a few of them in the Distant Horizon series. The character of Benjamin had his start in that early campaign, though his character has gone through several iterations before you see him as he is now.

Distant Horizon was conceived as a campaign about a year or two after that one, but just between me and Isaac, and it started with Jenna in the Community, trying to figure out what was going on with the Health Scan. (Another key idea for this was that the superheroes had failed and the villains now ruled the world… but those in the Community didn’t know).

Of course, it’s not uncommon for our “one-shot” campaigns to run much longer… and it was about halfway through the campaign I decided I wanted to try writing it as a novel (I started taking notes about the spot where Fractured Skies ends). Though events have changed, the basic concept has stayed pretty much on point. One of the biggest changes being how big of a role “memory seeds” play in the story, since telepathic attacks existed, but the detailed workings of memory seeds came about later.

Tim’s story in the Glitch saga, on the other hand, wasn’t actually one of our campaigns. Portions did get played out between Isaac and me (primarily conversations between the Legion Spores and Tim… with Isaac voicing the living airships and me voicing Tim), but a lot of details were notes that Isaac had regarding what happened behind the scenes in the campaign for Distant Horizon.

Now, those aren’t the only Distant Horizon Universe campaigns we’ve done. Of note, we also had one we called “Exiles,” of which much of the story arc has been dismantled due to changes made in the published Distant Horizon series. I may revisit a version of it later, but, for now, you can see hints of it in the Deceived series. A team of young power-users have to escape a beast facility and then go on adventurers to change their world for the better… one of those characters being over-powered enough that the Camaraderie isn’t terribly happy about them…

Another campaign was the Athena arc, which is something of a techno thriller that takes place after Exiles. Again, a lot got changed based on changes to Distant Horizon. However… other aspects might eventually get reworked into later books if we ever explore the world beyond the Distant Horizon series once that’s complete. (And I have been dropping certain foreshadowing hints into the current series in case we do lean into that route).

And then there’s another campaign I ran much farther into the story’s future, but it would need major, major edits to be even remotely feasible, though there are some plot details which may work themselves into other books… especially Little One.

In any case, role-playing has been a fun way for us to develop the story and delve deeper into the individual characters and the world. 🙂

* * *

Sneak around with Jenna in the Distant Horizon series!

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 the Glitch Saga. Orange and red. A beautiful woman with black hair faces the viewer, there's an airship in the shape of a Portuguese Man'O'War, and an angry spirit rises above a forest.
Book Cover for Deceived

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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November 8, 2025 · 7:45 am

That little sneak…

Jenna, the main character of the Distant Horizon series, is somewhat notorious for eavesdropping when it comes to trying to gather information.

Today I’ve got a few excerpts of her doing just that… or trying to. 😉

In case you haven’t read Distant Horizon yet, here’s an example of what I mean. To catch you up on what’s happening, Jenna is standing outside of her grandfather’s office, listening in on a private conversation between him and the rebel’s mission leader, Jack.

There was a pause, and this time, Jack’s voice was quiet. “Next time, if there’s even the hint of danger, tell me. Or have Inese do whatever she does and give me a heads up.”
 
A bit of metal clanged behind me and I jumped, but the hallway was clear.
 
Must’ve been the vents.
 
“I do my best,” Pops said. “What about the kids? How’d they do on the field?”
 
“Well, Lance has a good hand with swords, and he’s exactly the type of guy we need right now, but he’s inexperienced and brash.”
 
Pops snorted. “You’re one to talk. What about Tim?”
 
“Besides being Community, he’s a good kid with a good heart, and he managed to hack the Camaraderie’s communications without them batting an eye. I didn’t get a chance to see his shooting skills, but if you want to get Crush on the ground again, Tim should be able to run navigation without a problem.”
 
Pops cleared his throat. “And my granddaughter?”
 
I pressed closer to the wall.
 
Jack grunted. “She needs Inese to teach her to gather intelligence without being caught.”
 
“What do you mean?”
 
“Given that she’s been listening for the past five minutes…”
 
Heat rushed to my cheeks as the door swung open. Jack smirked. “Come in, kid. Your ears must be burning.” I stared at him, mortified, but he waved me in and pulled the door shut behind us.
 
Pops stroked his beard, evaluating me. “How long have you been out there?”
 
“Since you were arguing about the reason you sent Gwen to Guatemala,” I said sheepishly.
 
Jack patted my shoulder. “See? What’d I tell ya? She has a knack for the sneaky spy stuff. All she needs now is some training.”
 
Pops fixed him with a glare and sipped at his coffee. “I’m guessing you have questions about the mission?”
 
“Actually—my parents.”
 
Pops motioned to a chair with his coffee mug, and I sat, twining my fingers around the pendant’s chain in my pocket. “I want them to know I’m alive, and what’s going on in the world. The beasties, the powers. Everything.”

Anyway, her tendency to try overhearing information she’s not supposed to know continues in Fractured Skies... though she hasn’t quite learned how not to get caught.

To fill you in on this excerpt, Jenna has just left the room where she has been eavesdropping on someone she’s not sure she trusts. She’s trying to gather information about the people she’s currently stuck with.

I stepped over Quin’s legs into the other room. He still stared at the wall, his expression blank. I bit my lip, and then slid down next to him. “Hey.”
 
“Done eavesdropping?”
 
I stared at him. He hadn’t moved an inch, save to speak. His hands were clasped over his knees, his chin tilted toward the glass window in the ceiling. His black hair was cropped less than half an inch from his ears, the most Community-oriented hairstyle I’d seen in a while, though he wasn’t Community. He had a rounded face, a smooth, beardless chin, and a lean form. His tunic hugged his chest but gave his arms space for movement.
 
“You heard me?” I wrapped my vines close. This guy could easily beat me in a fight. Hopefully Pops was right to trust him.
 
“Didn’t hear you,” he corrected me, still staring at the window. Aside from the reflection of that creepy blue light, there was nothing of interest outside. “You walked by, but once you went to the other room, they didn’t acknowledge your presence. I figured you were trying not to be seen.”
 
“Um…” I closed my mouth, not really sure what to say. “Does it… I mean—”
 
A small smile formed at the edge of his lips. “I’m not mad at you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
 
“She’s your partner, so I didn’t know—”
 
He snorted, still staring at that confounded window. “She’s my sister, and I’m a mercenary. Mercenaries eavesdrop.”
 
“I’m not a mercenary,” I protested, vines quivering with annoyance. Months ago, they responded to my thoughts at a snail’s pace. Now they responded to all my thoughts.
 
“I didn’t say you were.”
 
I scowled. “You implied it.”
 
“No. I meant only that if I eavesdrop, I should not be angry when others eavesdrop.”
 
I blinked. Someone who worked for the Camaraderie who talked sense?

Once we get to Starless Night, however, Jenna has a whole new tool for eavesdropping… telepathy. Granted, she’s not always aware she’s using it (and she does have a pesky brain seed that keeps trying to take over and loves using it for her) but the more the seed influences her, the better she gets.

Here, in this excerpt from the beginning of Starless Night, she’s still not that great at using telepathy to read minds.

It doesn’t help that, perhaps, there’s more to the butler than he lets be known.

Though Lady Black droned on, her butler observed me with a cutting blue gaze. Uneasiness flitted through me.

Something about that butler…

My thoughts strained to reach his surface thoughts. Why did he make me so nervous? Tell me who you are…

I slammed into a steel wall of nothing.

You may call me Stuart, Miss Nickleson, he responded, his mental voice chillingly precise. I am Lady Black’s butler. And you will find that I am not so generous as the ambassadors regarding who I allow into my head. If you have a question, you need only ask. I am quite forthcoming on a good many topics.

I swallowed hard, ducking my head so I didn’t have to see him watching me. I’d done it again—tried reading someone’ s mind without thinking about how I didn’t want them reading mine.

And that’s it for Jenna sneaking around today and eavesdropping today!

Do you have any favorite characters with sneaky skills? 🙂

* * *

Sneak around with Jenna in the Distant Horizon series!

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!

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October 25, 2025 · 7:56 am

The Power of Laser Eyes

Today, I want to talk about a power that doesn’t get a whole lot of visibility in the Distant Horizon series (yet), but has been seen in The Glitch Saga:

Laser eyes.

Laser eyes is what it sounds like… the ability to shoot lasers from your eyes. That being said… what kind of lasers is still in question.

At this point in the currently-published stories, they are mostly highly focused, high-powered beams of damaging light. There are still plenty of related possibilities which have yet to be explored.

And, while it’s the name of a pre-Camaraderie group (the LEU, or Laser Elementals United), this has yet to referenced in any of the currently published stories. They were a band of misfits who were open to all power users… though they didn’t tend to get along well with the Super Bureau (the superheroes of the superheroes vs villains era).

Once I eventually get a chance to revise Little One, we’ll see more about the LEU.

As for the dangers of laser eyes, Tim is all too familiar with them, as evidenced in a scene from Spirits of a Glitch:

The elevator dings and rumbles open to the final floor. I bolt for the hangar. I created a temporary lock on the life support systems in the area, but the heater hums too softly to be running at anything other than minimum capacity.

Another hack, and I skirt through the next two doors.

A red beam of light flashes beside me. My heart jumps to the back of my mouth. Heat scorches the wall. Multiple eyes form along the Manticore’s hull, pulsing with crimson energy. I duck behind the command console near the doors and plug my tablet into the mainframe port.

The Legion Spore (and the Manticore) use laser eyes as their primary weapon against other ships (except when dealing with a glitch). Hence why the Camaraderie is so intent on having power users with laser eyes among those who would make the merge into the monstrous contraption.

Still, little is known about how the power actually works. As mentioned in Distant Horizon:

“We should’ve brought Tim along,” Lance whispered. “He could’ve set them straight.”

I sighed. “I don’t think he knows any more than they do. Besides, we can’t go back in time—it’s not scientifically possible.”

“Superpowers aren’t scientifically possible, either,” Lance said.

I glowered in his general direction. “Powers do have a logical explanation. At least, some do. Some are weird. Like laser eyes. How can a person shoot lasers from their eyes? Wouldn’t that burn out their retinas?”

“You tell me. You’re the one reading Pops’ dissertation.”

Granted, it has been a couple decades since Pops wrote his dissertation, so more may be known than what the rebels have access to.

Regardless of its oddity (some powers, such as reality bending, laser eyes, and phase-through, do seem to bend the laws of physics), the Camaraderie of Evil likes to make use of the ability.

In fact, when Isaac and I first put together a list of powers for use in this universe, we created four categories: Mental, Reality Shift, Physical, and Elemental. Though we’ve changed the categories somewhat since we started writing this series, we’ve kept several of the powers that fell into the reality shift section.

Among those powers are fourthwalling (later split into reality bending and insight… with “fourthwallers” being related to a specific cult), flying, shapeshifting, phase-through, laser eyes, portal creation, power steal, luck/probability manipulation, alchemy, and invisibility.

Fractured Skies delves a bit deeper into the insight power, alchemy, and briefly touches on probability manipulation. And Initiated goes full scale into reality bending. But, given time, you’ll eventually see all of them. We hope you stick around to see how it all plays out. 🙂

Here’s an example of laser eyes being used in a battle during Fractured Skies.

Lily pointed to a black helicopter coming in low. A vested, shadowy figure raised a rifle to its shoulder while another stood nearby, eyes glowing a faint red. “Heads down!” She and Quin dropped to their knees behind the boxes. Mom shrieked, covering her head with her arms while Dad threw himself over her. Inese ducked, but a blast of red light smacked her in the chest, sending her sprawling.

“Inese!” I crawled after her, but Quin grabbed my foot and yanked me back. A bullet ricocheted off the concrete where I would’ve been.

“Special Forces agents work together,” Quin said simply. “So should we.”

Eventually we’ll see even more cases of laser eyes in use. 👁️

* * *

Neither Jenna, nor Tim, are much a fan of laser eyes…

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.
Whispers in the Code Book Cover

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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October 11, 2025 · 8:03 am

A Focus on the Telepathy Power

There are a bunch of powers in the Distant Horizon universe, from Tim’s techno sight ability to mentally connect with computers to Jenna’s elemental ability to manipulate plant growth and use super speed. Previously, I’ve talked about the life-spirit power and it’s ability to save or suspend lives.

Today, let’s talk about telepathy.

There are several uses for telepathy, including the common ability to read minds and broadcast thoughts for communication, to the more obscure abilities of possession, and even more skilled (albeit nefarious) trick of planting specific memories in a target’s thoughts.

It’s the latter I want to focus on today. Tim got a taste of this in The Glitch Saga.

But Jenna… she deals a lot with the finer troubles of telepathy.  While she’s not a telepath herself, a certain notorious Lady Winters leaves a set of memory seeds in Jenna’s head—seeds which, over time, attack her mind with false memories and nightmares meant to leave her more susceptible to future telepathic attacks. The primary seed she has to deal with in Distant Horizon is of beastie transformation, which proves burdensome while she’s trying to search a beastie plant.

Here’s an excerpt from Distant Horizon:

The winding corridor opened to rows upon rows of floor-to-ceiling tanks, each filled with thick, greenish fluid. Bubbles traveled up the tubes, passing over occupants who had been stripped of everything but a breath mask. A helpless, sickening sensation spread through me. I stared at the liquid, petrified.

Lady Winters dragged me into a tube and shoved me inside, the numbing liquid surrounding me, slick against my skin. Burning.

I needed to escape, to breathe, to run—

“Let’s not open these doors, ‘kay?” Jack said, jarring me from my nightmare. I glared at him, but for once, I didn’t mind his sarcasm. Lady Winters had taken joy in giving me that memory. Her identity charm rustled against the fabric of my shirt.

“Isn’t there some way we can help them?” I asked.

“By the time they’re here, it’s too late.” Inese motioned to the tanks around us.

I closed my hands into fists. Lance pushed me forward, and as we passed the tanks, one of the occupants woke. Bubbles erupted around her mask. Her eyes bulged, terrified. She pounded her fists on the glass.

Lance stepped back, despite all his show for strength, but I saw my reflection. It placed me in that tube—in that thick, unknown liquid with its sense of helplessness…

I flinched and turned away. I was betraying the people who were imprisoned here, but every time I looked at them, I was the prisoner.

A memory seed tends to use some sort of outside world trigger (in this case, the beastie tanks), to activate a pre-planted memory. In some cases, the victim will be aware they’re the target of an attack, and in some cases they’ll simply react without knowing why. In other cases, the victim is trapped in the memory, only aware of of what the memory is showing them.

The more skilled the telepath, the harder it is to remove these seeds. Unfortunately for Jenna, Lady Winters is one of the most skilled telepaths within the Camaraderie. And, unfortunately, the memory seeds makes it a tad difficult for her to do research that the rebels need in order to combat the Camaraderie.

Here’s a look at one such scene in Fractured Skies.

I huddled under a mass of vines, Tim’s tablet in my lap. All the lights were on, and I’d made sure the flower charm was nestled firmly against my skin. There was a good chance the charm was the only thing that was going to keep me from having a memory attack. I pressed the icon on the tablet for the Legion Spore folder. A list of files popped up. Some of the documents contained lines of code—gibberish I had no hope of understanding. But some of the documents looked promising, more like a research paper.
 
Biology—a science I understood.
 
My heart pulsed in my wrists, warning me this was a bad idea. But if I wanted control of my memories, I had to understand what the Legion Spore was and what it could do.
 
I opened the first document:
 
The Legion Spore is an experimental project requiring beasts and power users to be merged with a computer AI to form a single entity of enormous capability and power. To do this, the Legion Spore utilizes a hub system. This system consists of both beasts and power users, each assigned to use their powers for specific tasks while being linked to a single mainframe.
 
That must have been why I heard multiple voices when the Legion Spore spoke, why it sounded like a discordant chorus. If everyone was trying to think at once, with so many voices crying in pain…
 
The tablet shook in my fingers.
 
I could do this. I could read a simple research paper without freaking out because of some stupid thoughts in my head.
 
For mobility, the Legion Spore flies by utilizing a combination of air and fire elementals who provide the upper membrane with hot gas. In order to conserve space, the air sacs may be deflated while inside a hangar. The hull of the ship, including the membrane, is formed from the bodies of shapeshifters.
 
I stared at the words. I’d seen all of this before. Not personally, but I’d seen what Lady Winters showed me in the memory attacks. The shapeshifters had been tied to the outer steel frame, a grid of interlinked metal that created the skeleton of the hull. The other beasties and humans were forced to kneel inside a tower of cages. Though the structure was metal, it was mostly empty space and not much bigger than a cargo-hold. Wires ran around their skulls and across their bodies, and into glass tubes between them…
 
Cold sweat poured down my back.
 
Dear Community, how could anyone have supported this project?
 
The vessel is mostly organic, and entirely self-sustaining. Like the Portuguese Man O’ War that it was designed to resemble, the Legion Spore ensnares its prey with long tentacles, targeting organic matter and devouring it through the use of various acidic agents. This may prove doubly useful in battle, as the Legion Spore can feed itself while targeting enemy combatants.
 
The Legion Spore ate people?
 
The room wavered in the corners of my vision. My stomach revolted. I closed my eyes and took quick, shallow breaths. I needed a drink of water—
 
I needed to get through this document first. This was a short one. The more I understood, the better off I’d be against the Legion Spore next time.
 
Even if the ship did eat its enemies.
 
Once its prey is devoured, the nutrients go to the Legion Spore’s nutrient tanks. These tanks feed into the hull of the ship, which mimics the flesh and muscle of various warm-blooded creatures—
 
The fleshy hull stretched out before me, veins pulsing underneath its skin. A sour odor drifted to my nose, but when I tried to wipe it away, a thin tentacle caught my hand.
 
Thud-thump.
 
A heart was beating.
 
Thud-thump. Thud-thump. Thud-thump.
 
My heart pounded, each thump growing louder as other beating hearts joined in.
 
A column of thinly covered muscle rose above me as the tentacle dragged me toward a seething, bleeding organ. I couldn’t let it take me! I yanked my hand from the tentacle and fled to a small door at the end of the vessel. A sticky hand grabbed my ankle. I careened to the ground. Airy whispers filled my head, vying for attention. My eyes were dry from the heat of the ship. I was on the top level, next to the air sac. Hot air swirled above me. Their murmurs tickled my ear.
 
We are legion…
 
No—I couldn’t let it catch me—couldn’t let it trick me into revealing the location of the Coalition. I pounded on its walls. I had to get out—

Needless to say, Jenna is ready to put a stop to the memory seeds’ attacks, and much of Fractured Skies revolves around her searching for a solution to the problem of those seeds.

Eventually we get to Starless Night, where, without giving too many spoiler, Jenna discovers that the memory seed is a lot more involved than she first thought, and considerably more dangerous. Because, what might happen if a telepath leaves more of themselves in a seed than anyone realizes?

* * *

Join Jenna’s fight with memory seeds in the Distant Horizon series!

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!

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September 27, 2025 · 8:22 am

A Focus on the Life-Spirit Power

There are a bunch of powers in the Distant Horizon Universe, and at some point I’ll go into detail about all 40-something powers that Isaac and I listed for use in the original role-playing campaign that we played, with each power divided between one of four categories: Mental, Physical, Reality Shift, and Elemental.

Today I want to focus on the “elemental” category, and in specific, the “life-spirit” power.

The life part is easy. A life-spirit elemental typically has healing abilities and can sense the presence of living beings around them.

Here’s an example from Distant Horizon, with a character who uses a combination of healing and telepathy to do her work (slightly edited to avoid spoilers):


I rested my elbow on my knee as Gwen moved to treating Lance. It’ll be okay, I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how much this elderly woman could help us.

Over the next half hour, the bruises cleared from Lance’s face and the deep scratches turned to faint scars. Finally, Gwen leaned against the wall and rubbed her eyes.

Lance rotated his shoulder as if he’d never been wounded. “What’d’ya do?”

“My power is in healing: the ability to save or suspend lives.” She rubbed her forehead gingerly, then looked at me. “It’s your turn. I won’t go deep in your thoughts; I just use telepathy to find the damage.”

I swallowed hard, then felt something else—be there. She was present, searching across my mind, but she wasn’t intrusive. Each memory was tucked away, as if it’d come unbidden, and her presence was friendly. When she did find pain, the memory flashed to the surface and vanished as quickly.

I tried to focus on memories I didn’t mind her seeing, drowsy as she soothed the grazed shoulder and eased the bruises.

However, when it comes to the “spirit” side, that’s when the details get trickier. Life-spirit elementals can “suspend” lives, partially removing a person’s spirit and causing them to go unconscious, or even remove a person’s spirit completely, killing them in the process.

An example from Whispers in the Code:

“Have the Legion Spore remove her spirit,” Commander Rick says, “then dispose of the corpse.”

My throat constricts. I know that it isn’t practical to keep the scout around, but there’s still something unsettling about the idea of having just been in the mind of someone about to die. “Dispose?”

“The Legion Spore needs nutrients and, this way, there will be no evidence for the Oriental Alliance to find,” Commander Rick explains.

What he leaves unspoken sends shivers down my neck. “You want it” —I swallow hard— “to eat her?”

Commander Rick glances at me, and his cocked eyebrows indicates that he understands I’m not ready to give that command. I know he’s right. The process is efficient, but the idea doesn’t settle in my stomach.

Legion Spore, remove her spirit, he sends.

Her head lolls. I detect one less presence of life through the vessel’s scanners.

Legion Spore—consume the remaining body for sustaining nutrients.

Dozens of tiny, translucent tendrils extend from the ivory floor, wrapping around her body. They flatten against her arms and chest and her skin dissolves, revealing the muscle and bone beneath. The body melts away. I force myself to watch, despite the terror creeping through every pore of my skin.

Within a minute, she’s gone.


On the farthest extreme, a life-spirit elemental can bind their spirit (or someone else’s) to an artifact, separate from a body, and thus allow a person to live on as a spirit, rather than die. It’s a tricky process, and not easily achieved.

But a few notorious figures have succeeded. Benjamin (the enthusiastic alchemist we see in the Glitch saga, and who has a cameo in Distant Horizon) is one such spirit.

Another scene from Whispers in the Code (again, slightly edited to avoid spoilers):


Benjamin’s sharp features glow a faint blue. His crisp sleeves are rolled past his elbows, and he wears a work apron over his shirt. His pockets are filled with small tools that may or may not be apparition. He’s odd like that. Sometimes he only manifests the appearance of a craftsman, while at other times, the tools are actually present.

Most noticeable, however, are his wire frame spectacles, green eyes, and his spiky, dark red hair, their colors prominent even with the lack of color across the rest of his translucent body. He’s also got a slightly mad gleam in his eye, though my encounters with the man suggest he’s mostly sane.

Benjamin grins and soundlessly claps his hands. Wonderful! Shall I take amber or emerald? His thoughts echo in my head with the determined curiosity that his voice might have held in life.


The upside of being a spirit is having additional powers. Once a person becomes a spirit, they automatically gain access to telepathy, life-spirit powers (because that’s how they sustain themselves), telekinesis, and to some extent, enhanced insight. However, it still takes them time for them to learn how to use their new powers to interact with the world, and even to manifest, unless they’ve had practice with such powers in their former life.

There are a few downsides to being a spirit, though.

First, they’re attached to an artifact. If their artifact gets destroyed, they die. Also, radiation, life-spirit powers, and electricity become much more damaging. “Shielding,” which temporarily shuts down powers, is especially devastating, since a spirit can’t manifest without access to their powers.

Still, it’s a trade-off some characters are willing to take, and one we see to an extent in Fractured Skies, and definitely becomes more of an issue in the Starless Night.

What do you think? Would you want to be a life-spirit elemental in that universe?

(Bonus: Life-spirit elementals also tend to have a natural bonus against telepaths and those with enhanced charisma!)

* * *

Life-spirit powers play a huge role in the Distant Horizon and Glitch series.

And if you don’t mind diving right into the action, Whispers in the Code is free at most online ebook retailers!

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.
SBibb - Whispers in the Code Cover

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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September 13, 2025 · 8:17 am

Did you know you can get our books on Kobo Plus?

📚 There are many subscription options available in the reading/publishing world. Here, I’m going to briefly talk about two of them… Kindle Unlimited, and Kobo Plus.

The most well-known one is probably Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited (KU). A huge selection of books for $12.00. If you’re on a budget and don’t have access to a large local library selection (or want niche books that are harder to get through libraries), then Kindle Unlimited can seem like a pretty good deal.

However, for authors, it comes with a catch.

The biggest one is that any ebooks in KU (at least for independent publishers) must be exclusive to KU during the 90 day period that they’re enrolled (or longer, if the author chooses to extend the contract).

That said, very recently, Amazon has moved to allow KU books to be made available for public libraries, which is a huge win for both authors and readers. (Previously, you most likely wanted your books in Kobo’s Overdrive if you wanted library reach).

For more details, I found these two articles:

I’ve used Kindle Unlimited before, both for Glitch and for Huntress, but I ultimately chose to pull our books from KU because I’m really not a fan of exclusivity, or of the issue of “having all my eggs in one basket.”

Because of that, I’m like Kobo Plus.

While I haven’t, as a reader, used it for myself, Isaac did use the monthly Kobo audiobook credit subscription for a while, which was quite nice.

Now, as a writer I like Kobo Plus, because it offers an inexpensive way for readers to access my books ($7.99 a month) without requiring me to be exclusive with Kobo.

Woot!

So, if you read a lot of books and want to try a subscription service, have a look at Kobo Plus. 😁

(Psst… here’s where you can find our books on Kobo!)

(Note: I am not affiliated with Amazon or Kobo.
I don’t earn affiliate bonuses through your use of either subscription).

* * *

A few first-in-series to get you started on Kobo…

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.
Huntress Book Cover
Book Cover for Magic's Stealing

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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August 16, 2025 · 8:58 am

Magical Guardians

In both the Glitch saga and Distant Horizon series, we see the mention of “time stones,” strange artifacts protected by a mythological guardian. While they’re only researched in Glitch, (and used as bait to lure the rebels into a trap), Jenna and the Coalition of Freedom, a ragtag team of rebels, are a bit more adventurous with these things in Distant Horizon. They have a hands-on experience with a time stone in the first book, and continue to deal with these stones in Fractured Skies.

Here’s a peek at their introduction to one of the guardians in Fractured Skies:

(SPOILER WARNING! – There are two characters present here who aren’t introduced until the beginning of Fractured Skies, so if you don’t want to know who is involved in this scene from later in the book, you may want to skip the quote block).

I grabbed the radio from my pocket. “Inese? Where are—”

A portal appeared in front of us with Inese, Dad, and Lance tumbling through. The portal closed and Inese—with the stone—skidded to a halt, staring at the statues. “Here, too?” Her eyes widened. She clutched the stone to the black body armor of her chest with one hand, her pistol in the other.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Lance,” Inese snapped, “portal to the car, now!”

“Sure thing.” Lance wiped perspiration from his forehead as another portal swirled in front
of us. “Let’s go before that mummy comes back.”

“Mummy?” Lily yipped. “The mummies are alive, too?”

“They’re not exactly living,” Lance muttered.

“They’re spirits,” Dad clarified, breathing hard. Dark purple rings colored the underside of his eyes. Inese disappeared through the portal. The rest of us followed them to the museum roof. Dust swirled around us, revealing the location of the car in faint, shifting sand. I yanked the edge of my turtleneck shirt over my nose. Inese slammed the driver’s door shut behind her and the car went visible. I hopped in. Lily dived in behind me and yanked the door shut. Outside, trees bent against the wind, leaves whipping across the roof as the sky turned a deep, rouge red. Dark yellow dust clouds rolled in the sky, crackling with electricity.

“Inese…” Dad pointed into the distance. “That’s not a statue.”

Bright, white light traced the outline of a giant lion with the face of a man. It stepped through the cityscape, purple lightning wrapping around it and flaring in bright streaks. Lily’s jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Lance shook his head. “After the mummies, nope. Not kidding.”

A deep, resounding voice pounded through my head, overriding my thoughts.

Return the stone.

I froze, my hands clenched on the edge of the seat. The voice of the guardian echoed in my head. A thick blanket of dark sand blasted the windows, obscuring the sphinx.

As seen here, one of the guardians has the appearance of a sphinx. Each one references a different mythology, and each one has a different set of powers:

  • Guatemala – Jaguar shapeshifter with power stealing
  • Japan – Asian dragon with water powers
  • Egypt – Sphinx with radiation and electricity powers
  • Peru – A puma earth elemental with radiation powers
  • India – A representation of Durga with healing powers, riding a lion mount

They all tend to be protective of their stones. They’re also extremely powerful spirits… making them difficult to steal from.

Not impossible, but not without cost.

And then trying to keep those stones is another story entirely…

* * *

See the interaction of the team with some of these guardians in the Distant Horizon series!

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!

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August 11, 2025 · 10:30 am

Infinitas Publishing – Status Report

Time for the April through mid-August Infinitas Publishing status report! 📋

Despite this primarily being during the so-called “chaos months” (in this case, lots of things happening that disrupt routine… including a couple of “meh” life events that weren’t planned, of which one is still ongoing), a lot of stuff got done, and I’m excited to go back through my planner and record it all here. 😁

The chaos months are only sort of over, but we’ve finished the big move and brought home a cat, so that’s one relief. (I even figured out where to put the fancy printer so I could prep for the June events!)

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

Warning… there’s a lot. (That’s a good thing!)

* * *

Changing Tides: (Book 4 of the Distant Horizon series). 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.

Betrayed (Deceived #2): I’ve posted the launch review! If you’re looking for a deep dive into my launch process for this book, that’s the post to read.

Next up, revising Deceived #3 (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 continued this story a bit further, adding two more chapters before completion. This also included adding a Daz render and dossier for Agent Shepherd. I’ve also done one more revision pass, but I feel something else needs added before formatting and sending it out to beta-readers.

While I was originally thinking I’d make this exclusive for newsletter subscribers, I’m now leaning toward making it a free or 99cent “1.5” book available in the Deceived series.

Multiverse Chronicles (Distant Horizon Universe Spin-off): I’ve started sharing this with the Distant Horizon Universe newsletter! After several years of being relegated to the back burner, the prologue and first seven chapters have been fully revised, edited in ProWritingAid, and sent out to newsletter subscribers. Fortunately, the majority of this has been edited already, with the exception of one chapter that Isaac and I both somehow missed writing, so it mostly just needs light revisions.

TWB 4: (Book Four of The Wishing Blade series). On hold. Next step is to add the remaining outline to Scrivener, review that outline for missing plot points, and then write the rough draft.

Legends of Cirena Volume One Ebook Cover

The Legends of Cirena Volume One (Collection of books 1-6): Released! (Including on Google Play and Smashwords, which I hadn’t uploaded previously).

I did a small launch of paid promos (which I still need to analyze), as well as sent extra book details to the Wishing Blade universe newsletter for each included story.

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): While this was on hold during the early chaos months, my goal was to finish the missing scenes during July. Which happened!

I completed a round of revisions on the already-written scenes, added in the missing scenes, and input ProWritingAid’s Manuscript Analysis feedback, with a few notes left behind for future tweaks.

I’ve been letting it sit for a couple weeks before I begin the next stage of revisions. Then it’ll be ready for ProWritingAid edits, any final AutoCrit Analysis tweaks, and then it’s off to beta-readers!

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 completed a full revision pass of the original six chapters, and drafted intermediary chapters for a secondary character (four complete, two to go, with one of those being outlined but not drafted). Those will still need polishing edits in ProWritingAid.

Additionally… while it’s not decided for certain, the secondary character’s perspective might allow me to start foreshadowing a much larger antagonist that appears later in the Wishing Blade world. (*Squee!*)

There’s a strong chance that this is going to be part of a new arc in the Legends of Cirena series (The Dark Forest of Aneth will conclude the previous arc while also laying the foundation for the new arc).

Future goals: Polish cover. Create blurb.

Untitled LoC Short Story (Standalone – Merchant in Reveratch): This story concluded with seven chapters, so I have drafted, polished and sent two additional chapters to the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter since the last update.

I’ve set aside the current manuscript so I can fully review it later with a fresh set of eyes. This is another story which will likely be part of the next Legends of Cirena arc.

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): I’ve outlined the next story to appear in the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter (5,400 words). I am really excited about the possibility for this one to connect with the larger Litkanston War arc, because I finally, finally get to introduce Lord Nomca. And it’s not even exactly a cameo, like I originally expected (he’s briefly referenced in the Wishing Blade series, but hadn’t yet made an appearance in any other stories). I’m currently working on chapter six, and the full draft (being revised/edited as each chapter goes out to the newsletter) is 13,300 words. I’m definitely expecting this to go into novella-length territory, if not that of a short novel. Six of the chapters have already been sent to the newsletter.

The Wind Mage and the Wolf Spin-Off (A Legends f Cirena short story) : I made some progress to Joran’s short story! I’ve revised what was already there and made note of a couple spots that still need work. Additionally, I’ve started cross-referencing the final scene in The Wind Mage and the Wolf from Joran’s point of view.

This will go to newsletter subscribers first, but I may make it a “7.5” story in the Legends of Cirena arc.

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

Huntress 3: On hold. Next step is to finish re-reading Changeling to make notes on the series guide, finalize the cover (proof created), and create a detailed outline.

Horse Shifter Romantasy (Maybe???) : This one was a surprise to me, too. 🐎

Unrelated to any of my current story worlds, this one got a lot farther along than I ever expected it to. (Thank a co-worker talking about fanfiction and me happening to be processing a book with a horse on its cover at the time). But it’s been a nice “refresher” story that’s allowed me to go running into the weeds with world-building ideas without falling down a rabbit hole in the other worlds (which often happens during chaos months when I can’t put my full attention on any particular project).

It currently has a 5,500 word outline, with additional details on the side. I’ve been using AutoCrit’s analysis features to figure out where I’m missing crucial beats and what details could still use fleshing out, and let me tell you, I’m excited for the world, the magic system, and the characters (and I think the characters might even actually be following the romance beats they’re supposed to, though that’s an area I notably have trouble writing).

If this gets written, it’s going to be because I wanted the challenge of writing a romance-focused story with really strong worldbuilding elements that tie directly into the plot.

Other Stories: I wrote a flash fiction short that I posted to Substack. This one was based on a picture Isaac created:

I also did a revision pass for the YA Alien Invasion/Dystopian story, which does need a bit more work before I’m ready to release it. The next step is to review the AutoCrit analysis to see if there’s any feedback I want to input before the next stage.

I also discovered there’s a fantasy anthology I’m interested in submitting to, so I’ve been outlining possible short story ideas I might use for my submission. I’ve got two so far:

  • One involves a grumpy sorcerer who wants to be left alone, and a sorceress who’s stuck in the form of a bat-winged squirrel and steals his pears to drag him out of his garden. Definitely a short story.
  • The other is a “love-wins-in-the-end” story involving refugees fleeing from evil ice mages whose single-minded fear/hatred has narrowed their magic to one purpose, and the refugees find support within a protective community whose magic hasn’t become so narrowly focused. Pretty sure this one is itching to be a novella.

Game Design: Not a whole lot of new updates for Anchor, but Isaac did a bit more prototype work and we’ve acquired a few more test pieces for future prototype testing.

He also reviewed our Legends of Cirena game and made notes for a shorter version of the game, and we went over some possible changes for a future edition of Battle Decks (and I like these changes, because while it’s still a war game, a new morale mechanic puts more emphasis on keeping your characters alive rather than using secondary characters as canon fodder).

Testing AutoCrit: I did a two-week trial of AutoCrit, a writing software with an analytical feature I’ve been wanting to try for a while. Mostly I uploaded previously completed manuscripts into its Story Analyzer tool to see how it did at finding loose plot threads, with hopes that it might make writing later books easier if I can quickly review what’s happened previously. Seemed to be potential there, and I liked its Story Builder tool for being able to analyze missing plot beats, so I went ahead and subscribed for a month.

Afterward, I finally went in for a year on this, because I rather like its Story Builder feature for organizing my thoughts, and because I like being able to write a chapter and then analyze it for potential issues (though I’ll admit that its analysis features are a bit hit and miss).

Additionally, while first exploring the AutoCrit Story Builder analysis features (not so much the generation features), I started exploring what I’m temporarily calling the “Greedy Adventurer” story idea, which now has a very loose outline but may influence Litkanston history within the Wishing Blade universe.

That said, because the AutoCrit tools (and the ProWritingAid chapter critique tool I like) does use Generative AI, I crafted an AI use policy so others can easily see how I do and don’t use AI.

Long story short, I don’t use generative AI for images or creating/writing the actual story, but at this point in time I do use writing-specialized genAI tools for the purpose of analyzing what I’ve already written and occasionally trying to brainstorm through a block.

As a note… I have also been trying to see what other AI features might be useful in analysis, helping organize my thoughts when it comes to quickly finding what I’ve already written, or searching for comp titles of books that I might not have considered previously. The AI policy goes more into that.

Still no plans to use it for image generation, however.

Marketing: The last several months had far less focus on marketing than the previous month. Meanwhile, these are some of the recent projects:

  • Amazon Ads same as usual, the ones that were already running and one extra as a test.
  • I created a list of my books by publication and word count for my personal use. Eventually I want to create a simple web page guide.
  • I did some research on various book pricing strategies, and I might update book prices in the near future.
  • I scheduled Initiated for a BookFunnel promo that ran in May and July, and I scheduled promos for June and August with Stone and String. It’s all scheduled and ready to send. I’ve also started doing author book swaps again where we exchange books to highlight in our newsletters.
  • The newsletters have been going out on time with their respective stories, so yay for that! (Apparently having one story in progress, and one that only needs revisions on a chapter-by-chapter basis, is working really well for me). I also finally did a scrub to remove subscribers who haven’t opened any of the newsletters in over a year.
  • I updated the design for the Distant Horizon Universe book pages on the Infinitas Publishing website. Minor tweaks, but should ultimately look better once all the details are in place (Goal is to add sample pages, Goodreads/BookBub links, additional book info, etc).
  • I kept up with Infinitas Publishing accounting through May… woot! Now it needs updated again.
  • I created my first book-themed quiz, and created a new “Extras” page on the Infinitas Publishing website! Check out the “Which of our series should you start with?” quiz!
  • I finally finished setting up the Payhip/Stripe Store accounts and linked them to BookFunnel, and I even created pages for the first six Legends of Cirena ebooks! They can now be purchased directly from me.
  • I tinkered with the idea of audiobooks, and I recorded chapter one of The Wind Mage of Maijev and tested editing the recording using Audacity. Thus far, I think if I plan to proceed with the process, I’ll likely need to re-record that chapter for better enunciation on my part. No big plans for that at this point.
  • I’ve been trying to get back into writing and marketing research, both with reading articles and listening to more podcasts and webinars. I picked up the Newsletter Ninja’s “Launch to Your List” course and I’m 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 – Sporadic posting at the moment, due to the chaos months, though I did get a couple more writing tip roundups posted. I also created a Tip Jar.

Weekly(ish) Writing Tip Round-Ups:

Crafting Your Fictional World:

A while back I’d started writing a non-fiction book focused on world-building, and while I haven’t made much more progress in that regards, I did post a couple of the chapters to Substack.

Repurposing Old Newsletter Content:

For a while now, I’ve been considering going back through my older newsletters and repurposing some of the behind-the-scenes content. I got the extra push to move forward with this plan upon learning that blog content is not only good for SEO (whee… the search engines can find you and point more readers your direction, yay!), but might also be good in the age of AI search engines, which seem to be interested in context when doing searches. And sense more search engines are moving to AI-powered searches… yeah. Now I get to have fun revisiting those older newsletters and updating them for the blog. (And this actually is fun for me. The content’s already there, and just needs revising, so it’s cool seeing what I did in the past for newsletters and what I might want to start doing again).

Events: June was busy with three events. Two we vended at, and the third was a writing workshop that we attended.

UP Rainbow Pride (Marquette) – June 14th

Lots of fun, and we tested a more condensed display with our SIFlint Art (the dragons) at the front to draw people in. To our surprise, the tote bags did really well (I need to order more of the yarn dragon now), and this definitely did better this year than last. We even had someone come looking for book two in a series. Yay!

The booth at UP Rainbow Pride

Writers of Warrensburg Workshop – June 22nd

We got a chance to reconnect with friends from Missouri in what was a combination trip to visit family, attend the writing workshop, and return to Michigan with our new cat, Baby Girl Neelix.

The workshop was a lot of fun, with three presentations and four great presenters, and a lot of helpful information. Plus, we got to participate in the author signing after.

An orange cat in a harness sits between car seats.

Hancock Pride Market – June 29th

Because we didn’t have a local artist alley for Pride month, one of our friends put together an awesome local pride market that ended up being lots of fun, one of my favorite setups we’ve tried (grids to the max, and condensed setup!) and I’m definitely hoping this happens again next year.

Stephanie and Isaac stand in front of their booth at the Hancock Pride Market.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Mostly on hold for the moment, though I did do a photoshoot of my new houseplants I acquired from plant-sitting. I have chosen the ones for editing and done basic edits, but I still need to finish the bigger edits and send them to their previous owner.

I might also have another formatting project coming soon.

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: I finally got to print my shiny (literally, it’s on metallic paper!) dragon display!

I even printed my own business cards this time around. Wasn’t perfect (not happy with the paper chipping at the edges) but I’m still pretty satisfied with them.

Plus… Isaac made a shiny new self-serve sticker display! It’s been really nice so far (though we need to hot glue the back string on so it’ll stop falling off).

Goals: Finish the line-art for a bag-hoarding dragon, do a fun commission for a friend, and order new merch for upcoming events.

Daz PA: Though on hold for most of the chaos month, I’ve now returned to working on projects! Everything been updated to make it easier to work again, and I’m really glad Isaac and I made a Standard Operating Procedure for making poses last year. That really helped to fast-track me back to work on these.

I’ve finished reviewing the poses of the Leadership set Isaac started, which are ready for thumbnails. There’s been a bit of a hang-up on this one, however, because I’m hoping to include props… and it’s been a little while since I’ve done any 3D modeling. I’ve started designing a podium to go with the poses, but I need to review how to use Substance Painter so that the model (which is complete) looks decent.

In the meantime, I’ve started a “Cursed Expedition” centaur set that I’ve started making thumbnails for. Next step is to finish the thumbnails and create promo art.

Goals: Find collaborator for Genesis 9 Diverse Worlds set and complete the Ankylosaurus Rider pose set Isaac started. Maybe complete snow and ice texture pack idea?

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

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