Pre NaNo Writing Update

(images via Pinterest)

Here we go, it's that legendary time of the year where authors sell their souls for a little more coffee for a little more energy to get just a few more words in...

So they can write their novel in a month.

*shudders* *but like with anticipation*

I have /done/ NaNo before, for a few years now. I have won NaNo only once. Actually the book I won NaNo on was Of Gold and Iron, which I finally just released last month (don't forget about the special offer, there's still time to be a part of that!). The first time I did it I wrote 13k words instead of 50k but I went on to finish that book in April. And last year I was too burned out from writing A Season of Subterfuge in three months (it was 150k words long) that I didn't do anything.

So now here we stand on the cusp of NaNoWriMo in the very unfortunate year of 2020.

And it's time to get writing.

This year, as some of you may have already guessed, or maybe I announced it *is too lazy to check* my project is going to be Rage Like the Gods

Now in my long history of NaNos and Camp NaNos (all three years of it XD) and other writing challenges that I have done, I have discovered that, for me specifically it is best to not start a brand new project for a writing challenge. Because about 10-20k words in I start to wonder why I picked that project out of all my other stuff, and it sort of all falls apart.

Which is why I am confident in my choice of Rage Like the Gods because while it is a newer project, I am certainly not starting it. I'm already a quarter through. My current word count for this book is 39,129 words (am sooooo close to 40k and I need to remedy that quickly)

And since this is a multiple POV story I figured I should share what 

Eirik: 20,068 words

Thyre: 7,250 words

Dagmy: 6,123 words

Meruna: 5,688 words

and then I have a fifth POV that I haven't started yet, but I plan for that one to be much shorter than the other ones, more like a filling in the blanks of what happened in some other POVs. Sounds mysterious I know but that is just how Azern rolls.

And I know what you are thinking: this looks an awful lot like favoritism. Look I was just really feeling Eirik's story for a while back there, but I love all of my characters and all their stories. They are all so different in storylines it's hard to believe that they belong in the same book sometimes XD

Super excited to dive back in (I took a brief break on working on this in the past few weeks of October to prep for what comes next and write about 10k words in OGaI's sequel—more on that at a later date).

As for Inktober, I said I was doing a project where I drew my main characters in modern clothes. Well I have gotten about eight characters done, but I still have a handful more to do, so I shall refrain from sharing that art here until it's all done.

If you want to see what I have done so far check out my Insta Account.

That's all for now, happy writing and reading all. Are any of you doing NaNo? If so what is your project? Comment below!

A Paranormal Cover Reveal!

 

 

It's time to reveal the cover to Jes Drew's upcoming release, Genie and Serena, PIs (Paranormal Investigators): The Game of Boo and Other Short Stories. It's a bit of a mouthful for such a little book. Good thing it's pretty.

Don't believe me? See for yourself!

 

Genie and Serena are just a normal couple of girls... just kidding. As a dormant mermaid (she hasn't activated her genetic abilities yet), Genie is actually kind of normal- except for being kind of sheltered. At least she is compared to her cousin, the millennia old siren Serena. But as different as they are, the cousins are bound together by their mutual affection for each other- and their love of solving mysteries.

Together, Genie and Serena form a paranormal investigation business to celebrate Genie's first time in the real world- and away from both of their overbearing families. Together, they partner with actual normal human Keith and the newly immortalized Albert to solve cases that have to do with creatures from their side of the shadows.

Join them as they solve a murder mystery in a twisted game of Clue, track down a vampire hiding for his life, and deal with a lovesick dhampir named Virgil.

But there's nothing they can't handle together, right? 

Coming October 31!

 Pre-Order for only $0.99 Coming Soon 

With all profit going to Polaris so more children can be rescued from monsters.

Introducing... Rage Like the Gods

So I have a bit of a confession to make.

I have been working on a new wip since July

I refrained from announcing it since, let's be real here, I have a bit of a bad habit of dropping projects. I get too many ideas, I get too excited, and I start working on them without commitment only for those projects to be dumped in a gutter somewhere when a newer and shinier idea comes along. I didn't want to announce this new WIP and get you guys all excited for it if I was just going to drop it. I wanted to be sure. Especially since this is the first book in a five book long epic fantasy series. The odds weren't exactly in its favor, but this idea stuck with me. I kept getting inspiration, a plot for all five books, and characters that I really connected to.

I have been working on this book faithfully since July, and with another publication under my belt, not to mention more than 30,000 words already written I think it is high time to finally announce Rage Like the Gods.

So here we go, time to meet my darling...

(all images via Pinterest, credit goes to their original creators)

Another one of the reasons I have refrained from announcing this project is because it's a little hard to describe, and quite frankly I am terrified of trying to write a synopsis for this book. But anyway here is my best attempt to explain everything that is going on.

It's high fantasy, in fact it is the first book I'm actually writing to have elves in it, which is kind of crazy given how obsessed I am with Tolkien.

It's a story about the chosen one. Or in this case... the chosen ones. Each chosen by a different god to save the world from a rising cult of necromancers and the undead army they will unleash. Except half my characters don't know that they are the chosen ones and the other half can't be bothered. And so this book isn't the story of how they come together, but how they disperse across the four corners of the map and the trouble they get into in the meantime. As such it actually has four separate plots, told through the POVs of four of the chosen ones.

My characters...

(^^^ and all artwork below are my own)

Eirik is a bard with a questionable moral code and a dream to not only be madly wealthy but to be remembered forever in the songs. Alongside his best friend and fellow bard, Eirik sets out to find his fortune. Instead he runs into a noble warrior named Sassa, who he falls immediately in love with. Only problem is Sassa hates thieves. Determined to get the girl and get rich in the process, Eirik devises a scheme to rob the wealthy manor and the lord who hired him. He dons disguises and by day he is a dashing bard who works to woo Sassa, and at night he is a rougish thief, but how long can he keep up the act?

In search of a family, Thyre finds two. One a pack of werewolves who begrudgingly welcome her into their ranks when she is bitten by one of their own. The other a family of assassins who didn't give her a choice on whether she wanted to join or not. In one she finds kindness in a sweet werewolf and the other a kindred soul. Torn between two worlds, Thyre will do what it takes to protect her families. Even kill.

An exile, a mercenary, a skilled warrior and a... vampire. Dagmy is searching for a way to reclaim her honor, instead she contracts a terrible disease while working with a band of monster hunters. With her fellow mercenary Hakon, who she hired to aid her in her battles, and the giant dog he adopted, Dagmy must infiltrate a coven of vampires to learn their secrets. Perhaps then she can be cured.

As the daughter of a wealthy noble, Meruna is expected to marry to further her father's influence. But all Meruna cares about is exploring her talents in magic. She sets off to attend the college of magic, but runs into trouble almost immediately. Some priest claims that she is destined to save the world and has set his daughter, a nun with warrior-like skills, as her personal bodyguard. Meruna isn't about to let anything stop her from her education, not her family, not a prophecy, not her new sarcastic bodyguard, and not her handsome fellow student, Fell. But perhaps the ghosts of murdered college students merit some looking into...

And essentially that is Rage Like the Gods. For Inktober, I'm doing my own set of goals, which is to draw a character from RLtG a day. I have some super fun concepts that I can't wait to draw (plus I still need to do one of Dagmy and Hakon in the watercolor) which is why I have finally outed myself so now you will know who these characters I'm drawing are.

I will probably do a post at the end of October with an art dump. I'll also share the art on my Insta account @nickichapelwayauthor if you don't want to wait to get to know these characters more.

What do you guys all think of my new WIP? Which character's plot line looks the most interesting to you? Discuss below!

Of Gold and Iron release party

 Well I was planning on not doing this till October, but I finished up early, and it was the first day of fall, which for a book with a main character being an Autumn faerie... well I just found I couldn't resist. So I published Of Gold and Iron yesterday.

Which is, of course, all very exciting!

I actually wrote this book two years ago, but I didn't know what to do with it so I queried to a couple of publishers. I'm not going to lie, I thought Of Gold and Iron was going to get picked up when one publisher asked for a full manuscript and the other for more time to consider it. But it wasn't meant to be. And when those publishers eventually rejected it, I still didn't know what to do with my story. So there it sat on my hard drive a completely written novel, just gathering dust.

Until I made the impromptu decision to publish it myself. And now after all this time, it is finally out there and all ready to be read!

Find on Amazon

Only the ebook is out at this moment. The paperback is taking its good sweet time getting proofed.

Now I said at the end of August that I was working on a special release "thingy", I believe were the exact words I used.

And now the time has come to reveal just what that thingy is. For a limited time, from release until the end of October, I am offering a special. If you buy Of Gold and Iron in that time window be it ebook or paperback, and email me a proof of purchase at nicky(dot)chapelway(at)gmail(dot)com

I will send you a print of  a painting I made of my characters, and a coaster with the book cover on it.

This is of course only while supplies last. Happy reading, friends. And happy fall!

Of Gold and Iron Cover reveal

So here we all are, hoping to see a beautiful cover. Well far be it from me to make y'all wait any longer. Well... you have to wait exactly how long it makes for you to scroll. 

but anyway without any further ado it is time to start scrolling.

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What did you think I wasn't going to make you work for it just a little bit?

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Did you notice the one that was only two dots?

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KEEP SCROLLING!!!

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“Swear on something else. Swear on your humanity.”

I suddenly find it very hard to swallow. My humanity? With a jolt I realize that there are far greater things at risk here than just my life. I’m in the faerie world, anything could happen. Even immortality.



The Otherworld is the home of the faeries, deceitful, decadent, and deadly. As the next in line to be-come Guardians, Jaye and her brother Thomas are tasked with defending the human world from all things magical. But when a routine scouting mission ends with them trapped in the Otherworld, it becomes pain-fully clear that someone doesn’t want them to leave the world of the faeries. Determined to not become an immortal’s pawn, Jaye kidnaps Ravven Crowe, an arrogant solitary faerie, so that he can guide them safely home. But things quickly go from bad to worse when they are captured by the Winter Court and embroiled in a plot to start a faerie civil war. Thomas is enslaved by an Unseelie faerie, and it seems that the only way to save her brother and avoid a war is for Jaye to ally herself with Ravven.

The faeries are governed by a set of strict laws. For their own safety, the Guardians have their own rules. But with Thomas’s life hanging in the balance there is only one way to save him that does not include breaking the faerie’s Fair Law, a crime that ends in death. Together Jaye and Ravven must compete in a series of deadly tests given by the faerie courts in order to earn Jaye the right to be named the Fair Assassin and wield the Blade of Gold and Iron. As the Fair Assassin she will be permitted to kill any faerie she so chooses, but first she has to live long enough. Walking a fine line between destruction and further entanglement with Crowe, Jaye is going to have to break her own rules if she wants to win. She must trust a faerie. Her life and humanity depend on it. 

ahhhh! I'm in love! I mean yeah, I sort of designed it, but my cover designer really came through in big ways with this one. This cover is just so mystical and magical and matches the mood of the story so well. And I have been waiting YEARS to finally get a cover with that sort of 
"split" affect. So needless to say I'm pretty excited.

October is almost heeeerrreeeeee.....

Update on Of Gold and Iron

I sort of did not intend to disappear off the face of the blogging earth. I really meant to do some progress updates for Of Gold and Iron, build up some hype or whatever. But ah, oh well, now I shall just wrap them all up into one big update.

I finished my go through of reading OGaI, now I'm just waiting on edits. I decided that since I already had a bunch of people beta read OGaI back when I was starting to query it that I would skip betas this time around. I'm just having a couple of friends read it to check for consistency.

Of Gold and Iron is 283 pages long making it replace Week of Werewolves as my shortest full length novel (Winter Cursed of course still wins as my shortest story). It used to be 120k words long (as long as Time of Trepidation and A Certain Sort of Madness) but to fit publishing guidelines I shaved off 10k words and somehow never got them back. It is also made shorter by the fact that I am making it a different size than my other books.

But enough of that technical stuff, it's high time that I finally release my official blurb so that you can all know what this story is even about.

“Swear on something else. Swear on your humanity.”

I suddenly find it very hard to swallow. My humanity? With a jolt I realize that there are far greater things at risk here than just my life. I’m in the faerie world, anything could happen. Even immortality.

 

  

The Otherworld is the home of the faeries, deceitful, decadent, and deadly. As the next in line to become Guardians, Jaye and her brother Thomas are tasked with defending the human world from all things magical. But when a routine scouting mission ends with them trapped in the Otherworld, it becomes painfully clear that someone doesn’t want them to leave the world of the faeries. Determined to not become an immortal’s pawn, Jaye kidnaps Ravven Crowe, an arrogant solitary faerie, so that he can guide them safely home. But things quickly go from bad to worse when they are captured by the Winter Court and embroiled in a plot to start a faerie civil war. Thomas is enslaved by an Unseelie faerie, and it seems that the only way to save her brother and avoid a war is for Jaye to ally herself with Ravven.

 

The faeries are governed by a set of strict laws. For their own safety, the Guardians have their own rules. But with Thomas’s life hanging in the balance there is only one way to save him that does not include breaking the faerie’s Fair Law, a crime that ends in death. Together Jaye and Ravven must compete in a series of deadly tests given by the faerie courts in order to earn Jaye the right to be named the Fair Assassin and wield the Blade of Gold and Iron. As the Fair Assassin she will be permitted to kill any faerie she so chooses, but first she has to live long enough. Walking a fine line between destruction and further entanglement with Crowe, Jaye is going to have to break her own rules if she wants to win. She must trust a faerie. Her life and humanity depend on it.

I already have the cover, and it's a beauty. We are right on track for an early October publication, I'm shooting for October 3rd, but publishing waters are rather tumultuous so I'm not going to make any solid promises (especially with how unreliable this whole year has been). I'm also trying to work toward a special release "thingy" for lack of a less vague word. It is my first time doing something like this so again I'm not going to make any official announcements, I'll hopefully have more details by release week.

With that said, I am looking for ARC readers. So if you can't wait another second to read this story then sign the form below. The ARC copy doesn't have the final edits, so bear that in mind.

Anyway that's all I have about Of Gold and Iron for now. Be sure to tune in on September 5th for the cover reveal.

Sleep Like Poison Cover Reveal

 

It's time to reveal the the cover of next book of the Clockwork Faerie Tale Novella series. Sleep Like Poison is, as you can imagine, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Now, get ready for it... Another beautiful cover by 100 Covers And now- Coming August 31! Pre-Order for only $0.99 Well what do you think? Which cover do you like more? What is your favorite fairy-tale? Share in the comments below!