Weun Academy Series + Toriko Tales updates

Major announcements to share!

First, exciting progress on the Weun Academy: The Shadow Maker cover. This is a very rough first draft done by my husband Matt Zummo. We already have professional feedback to make the author name and book title larger. Regardless, I wanted to show the latest direction.

Again, not done, but very exciting!

I have secured Jonathan Oliver to do the final editing of the reworked Weun Academy 1 manuscript.

He is a well-known editor and author in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. Jonathan Oliver served as the Editor-in-Chief at both Solaris and Abaddon Books, where he oversaw the publication of numerous critically acclaimed anthologies and novels. He also wrote two novels for Abaddon Books, titled The Call of Kerberos and The Wrath of Kerberos​.

Among his credits is proofreading Brandon Sanderson’s “The Way of Kings” and “Rhythm of War” books. Work is scheduled for February 2025. Well worth the wait.

I will also be working with JD Barker for Weun Academy marketing starting in October 2024.

J.D. Barker, a renowned New York Times bestselling author and a highly respected book coach. Barker is well-known for his expertise in writing, marketing, and self-publishing, and he has guided numerous authors, including those who have achieved New York Times bestseller status. His coaching style is celebrated for being personalized, approachable, and highly effective, particularly in helping authors navigate the complexities of book promotion and marketing. Barker also offers various services, such as manuscript critiques, marketing strategy consultations, and detailed editorial guidance, all aimed at helping writers succeed in the publishing industry​.

I’m hoping to take what I learn for Weun Academy and apply it both to Toriko Tales and to the original D’mok Revival books.

Speak of Toriko Tales, Courtney Andersson, who has experience in IPs like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, will be doing the final editing and proofing passes on Toriko Tales: Toriko vs the Crowned Paw! This work will begin in January 2025.

Cortney Andersson is an experienced editor who works primarily with the Mandala Publishing and Earth Aware Editions imprints, both subsidiaries of Insight Editions. In her role, she manages the entire editorial process for about 10-12 titles per year, collaborating closely with authors, designers, and other key stakeholders. Her portfolio includes several award-winning projects, and she has played a significant role in the publication of New York Times Best Sellers. She is known for her ability to guide complex projects from acquisition through to publication, ensuring high-quality outcomes.

Both titles will be released in 2025, with exact timeframes to be determined.

Hello, Weun Academy 2! Plus more!

I mentioned a while back that the angst building inside of me from COVID 19 living wanted an outlet. A few months back, despite my attempts to ignore it, Weun Academy 2 made itself known. In fact, after waking up at 3am one morning, it demanded I write some things down before being able to go back to sleep.

While there were scenes and glimpses into WA2, I was able to stay focused on completing Toriko Tales. As many of you saw, when the final push came, Toriko Tales wrapped up 10,000 words in a week. But I believe there was a reason for that happening.

Ever since, my mind has been flooded with scenes and still pictures from Weun Academy 2. I couldn’t help but wake up (at 2 or 3 AM) to write down musings.

I already love how the continued COVID angst, on going adaptations in US politics, and even my every day life continues to weave together to form the foundation of this new story!

For those Beta readers who reviewed WA1: The Shadow Maker, Eisah threatened “something” at the end… Well, he made good on that something. While book 2 doesn’t start off explaining the event, it certainly set things in motion leading to the dynamics which follow. I actually wrote the short story tonight detailing what that event was (so that I know the details).

But what if you were not a beta reader for Weun Academy 1? Good question! I tried with 25 or so agents and received nothing but rejections (obviously). The few that explained said they wouldn’t know how to market the book, etc. I’m considering moving forward with self-publishing again. I really do believe in the book and feel it could earn an agent, but I also want to share it with people beyond my amazing Beta readers! I finished writing it back in 2018! I want it in the hands of the public!

It will be difficult to release WA2 if WA1 isn’t already on shelves or kindle. We shall see.

Another quick update, I’m now co-owner of Frozen Soul Games. It’s first product will be HoverDome: Red Canyon Run, modeled after the mobile space arena of the same name as presented in books three and four of D’mok Revival! I’m very excited. The Kickstarter for this effort is planned for May 1, 2021.

One final item, I’m updating the dmokrevival.com Web site. The design has been out there since I released my third book. It’s time for a refresh. The preview can be found at http://www.dmokrevival.com/_dev_index.html. Let me know what you think if you have a moment.

So, between reviewing Weun Academy 1 and determining the way forward, getting feedback from beta readers on Toriko Tales, getting ready to launch the HoverDome Kickstarter, reworking my series Web site, and working the start-up process for Weun Academy 2, there’s just a few things going on!

That’s all for now!

Toriko Tales Book 1 Is Complete!

I’m happy to report the first draft of Toriko Tales is complete! It took so much longer than anticipated. Of course, a global pandemic, change of job, and occasional writers-block will cause delays!

As the title suggests, Toriko from the main D’mok Revival series is the main protagonist. The great part of the book takes place on her homeworld of Tericn, and centers on the topic on artificial intelligence. More specifically the ethics and varied cultural responses to this advanced technology. As always, there’s plenty of interpersonal conflict, including the trauma of her parents demise when she was a child, and her ongoing relationship struggles with her older sister. Also, an entire set of new characters join the D’mok Revival literary universe.

Readers can expect plenty of references and cameos to characters from the D’mok Revival and Weun Academy series. Even though the Murai Dome and Tericn was visited in the first book of the D’mok Revival series, only a few areas were explored at that time. This required me to do extensive construction of the 11 versions (“levels”) of the Murai Dome itself and explain how the some of the older technologies are still leveraged to create the living environment currently inhabited by Terconians.

I wrote over forth-three pages (16,800 words) of backstory so I could authentically represent the new characters, circumstances, and locations feature in Toriko Tales. Some of these written explorations were used to break through the few instances of writer’s block suffered. I found the reason I could not move forward was because I didn’t understand the history of the characters or location in the scene. This technique became my “go to method” to get that “movie playing in my head” again.

I’ve reached out to my amazing author Arlene Robinson, and we’re working out the details to have her edit my latest work. I’m thrilled to be teaming up with Arlene again!

My immediate next steps are

  1. Incorporate feedback my Matt Zummo (my first line of review)
  2. Get the manuscript out to my Beta Readers and incorporate their feedback
  3. Get the manuscript in the hands of Arlene Robinson
  4. Determine if I’ll self-publish or go for an agent

So, what’s it like? Toriko Tales is forty chapters strong, with a prologue and epilogue. The final product will include details about Tericn’s capital city the Murai Dome, and the translations of conversations between Toriko and Spark (which appear in binary in the main book).

The current manuscript comes in at 81,597 words. My original goal, the lower-bound for science fiction novels, was 80,000. I truly feel it was the right size to tell this Toriko focused story. It certainly sets up many dynamics in the D’mok literary universe, many of which will begin to be seen in Weun Academy 2 and D’mok Revival book 5.

Here’s a little preview of the (working) chapter names:

  1. Invictus
  2. Spilled Milk
  3. The EEE
  4. Phrenicide
  5. The Ardent Syndrome
  6. The Prodigal Kitten
  7. The Catadel
  8. Punitive Cogitation
  9. Mini-T v2
  10. Creature Comforts
  11. The Mind Hack
  12. Team Purg
  13. Murai Dome v9
  14. Cat fight
  15. The Evidence Vault
  16. Army of the Broken
  17. Wound Licking
  18. The Catress’ Lair
  19. Level One
  20. Sirra AI
  21. The First Lie
  22. The Past Is Present
  23. Old Wounds
  24. PvE
  25. The Alternative
  26. The Closer
  27. Clara Mortem
  28. The Crowned Paw
  29. The “Do Different”
  30. Uncrating
  31. Bansa
  32. Edrell Lab
  33. Sins of the Parents
  34. Eudorian Sanctuary
  35. Hacker Royale
  36. The First Meridian
  37. Destination Known
  38. T-Town
  39. The Manufactory
  40. Fallout

I’ll keep you posted as editing is done and next steps are taken.

In the meantime, I’m going back and reviewing Weun Academy 1’s manuscript. It never did find an agent. I may move forward with self-publishing that title at this point.

ALSO, as many of you know, Weun Academy 2: The Sabereth Incident is already a few pages in! I know, I can’t help it. I think I’m addicted to writing. I’m taking a moment to retread and run my formal process of understanding the character, location, and plot in order to advanced WA2’s manuscript. More on that in a future post!

Until then, stay safe!

Unexpected emotion

I just had “a moment.” You know those scenes in a movie where a writer is furiously writing and crying at the same time–in the zone–emotion erupting. I always thought that was so cheesy. Not anymore.

I’m working on Toriko Tales in chapter 23 titled “old wounds.” It’s central to explaining a lot of Toriko’s formative past and impacted present. But going back and touching Toriko’s memories, things she had long buried (and perhaps had professionally blocked) trauma was–painful.

It’s fascinating, embarrassing, and enheartening to cry over something that happened to “your character.”

Anyone who knows me understands “my characters” are far from words on a page. They’ve always been people–friends–that I get to visit and know better when I write. That sounds like a desperate plea for help, but it’s not.  It’s just how writers work.

“Write what you know.” Well, I know them.

With every word that I typed, my own eyes awash, I kept thinking “I’m so sorry, Toriko.  I am so sorry.” As if her pain was “real.”

Now, obviously this is coming from somewhere. Childhood trauma. Disconnection from parents and context. Everything being turned upside down. I have plenty of things from my own life that’s clearly inspiring this grander version of things. Perhaps that’s what was releasing.  Certainly, the way she comes back from it is the mantra I use concerning acknowledging past loss and pain, then focusing on what I have today.

But shesh! Intense!

I hope it translates to future readers and feels authentic as it had for me.

Just wanted to share.

Honest Reflections

Toriko Tales is making progress again. It’s been too long, I know. But sometimes we have to allow ourselves to accept when the creativity will not flow. For me, stress and depression has always been a challenge. Anyone who has read my works knows I channel my life into happenings for my characters. This helps me get it out of me and allows me to be productive. But sometimes–sometimes–it gets too strong to channel. This time it snuck up on me, to be honest. I didn’t realize how far things had gone until I felt the full impact (like not being able to write anymore). But life is an interesting journey of actions, consequence, and opportunities. I’m thankful for wonderful people in my life that give me the support I need (including my therapist and fiancé) that help me always find my way.

One of the issues that beat me down was this crazy fear of not being able to find “that magic” again. My first trilogy was a great experience and I was really proud of what I accomplished.  New Eden, my fourth novel, really sang. People talk about how it hits that mid-point and flew like a hellacious roller-coaster, a page-turner, all the way to the end. Those that have ready my fifth manuscript, Weun Academy, said I took that feeling from New Eden and made it a novel long. That’s great.  It’s amazing.  But, good god, is that pressure!

No one wants to peak early or become a has-been. If you have seen my expected book titles for this series, you know I have a lot of ground to cover yet. 

In hindsight, the very thing that led to success in my earlier works was the exact thing I overrode for Toriko Tales.

Concerning writing styles, George R.R. Martin says:

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they’re going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there’s going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don’t know how many branches it’s going to have, they find out as it grows. And I’m much more a gardener than an architect.”

Others have talked about this phenomena but using the terms plotters (architects) vs. pantsers (gardeners).  I’ve always been a pantser.  Sure, I’ve “seen” the movie trailer versions of each of my books in my head.  That’s why the broad outline of multiple books exist for my series. But I don’t know any of the details until I sit down and “listen” to the characters and get to watch the movie play out in my head. The characters make the decisions and the universe pivots around them.

For Toriko Tales I panicked. I wasn’t seeing the details like I was used to, so I changed styles. I tried plotting. There was some good foundational material (backstories, bios, etc.) generated from that effort, but I never “felt it” from the resulting story outline. Ultimately, with the layoffs at work, friend illnesses, family drama, US politics, and everything else going on in life, it was all to easy to release some pressure (finding the magic again) by backing off from writing Toriko Tales. But writing is essential to how I translate my life and work through struggles. I have to write or bad stuff builds up in my heart and mind.

The other day, I was driving to work. While approaching the crest of the Daniel Hoan Memorial Bridge, with blinding sunbeams piercing my eyes and the thick suffocating smell of the nearby milorganite plant clogging my nostrils, Toriko popped into my mind. She said, “Hello.” And, as insane as this may sound, I thought I was going to burst into tears. It was like seeing someone that I loved after they passed away. I returned a hello. She smiled and mentioned it had been a long time since we’d talked. I said I was sorry, but I was glad to see her. Then, like I do with my little virtual family, I asked what she’d been up to. She told me all about working with her sister Maro, combining their tech specialties to allow Toriko’s robots to combine together using Maro’s nano-technology. Apparently the nanites create the connective tissue and a central nervous system for the larger entity. She went into so much more detail than I’ll share here, but it was fascinating. Those sisters, always up to something. I really missed them.

That night, the experience sent me back to my computer, wanting to touch the D’mok Universe again. I really do want to see where Toriko goes. That doesn’t happen unless I sit down and document those “movie” scenes in real-time in my head. But the moment I stared at the screen, I ran directly into the blockers that stopped me: that fear and stupid outline!  After some soul searching, I reviewed the plot “I constructed” for Toriko Tales… and I let it go. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t going to work. Plotting is not how my D’mok Universe shares its secrets with me. So, no more plotting! I’ve returned to my pantsing ways.

The brief “talk” with Toriko led me to have mini-talks with all the Toriko Tales characters. I asked what drove them.  What were they really trying to accomplish at this point in their lives? After capturing their core motivations I reviewed the first 25,000 words I’d written for Toriko Tales. What I found fascinating is the material I’d written still held. It mostly set the stage for the big conflict yet to come which would reveal the major players and motivations. So, the “who did what and why,” which I still needed to write, merely shifted!

Returning to pantsing threw the doors wide open.  I no longer feel restricted by something overly constructed and claustrophobic.  There’s freedom to breathe again and with it a renewed interest to continue forward.

Interestingly enough, I found that missing therapeutic effect from writing almost instantly. For instance, Toriko’s core driver was simply to feel like she’s good enough, like she accomplished something and doesn’t need to keep climbing for the next bigger thing to prove she has worth.

When I captured her response, it cut right through me. This is so me–so now. Like Toriko, no matter what I’ve accomplished (award winning books, U.S. Patents from my professional work, a game design millions of monthly active users played on Facebook, being voted MVP from 60,000 world-wide gamers for David Perry’s Project Top Secret, raising an amazing and well-adjusted 12 year old, having a loving and healthy relationship with my fiancé) it doesn’t matter. We still feel like a fraud that hasn’t accomplished anything. Why? Because our accomplishments have not achieved our goal: to feel loved and accepted by our parents.

At some point in our young lives we learned the way to get our parents attention was to do something great. The hope was if we did enough great things we’d be worthy of their attention (their love)… Clearly we didn’t have intrinsic value, obviously something was wrong with us, so do something amazing and maybe–just maybe–we’d be worth SOMETHING. Of course, every time something was accomplished, recognition was fleeting (if not outright dismissed as not interesting or misunderstood). The sense of self-worth became a void as the bar to impress went higher and higher. We never felt we “arrived” or “did good enough” in anything. The sense of satisfaction, approval… love… was always just beyond our grasp. Toriko and I have chased it ever since.

Oh god, staring that in the face is brutal. Brutal. It doesn’t make me feel very proud either. Whew.

Lots of therapy went in to understanding this. But knowing doesn’t change how the heart feels about it. Thus–GREAT MATERIAL FOR BOOKS!!! WOOOOO! I just hope for a productive and bountiful harvest from this inexhaustible gold mine.

I overshared a bit for a reason. I want there to be meaning in my writing. My books can’t be trite, over-inflated, action-packed extravaganzas. It’s important that people can relate and connect with my characters (with me).  It’s my hope that the things I write not only help me, but maybe give people a chance to understand something about themselves or someone they care about. Maybe I can even share some of the insights that I’ve learned about life to help someone with their struggle.

I’ve been writing little bits each day again for a few days.  It’s wonderful to feel this engine spinning back up. I’m going to redouble my efforts to complete this book. It’s up to me to keep it going!

Your support means the world to me. Thank you for reading. 🙂

Backstory, backstory, backstory

As of right now I have nearly 11,000 words of backstory written for Toriko Tales. This compares to the 12,175 words currently written in the book manuscript.

That doesn’t even factor in the original module I wrote for Toriko’s original introduction for D’mok Revival first book. In fact, much of what I wrote back then I’m updating for use in her first solo book.

It may seem excessive, but to me, I want to understand the bigger picture before attempting to add something into the main manuscript.  I feel if I understand the history around locations or events, or the motivating factors and experiences of a character I’ll be able to represent them more authentically and consistently in my main story.

To do this I simply write some short stories.

If it’s about a character I conduct a little interview. I’ve never had a situation where I couldn’t “hear” their response. In fact, it’s fun to ask follow-up questions. I’m always surprised by the answers (despite it all coming from my own mind.).

If it’s about a location, before trying to visualize the place, I ask myself lots of questions about the area it’s in.  What is it’s function? How does it fit into the bigger scheme of the area or society?  When was it built and how old is it?  Is this place important or forgotten? How is the space used now?

Then, based on all of that, I begin visualizing. Again, starting with the surroundings and moving to the location of interest. What type of architecture is used in that area? What type of materials? The short could be a totally different set of characters that are just interacting with the space, or a discussion from the architects themselves on the approach used to craft the location.

The type of short story used all depends on what I want to understand about the subject.

For the character of Mini-T (v2) I did a number of shorts. One was a stream-of-consciousness understanding her mindset in a particular moment. Another was a set of “diary entries” (requested by Toriko) to help show the progression of her development. Another was a semi-structured interview at a later point in time (towards the end of where I expect the Toriko Tales manuscript to go). It did wonders for understand that characters arc for this book.

I highly recommend doing something like this. I believe it prevents a lot of the inconsistency problems with commercial IPs where characters don’t act consistently. I don’t know about you, but it bothers me when a character does something totally contrary to what we’ve learned about them to that point, unless it’s some shocking reveal of a totally other side we had no idea about. Then it’s okay, otherwise it’s not. So, I work very hard to maintain consistency in my stories.

Happy Holidays!