F. James Blair

I haven’t posted an update about my progress through the SPFBO books for a while, which admittedly did get sidelined for a while in favor of reading a bunch of RR stuff. Now that I’ve burned through most of the stories I started on there, I’m back to trying to at least finish the first two years (if not three) by the end of 2022.

1. The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids by Michael McClung (Review Here)
2. The Weight of a Crown by Tavish Kaeden (De-Listed)
3. City of Burning Shadows by Barbara Webb (Review Here)
4. Sins of a Sovereignty by Simon Watts (De-Listed)
5. What Remains of Heroes by David Benem (DNF)
6. Shattered Sands by WG Saraband (De-Listed)
7. Under a Colder Sun by Greg James (Review Here)
8. Priest by Matthew Colville (Review Here)
9. A Soul for Trouble by Christa McHugh (DNF)
10. Paternus by Dyrk Ashton (Review Here)
11. Fionn by Brian O’Sullivan (Review Here)
12. Larcout by KA Krantz (Review Here)
13. Assassin’s Charge by Claire Frank
14. The Music Box Girl by KA Stewart
15. The Moonlight War by SKS Perry
16. Outpost by FT McKinstry
17. The Shadow Soul by Kaitlyn Davis

In writing news, I’m 101,902 words into Dervish now, with probably another 30k to go to finish (feeling cute, might make it as long as 150k, I dunno). Really feeling good about this book. It probably has more action and adventure in it than the first two combined!

Hey everybody, just a quick update. Managed to hit 90,982 yesterday. Story is moving along at a nice clip, and I’m honestly really happy with how Dervish is turning out. Probably going to be the best in the series so far.

Okay, I did NOT mean for 2 months to go by between updates! Really, I’m not entirely sure how I dropped the ball that badly. I had a series of art posts I was going to put up following the release of Conduit, showing how the artwork was developed and everything. I guess I’ll plan for that post later this week. Le sigh…

Actually, I *do* know how it is that so much time passed. I got fairly sick there near the end of February, and then recovered, and then got sick again around the middle of March… all in all, I think I was basically a pathetic potato for about 5 weeks. It was not a fun way to spend the beginning of spring, let me tell you!

Not that I wasn’t busy writing during that time, I actually got something like 60k words done! Just… none of them were on Dervish. Yeah, sorry about that. I really meant to! Starting another side project wasn’t really on my list, but sometimes these things happen.

I can’t say much about it at this point, other than what was supposed to just be a chapter or two to get it out of my system kind of morphed into something bigger. I’m having a few trusted people look at it right now, and if they don’t think its utter rubbish I’ll probably be posting it on Royal Road in the near future.

However, I am back to working on Dervish now, with about two major arcs to write before its done. It is my sole focus for the next month or so to get it done and to beta readers, so should (fingers crossed) have a late summer/early fall release.

I’m also dedicated to at least getting the first draft of Bulletproof Witch book 6 done this year, although its actual publication date may not happen before 12/31. It is going to be a shorter book though, so there’s no reason I can’t hammer it out in a month if I REALLY dedicate myself. Whether that happens or not will probably depend on if that unnamed project ends up taking off or not. If it does, I might get delayed, but that’s a big if. Either way, book six will get finished, so I can get that albatross from around my neck at last.

On Sunday night, I clicked the submit button and sent off the final draft of Conduit to Amazon. Now all that’s left is to sit back and wait for the angry reviews to roll in…

I kid. Kinda, sorta. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that this isn’t the strongest book I’ve written. Still lots of great moments in it, some really bada$$ fights, some hilarious dialogue… but it’s also a fairly heavy book that the litRPG community will probably hate even more than they did the first one. Unfortunately, not much I can do about that. This is a series that defies expectations, and I understand how some people would be not-ok with that.

But, on the flip side, I am getting close to releasing a new project on Royal Road! Yes, the very thing I’ve been threatening to do for months now is actually reaching completion! I’m thinking probably an early summer release at this point, but maybe if I can pull enough together before then, some magic might happen early. I did manage to write some 15k words on that project over the last week, when I just needed a break from all of the Conduit editing.

Of writing on Dervish… well, the less said the better. Now that Conduit is off my plate I’ll get back to it post-haste, I swear.

Reading has been moving along, I’m still paced several books ahead of where I need to be to hit my goal of 50 for the year. Didn’t quite make it last year, but I blame reading RoW for that, really should have counted that as 4 books…

Oh, and I have now read through all of the 2015 SPFBO books. I did DNF on two of them, and three more were no longer available to purchase, so really we’re only talking about 4 books. Future years will probably take significantly longer. With luck I should be able to at least get through 2017 before this year is out though.

1. The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids by Michael McClung (Review Here)
2. The Weight of a Crown by Tavish Kaeden (De-Listed)
3. City of Burning Shadows by Barbara Webb (Review Here)
4. Sins of a Sovereignty by Simon Watts (De-Listed)
5. What Remains of Heroes by David Benem (DNF)
6. Shattered Sands by WG Saraband (De-Listed)
7. Under a Colder Sun by Greg James (Review Here)
8. Priest by Matthew Colville (Review Here)
9. A Soul for Trouble by Christa McHugh (DNF)
10. Paternus by Dyrk Ashton
11. Fionn by Brian O’Sullivan
12. Larcout by KA Krantz
13. Assassin’s Charge by Claire Frank
14. The Music Box Girl by KA Stewart
15. The Moonlight War by SKS Perry
16. Outpost by FT McKinstry
17. The Shadow Soul by Kaitlyn Davis

Well, I only managed 4k words of so of writing this week. That’s the bad news. The good news is that on the flip side, I’ve been working to get book 2 ready for publishing, and it is finally in the pre-order stage!!!

That’s right, CONDUIT: Second Book of the Ascendant will be out March 3. I’ll also be running a freebie on Fatedancer through that weekend, so, you know, tell your friends and all that.

So I’m only through two books in my SPFBO Challenge so far, and already I’ve run into a problem—three of the books that won in the first two years have been de-listed on Amazon. I’m hoping this was a choice on the author’s part rather than them being removed due to some quirk of the system. Amazon can be… difficult sometimes if your book gets pulled for random reasons (for a great example, check out this post by Mark Lawrence, or even more recently this issue that Phil Tucker had with his new book Bastion), but regardless, unless I can find an alternative source for those books, I’ll have to skip them. Pity.

So my current TBR lists looks as such—

1. The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids by Michael McClung (Review Here)
2. The Weight of a Crown by Tavish Kaeden (De-Listed)
3. City of Burning Shadows by Barbara Webb (Review Here)
4. Sins of a Sovereignty by Simon Watts (De-Listed)
5. What Remains of Heroes by David Benem
6. Shattered Sands by WG Saraband (De-Listed)
7. Under a Colder Sun by Greg James
8. Priest by Matthew Colville
9. A Soul for Trouble by Christa McHugh
10. Paternus by Dyrk Ashton
11. Fionn by Brian O’Sullivan
12. Larcout by KA Krantz
13. Assassin’s Charge by Claire Frank
14. The Music Box Girl by KA Stewart
15. The Moonlight War by SKS Perry
16. Outpost by FT McKinstry
17. The Shadow Soul by Kaitlyn Davis

In writing news, Dervish hit 74,892 words this week, which officially makes it longer than Conduit (and probably only about 2/3 done, maybe less). Progress, progress, progress.

Another good week for writing. Up to 67,780 words on Dervish now. Woo.

Anyone that follows me closely on Goodreads may have noticed my to-read list has gotten rather spare of late (is there such a mythical person? Who is this hypothetical fan who obsesses so over what an obscure minor author chooses to read? Ah, well). I still have a few books from last year that I never got around to that I’m fully intending to read this year, and there are couple books I picked up during the winter sale (see earlier blog post) that I plan to get around to, but this year’s reading challenge for me is going to be a bit different.

Even though I’ve never personally participated, I’ve always been intrigued by Mark Lawrence’s SPFBO (Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off), which is a competition to determine the best among SP fantasy novels in a given year (not that all are published in the year they apply, but still). The competition begins with a large pool of potential novels, that in turn is whittled down by a series of judges, until only a pool of 10 finalists remain. Of these, usually the top two or three get lauded about on the internet, some even leading to traditional publishing deals.

In other words, success in SPFBO is a big deal for most participants.

Ove the last few years I’ve read couple of the books that made it to the top ten, either because I heard about them on r/Fantasy or just coming across them organically, but it has been in the back of my mind for a while to try and read through all of the top ten for all given years. In 2022, I’ve decided to finally take this challenge on in earnest, and I recommend to anyone reading this post that they do as well.

My current reading goal list for the year is as follows-

1. The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids by Michael McClung
2. The Weight of a Crown by Tavish Kaeden
3. City of Burning Shadows by Barbara Webb
4. Sins of a Sovereignty by Simon Watts
5. What Remains of Heroes by David Benem
6. Shattered Sands by WG Saraband
7. Under a Colder Sun by Greg James
8. Priest by Matthew Colville
9. A Soul for Trouble by Christa McHugh
10. Paternus by Dyrk Ashton
11. Fionn by Brian O’Sullivan
12. Larcout by KA Krantz
13. Assassin’s Charge by Claire Frank
14. The Music Box Girl by KA Stewart
15. The Moonlight War by SKS Perry
16. Outpost by FT McKinstry
17. The Shadow Soul by Kaitlyn Davis

If I can manage all of that, it will carry me through the first two years of the competition (2015 and 2016). Note that I excluded Bloodrush by Ben Galley, The Grey Bastards by Jonathon French, and Path of Flames by Phil Tucker (all books I’ve read in recent years). I’ll try for some of 2017 as well, but since I’m sure there will be a few other books that pop up as the year goes on to distract me, for now I’m just focusing on these.

Somehow, a month has gone by without my noticing. I may have gotten ahead of myself in my optimism with how far I would be getting once the holidays were over. I neglected to remember that January is a BUSY month.

So, sadly, not as much writing has been happening as I would like. There is a lot of accounting work that has been leaving me drained, meaning that when evenings finally roll around, instead of writing I usually gravitate towards playing a game, or watching a show with my wife. It’s a difficult temptation to resist.

Not that I don’t enjoy writing, but it requires a certain amount of mental energy I don’t always have.

Still! Progress has been made. I’m up to 57,070 words on Dervish now, putting it just shy of the halfway point by my estimate. Still hoping I’m not going to regret breaking off the earlier arcs into their own book, but it would be either that or publish something too large for printing, so… I guess time will tell.

Speaking of book 2, I have heard back from almost all of my beta readers, and my editor is hard at work going through and cleaning up the usual problem areas. I’m thinking it will likely have a late February/early March release at this point, but if I can manage to get it our earlier, I certainly will.

Also, cover preview coming soon!

It’s that time of year again! Once more Bryce O’Connor and Wraithmarked have organized an annual sale of fantasy books, and it’s even bigger and better than years past. Check out the link below to see over 400 books either free or $0.99!

Mega Sale!!!

While most people reading this probably already have my books, if not this is a great time to get them, as not only are they all free, but for every one of my books downloaded I’ll be giving $0.05 to St. Judes. Plus there are lots of other fantabulous reads, and all of those authors will be making donations as well. It’s a win-win. You get some great reading material for free, and you get to help contribute to a good cause. Seriously, why are you still reading my random scrawl here? Go check out the mega sale already. Shoo, shoo!