We had our first snowfall here this past week. Temperatures have dropped and winds have picked up. Clearly, winter is on a little bit of a warpath this year. I’ve been trying to muster up similar motivation and dive further into Godslayer.

It’s something of an experiment, I realized, as I looked over my outline and carved out some character points this week. A lot of fantasy novels out there are perfectly happy to maintain the status quo of the genre and stay well within previously defined boundaries. I look back at old movies I grew up with, like Krull and David Lynch’s Dune, and I see those lines smearing, if not disappearing. Why don’t more modern tales do that?

It’s been said that writers should write the stories they want to read. And I want to read more stories where it becomes hard to tell if it’s one genre or another. I’m not talking about radical shifts in tone, or anything; mostly, I want to emphasize character and theme more than ticking off the boxes folks have been ticking off since Tolkien’s days.

In other news, Cold Streets has test readers who are providing me with excellent feedback. I think I can do everything I need to do in one more pass of rewriting/editing, and then it’s on to getting the cover art and other particulars nailed down. Sure, I may be a bit behind in my original schedule, but I feel like the end result will be worth the wait. That’s the vibe I get from my test readers, as well.

I hope you all have an excellent weekend. Try to stay warm, won’t you?