Cause, on 14 April 2016 - 03:59 PM, said:
Hoping to start it this weekend.
Anyone read it yet?
@Tatter
I thik almost everyone in this forum has at least thought about writing a book at some point. Will you share a bit more of your story? Was this a passion project? How long did you work on it? When did you first come up with the idea? Did you write it full time or in your spare time?
I will. And I won't do it all 'authorly', I'll just say how it is because everyone here makes me happy
So the technical first, then the story:
Passion Project?
Absolutely a passion project. I make LOTS of things in lots of mediums, but Imbalance is the biggest and most serious. Examples of other things would be: spent 6 years building a fantasy RPG video game that's a goofball comedy (FREE online, used to have 4000 DLs but the site died and this one was born:
http://rpgmaker.net/games/7459/) which is my other big one, I wrote and storyboarded a comic for said video game (40 pages black and white, readable here:
http://imgur.com/a/BwLLv) with illustrator Alex Row, I made 200 goofball web comics about kids growing up in Stalingrad 1945, etc etc etc. My most recent non-Imbalance work is a dueling card game called Ascension Divine which is super fun and beautiful but uses licensed content from a character generator so... just for fun at the moment. I used to rotate from project to project, but they were all silly. Imbalance is my first attempt at a serious works in the manner of my favourite fantasy series and I have plenty of plans for the trilogy, with Book 2 already mapped and the ending of Book 3 assured since midway through writing
Purge of Ashes. (please note softcovers won't be available for a few days as I had to fix the cover)
How long did I work on it? When did I come up with the idea?
I point you to these two posts from my website which cover the story of conception and implementation:
PART ONE
PART TWO
Writing?
I wrote in my spare time, usually Sunday mornings at first. When single I got a lot done because... well, I could only play so much
Warcraft III before my eyes hurt. Once I met my future wife finding time to work got harder. Once we bought a house and had a baby it got even HARDER... but also easier, since I wasted a lot less time at night 'having fun.' In truth, much of my writing got done during time off from my employment: being a teacher. For two blissful summers I had all of August off - and I used this time to test 'Could Joel be a Professional Author?' were he to have steady income and no other concerns during the day (as a teacher, I was paid over the summer while my wife still worked). The answer was a resounding YES. The second August I drove my wife to work at 8:25, read Sanderson's Wheel of Time conclusion novels from 8:30-9:00 when the library near her office opened. I would then write from 9am until 4:30pm without stopping, except half an hour to watch
Futurama at lunch on the laptop and chug a sandwich (which you can do if you try). Then I'd pick up my wife and drive home. In this month alone I wrote about 5 chapters of
Purge - and not the easy ones. Chapters 16-20: the ones at the end of the journey but before the climax. About 160 computer pages, or about 25% of the book.
The Story:
There are three story lines in
Purge of Ashes. The first revolves around the story from my
back cover blurb which can again be found (under a spruce look at the cover) on my site.
To summarize, the Scalion Legion (an Inquisition-esque militant arm of a heretical god) launches a surprise attack (less so after reading this) on a peaceful coastal city whose soldiers are busy to the south resolving a tired civil war. The Loce Freelancers, third division, is a band of mercenaries killing time in said city and they pick up a contract to act as muscle for the royalty (the Sceptre and family). Action! The mercenaries, and an assorted few members of royalty, end up charged with the safe passage of thousands of fleeing refugees while being pursued by scruple-less zealots across the continent towards the capital. The vermin-like Scalion Legion believe the capital is harboring an ancient immortal their cult has sworn to eradicate for crimes against their god. Thus the press. Eh, blurb probably does a better job than I did there... but I'm more interested to explain the latter two as this first is mostly known.
The second story line revolves around the civil war, although we never really go there. It is about the Sceptre in Remn - the island's capital city and destination of the refugees. Years prior his own family tried to uproot his command, but their coup failed and his venomous sister went into hiding. The end of the civil war does not come before a bloody battle which acts as a catalyst for her plans to once again try to take the throne for herself - with a man on the inside. This story interweaves with that of Kaern Arkonias, a teen who feels half-possessed by a voice that has stolen into his head and half-aghast at his own burgeoning capabilities as an avatar, including deadly control of elemental fire. Kaern feels compelled to burn temples - a most dangerous game as the pantheon of the gods is built upon live prayer, and mortals shall always suffer when something disrupts the balance of the pantheon: good god/evil god, just god/chaotic god(dess).
The third story line revolves around the capital and for the most part is more fleeting than the rest (indeed, the second one has much less page time than the exodus). It concerns a legendary warrior captain keeping a low profile, and the ancient immortal he finds waiting for him in a forgotten castle dungeon. He does not know why the immortal has come, but with the worldly balance de-stabilizing, he fears the ill portend.
These story lines weave together to tell the tale of the Scalion invasion, but it is only the beginning of the imbalance cast into the world.
I have plenty of POV characters and the cast consists mostly of mercenaries, nobility and one unsettling youth. The world has much unique terminology, especially with regards to the telling of time, the measuring of distance, and the induction of magic. The world is much bigger than that of the island where the story takes place (Sventium)
as seen HERE. This page has lots of details about 8 of the 9 continents (discounting an Antarctica-like one) including political regimes, geography, and populations if you care to peruse. Expect a story with plenty of action, and a quick, movie-like pace while telling multiple stories at once - stories that stretch from bildungsroman to adventure to tragedy. Many arcs end. Many just begin. As a big Erikson fan, I don't dole out the truth of things with a big ladle all the time, and personal opinion can belie the narrative. Typical readers will likely find this lack of easy answers challenging. As dedicated Malazan fans I'm sure NOTHING will get past you guys, except stuff not meant to be known until books 2 or 3. Final note: I am very confident in the ending.
How's that 'Cause'?
I know a few folk have started reading it. Am yet to hear of anyone finishing. Am hankering for some reviews, preferably good ones!
Cause 
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