I Published My First Book! Threads of the Wyrd, first story of the Cycle

Its been a long time in the making. The world and this plot have been rattling around in my brain for most of my life now, but it was only in 2020 that I finally put word to page and wrote the first chapter.

Back then, my mother - an avid reader for her entire life - had recently been diagnosed with cancer, which would eventually take her life. In those dark days, this story kept me focused and drove me onward. I had hoped to be able to hand her the first copy, but that was one dream that would not come true.

Years have passed since then and at long last the first book of the Cycleverse is ready and available. More are on the way - sequels to this book, along with other stories to explore the world that I have crafted.

Get your copy here!

Alric Lightsworn is a mage in training – heir to the magical traditions of his people, the fiery Hydrisians of the cold north. His path to glory is assured – until he is afflicted with the curse of the werewolf.

His brother, Bjorn, refuses to let him flee alone and so the two turn their backs on the only home they have ever known. Those that the brothers meet along the way are as strange to them as they are to the strangers.

Mila Numitorii finds herself in a distant, foreign land and tasked to bring two fugitives to the jarl's justice. Intelligent, diligent, and perceptive, she makes for a formidable hunter - but can she bring herself to finish the pursuit?

Aderyn, druid of the misty Fells. The woods have long been her home, a cozy place far from the worries of the world. But danger finds its way to even the most secluded lands and soon her path will diverge.

Julian. Nimble thief, favored of the spirits of the wind. A burned home behind him and the open road ahead. He's made it this far by himself, but how long can his luck truly last?

The Hydrisians speak of fate and the wyrd. The path ahead and the step taken. None can see the tapestry until it comes together. None of these five would notice their fates converging ever closer together, tied up in the Threads of the Wyrd.

"none of those words are in the bible" but it's me nitpicking about what textile manufacturing techniques weren't invented until late antiquity and are thus anachronistic translations of biblical language

”#op's tags:#you did NOT knit me together in my mother's womb. that was weaving.#offshoot of me wincing every time someone uses 'embroidered' to describe ancient greek fabrics that would've definitely been tapestry-woven#it makes a difference!!!#knitting and weaving have VERy different symbolic/metaphorical connotations!!!#embroidery is a secondary process applied to already-complete textiles! different implications!#(end tags) that's so interesting..”

It snode :)

Marie Curie's notebooks are crazy once you think about it. They're so radioactive they have to be sealed in a lead box. Imagine a world where atomic theory is forgotten and a dude just goes "yea there's a book that details the secrets of the universe, the machinations of the creation of existence down to its barest essentials, but if you get close to it you fucking die. The more you read it the more your body slowly disassembles into mush." like wat excuse me

✨Private Commission✨

found this three year old draft buried in my files. is it funny? I don't remember

no no you’re on to something don’t leave this in the notes!

[ID: Image one is a black and white 4 panel comic. In the first panel, a small bald man with a beard hands an ornamented sheathed sword to a knight and says "Take this Ice Sword". In the second panel, the knight unsheathes the sword and holds only a handle in his hands together with a big empty scabbard. He proceeds to fill the scabbard at a water tap. In the last panel, he kneels in front of a fridge as if praying and waiting. There is a clock on the wall.

Image two is of screenshotted tags that say: "funny and also like. the kind of thought provoking weapon that would be in a sword and sorcery fantasy. bcs assembling the sword takes time. you have to fill the mold with water. and wait for it to freeze. this is not a weapon meant for rash anger. you must put thought into how you'll use it. BUT ALSO. once it's out of the freezer it has to be used quickly or it will melt. there's no room for dilly-dallying or uncertain. with this weapon you must take the time to think. but there is a moment where the time for thinking has passed. you cannot second guess yourself. you must take the time to make the decision. but when the moment comes you must act decisively. no haste. make absolutely sure of what you want to destroy. then destroy it with conviction. i'm sorry op i'm way too excited about what i'm sure was a joke post". End ID]

Scifi writer fear: readers who like to do more math than you do

Writer: Okay so this seems like an appropriate size for this room, given its function and the drama needed for the scene...

Readers: Perfect! we were told 3 chapters back that this room is 'the average room size for a spaceship of this type', meaning that we can use this size information to back-calculate the volume of the spaceship, adjust for the stated 0.9atm air pressure... and then looking at the required air cycling rate for humans... we can see that the air purification system briefly described in chapter 6 when they were replacing air filters would be impossible for this spaceship!

Tumblr ask 6 months later: It was really clever how you used the size of the rooms and the air filter system to hint that the ceilings of all the rooms were very very low and thus let the audience deduce that humans in the future are much shorter than humans today! That's a great little nod to the 'humans have gotten taller over time' thing that people like to say, and really subtle, since people who hadn't done the math on the room volume would never see it!

Writer: ... Yes. That was... very clever... of me... to do.

Everyone in the comments saying "never give actual numbers": I'm afraid that if you write a story about someone who intended to wake up on a new planet instead waking up alone on a broken spaceship to that planet with the crew all mysteriously dead, questions like "how long was I asleep", "how long until we arrive" and "when do I need to start decelerating the ship if we want to reach our destination instead of drifting off into space forever at near-lightspeed" are in fact going to be on their mind and it is simply not realistic to have them never ask these questions. There are many stories that simply do not work if you never give any approximate numbers, especially if you're writing something with a mystery element.

If your character is desperately trying to get information of an invading army to the elf queen via horseback, it does in fact matter whether they're a few days from the palace, or a couple of weeks from the palace, or half a season from the palace. Because the enemy is going to advance their plans a different amount in that period of time. If your shipmates on the isolated spaceship with all the communications cut off are being killed one by one by the monster, it does matter how many shipmates you have; if you're communicating via radio to another planet or ship in space in a time sensitive situation, it does matter approximately how far away the planet is because a few seconds of message delay won't matter but if they're several light minutes away then that time delay is going to factor into the situation.

I'm sorry but sometimes readers do want to now things like "approximately how big a room is" (has the main character walked into a bedroom or an auditorium?) or "how high the ceiling is" (the character needs to climb a ladder to change the air filters up there, and survives a fall from said ladder? They're injured but not surprised to have survived? Okay, that gives us a probable height range). Your story cannot take place in a vague stew where no sizes, volumes or time periods are ever indicated because these things affect the reasonable options that the characters have available.

I remember a piece of writing advice that went something like "dont write to appease your haters because theyll never like it anyway and your work will suffer for it."

This feels related in the sense of "dont write in fear of the internet freaks with really specific expertise because you will never out-expertise an internet full of them."

We can do our best to keep things grounded and think things through but ultimately nothing written can stand up to a subreddit of scrutiny.

VIDEO SOURCE

(Turn on the sound!!)

This is the bird on its way to work

A BIRD POOPED ON MY HEAD ON THE WAY TO WORK.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THE BIRD WAS ON THE WAY TO WORK?

DONT MAKE ME ANGRIER THAN I AM