An ex-war god caught red handed

Hey,

This week feels like a bit of a milestone, with several exciting updates to share – from completed projects to breakthroughs on long-lost stories!

This is Ran, in case you forgot. Am I the little boy from the story or an older version of him here to bug my scribe to hurry up and write me growing up?

You’ll find out in A Curse Breaker in NY series. That trilogy will spill all my secrets and some of Melinda’s too. (I will sneak in as many of her secrets as possible, but I don’t know how many will survive the editing process since she is part of that process.)

When can you get all my secrets? We’re still on track for September to release the special edition. Follow the campaign here.

How do I know we’re on track? I’ll get to that in a minute. First up some book news!

Now Playing: The Gateway to Hell Full Cast Audiobook all in one video!

That’s right. Guerren, the ex-war god searching for an army in all the wrong places, pestered my scribe until she pulled all the videos for Gateway to Hell into one video. So now there’s one YouTube video with all the chapters of the full-cast audiobook in it. Since our channel is not monetized, there should be no commercials.

No more waiting for the next segment, no more navigating playlists. You can listen to Gateway to Hell from start to finish in one video. It was a big project, and Guerren seems pleased with how it came together.

Melinda could not be reached for comment since she’s currently hiding from Guerren. I’ll probably save her. I just might let Guerren bug her for more page time for a while so when I ask, I’m a breath of fresh air and not a nuisance.

But I won’t wait too long because I need her to write more about me since I am the star of the Curse Breaker in NY series even if the curse breaker part of the title refers to my dad.

If you’re read the Curse Breaker series than you know Dad is kind of quiet, and I talk for him whenever I can.

(If you want Jerlo’s reaction, read Chasing Dragons. That’s the book where he and I meet and I finally give him a piece of my mind like I’ve been threatening do for 10 books. And yes, it was cathartic for me. But I don’t think he enjoyed my lecture. Too bad for him!)

Ready to listen to Gateway to Hell? Then go experience the full audiobook now! Want the book in other formats or the MP3 to listen on other devices? We’ve got that right here.

Rogue Characters Update: Closing in on the Midpoint!

(Rogue Characters is book 3 in the Curse Breaker in NY series. Book 1 is Catch the Scribe and book 2 is Book Battles, obviously because after we catch our scribe, we then need to fight for our books! I don’t make the rules. That’s just how it is.)

Melinda says writing Rogue Characters is an adventure. Yes, she said that right before Guerren teleported in. This week, Melinda hopes to hit the midpoint and publish chapters 13-16 on Substack and Patreon.

I haven’t decided if I will let that be the midpoint. I might need to roam all over NY on an important side quest and prove her wrong. I like to keep her on her toes.

Melinda is making steady progress because things are slowing down at her day job. As more products transfer over to the new owners and systems are shut down, there are less new projects. So Melinda spends more time in meetings but meetings don’t generate work that could go home with her since she’s explaining how to do her job.

So it’s a bittersweet time and I am taking full advantage of it by pushing Melinda to write instead of scroll through social media. But she’s listening to me!

Want to read the latest chapters of Rogue Characters as they're released?

If you use code BCD9D for Patreon, you can get 10% off an annual plan. Or click here to get 10% off an annual plan for Substack because they don’t do codes.

Breakthrough on Storm Spells

Back in 2021 after Melinda finished writing Rogue Spells, she started writing the sequel, Storm Spells. But she ran into a hug story problem that she didn’t know how to solve, and she had to solve it to write the book.

I tried everything I could think of to help her figure out a solution. But nothing worked and Melinda had to put the story aside. Undeterred, I was determined to get more page time despite this setback so I pushed her to write other books in the hopes she’d figure out the problem.

I got more books, but years passed and Melinda still couldn’t figure out how Dysteria could do what she does in that book or how we could counter it because we have to save NY. Where will our scribe live if we don’t?

Fast forward to last year (2024), I suggested that Melinda should go back and turn our earliest newsletter adventures into books. Maybe doing that would help her figure out a solution to the plot problem in Storm Spells so she could write that book and finish that trilogy.

Melinda shrugged and started doing that since she did promise she would write those stories into books. She’d just finished the Rogue Gods Trilogy and the last two books in the Robin of Larkspur series, so she was looking for something less complicated and fun to write. So my suggestion sounded good.

Fast forward back to this past weekend. Melinda struggled with a fun chase scene in NYC and she figured out a solution!

I was so relieved since I’ve been telling you for at least a month now that she’d write Storm Spells next even though Melinda hadn’t agreed to do that yet. So it wasn’t officially official, just sort of official?

What was my plan if Melinda decided not to write Storm Spells next?

I planned to show her all the emails I sent saying she’d write Storm Spells and point out that she had to write that book or she’d disappoint you.

Thankfully, I don’t need to do that now because Melinda herself told me right before Guerren showed up that she will write Storm Spells next. So now it’s officially official. And yes, I know I said she said a lot of things before he arrived. But that’s really how it happened. Honest!

I wouldn’t make that up. No, I don’t have my fingers crossed behind my back. You’re imagining it.

That’s it for this week. I should go save my scribe now. She’s probably tired of Guerren.

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(In honor of my mom’s birthday this week, use code CBS20 to get 20% off all ebooks & audiobooks in my shop.)

Death is coming. Time is running out, and the Apocalypse waits for no one. Can Sovvan stop the end of everything, or will her hesitation doom them all? Find out in Chaos Rises.

Coming Soon

Will you catch the scribe & battle for the fate of your books with some rogue characters?

Get the brand new Tales of the Curse Breaker in NY series which transforms our early newsletter adventures into 3 brand new novels! Follow the campaign for details. (Estimated launch date is early September 2025 but this is dependent on Ran not going off on too many side quests in book 3.)