The Flame Long Burning

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As hard as it is to believe, Solarflame, my epic fantasy, featuring dragons, of course, releases next week! I thought I would take a few moments to reflect on how this book finally became a reality.

If these fantastical tropes strike your fancy, grab Solarflame on pre-order and read the short stories set in the same world, The Overlord's Trials and Scars (freebies on my website!).

🔥 A richly imagined fantasy world 

🐉 Dragons bonded to their riders 

⚔️ Assassination, political turmoil, and high-stakes magic

 💫 A reluctant heir with an impossible deadline

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The First Flickers of Something Decent

Solarflame was the first novel I scribbled away at that possessed a glimmer of becoming something decent. My previous attempts were just plain bad. When I finished my first attempt at penning a cohesive novel-length story, a.k.a. a rough draft, the resident writer of my critique group told me to start editing it. I recall telling him that I didn't think it was good enough to bother editing. He retorted that it didn't matter whether the writing was good or not; I needed to follow through with the edit to complete the entire book-writing process.

If you've produced marketable fiction, you know how right the resident writer was. I attempted to edit the draft, but my effort was halfhearted at best. Still, my motto has always been: hard work pays off. Soon, I was working on a new project.

Pay off the hard work did as my prose improved in leaps and bounds. It still wasn't great or even good, but I kept steadily improving and was enjoying myself. Still, the critiques of my work focused on slipshod characterization. My dialogue stunk! My protagonists were wishy-washy in the worst ways!

Solarflame was my first effort to earn any compliments for my characterization. People genuinely enjoyed Rangthor, warrior and reluctant heir to a kingdom in turmoil, Flamemonger, his often mischievous dragon, and Lady Amber, duty-bound to marry but pinning to be the greatest dragon racer in history.

The Hard Work

More than just writing away and reading, I did two things to improve my writing while working on Solarflame. I studied the dialogue and characterization of authors I admired. I remember spending hours studying Martin Cruz Smith's dialogue. Also, I took some advice to heart that I heard from John Scalzi—write short stories as projects focused on improving deficiencies in your writing. Adding these activities to the mix accelerated improvements in my writing.

Serendipity

Honestly, though, it's serendipity or just dumb luck that led to Solarflame having a publication date. I had moved on to The Allison Lee Chronicles, Phantom Algebra, and had many ideas for future stories. I toyed with the idea of returning to Solarflame, maybe doing a major edit or massive rewrite, but then I saw a call for manuscripts from Cloaked Press. I figured, what the heck, I have something that fits the bill.

The moral of the story? Finish those drafts and complete those edits. You can't luck out if you don't have a manuscript to submit!