Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! (And my bot visitors!)

Finished The Red Palace again today. How many times have I finished it since I last wrote that I’d finished it here? Not sure. It has been two full editorial passes and a rewritten ending, at least. I’ve done those recently.

I want to be done now. Probably not, but much closer. Almost ready to pull the trigger on proofing.

This book is one that demanded to be written. I needed the catharsis it gave me, and I hope can provide for others.

It is a book about the end of a fantasy bronze age, and abuse of power meeting its reward. I receive few points for subtlety.

It is an experiment, because my books always are. Fifty thousand words, almost all of it dialogue.

Contrary to current trends, there is no main character to immediately identify with. It amuses me how many writing advice channels absolutely assume that for a starting point. So I had to be different. There are characters to discover, to witness, but a main character? I leave it to you to decide who would take that honor, if it must be awarded.

I make no bones about its debt to earlier works, even ones I haven’t read, but just existed in the world I grew up in, part of the cultural zeitgeist, a shorthand I absorbed, and have perhaps internalized entirely mistakenly. That doesn’t matter really, because I’ve made my own story of it anyway. Of my idea of it.

And that’s art. The transmogrification of the old into something new, alchemy performed by the addition of fresh elements, fresh perspective. I do not believe that nothing is original, I believe the new is created all around us, constantly. Only jaded hearts decide it is something they have seen before.

The Red Palace is for people who appreciate the old, but crave something new. It is for people who want to see corruption punished, if only in the ways that fiction allows. It is for readers tired of cookie cutter fiction. Readers who maybe need a little catharsis of their own.

It is for you. It is not for my bot followers and scrapers. It will be under copyright. It is written without the use of any AI. 100% human, which means very much warts and all. That’s the way I roll.

Take care, everyone.