Dragon and Fury

I haven't been posting much here and have had some distractions, but I have finished the rough draft of Book 10 of Forgotten Worlds. Right now, I have a title but no cover. I have not found the right image for this one and am hoping to work with an artist to create the right image to suit this.

If you go back to the end scene of Book 5, you'll see mention of the Hormaki Battle Games. Well, this is just one of the many tournaments of Battle Games in this series. Ann is a fan, so I'll just say it was fun to "watch" it unfold. The Battle Games are little American Gladiator and a little UFC with weapons and only two rules really--no killing and no outside weapons allowed. It's a gladiator sport without the intentional killing, although broken bones, cuts, falls, etc. can happen and some fighters have died. It's brutal but there are also some areas of the arena with obstacles, and different weapons are available. This is what I would like to have on the cover, but since it's pretty specific, I can't find a stock image to match.

Now that I'm giving it a run-through post finish, it's fun to watch that whole part of the book unfold. I say watch because I can sit back and enjoy the show. It doesn't feel like reading but like I'm in the arena watching the exciting fight. I'm done with the first round of writing but am rewriting anything that stands out. The purpose in this is to get an idea of how it flows to determine what major rewrites may be needed. I will then go on to editing book 8, RACING THE ORAST BELT, after this round on book 10 and set up the pre-order for that. I'll return to book 10 again before moving on. I am still developing the story line for book 11.

And, as the subject line of this post states, the title of Forgotten Worlds #10 is DRAGON AND FURY.

Ann's plan to escape from her Paxon responsibilities presents some difficulties. And there are risks that endanger the intrepid group of friends helping Nik to finally meet the woman of his dreams.

If you are interested in the series, you can find more information on this blog under the "Forgotten Worlds" tab or visit your preferred ebook retailer online and search for M.A. Nilles.

1/28/21 edit: I have found an image that is suitable for this, although not what I would prefer with custom art to really capture the idea behind this. It is hard to find the right artist and my usual go-to cover artist is busy.

Update on Forgotten Worlds

I just have a little writing update for today, the 2nd of January, 2021. I can't believe it's 2021. It will take some time to get used to that. I saw online a meme that said something like "I can't believe that after 2020, we move onto saying 2020 won." Not quite the full meme, but you get the gist of it.

Anyway, starting out the new year, the writing is going well. I have a title for Forgotten Worlds Book 10--DRAGON AND FURY. As of today, it has passed 33,000 words, so very close to the finish since these books range from 40K-50K words, and I expect this to not be much past the minimum 40K word length. So far, so good for writing. I hope it keeps up this well so I can finish sooner than later. (I don't want to jinx myself again by getting overly optimistic.) Once I finish the first draft, I'll figure out a publication date for Book 8, RACING THE ORAST BELT, and post the pre-order availability on that. Fingers crossed I can set that date by mid-February.

The first 7 books of this series are available now. The current books available are listed in order below:

A NEW BEGINNING

THE RULE OF YONDER

VAULT OF THE CELESTIALS

IN DARKNESS, LIGHT

THE DESTRUCTION OF WALLS

DISPOSITION OF DREAMS

REMNANTS

You can find more on the Forgotten Worlds tab of this blog or on my website at melanienilles.com. For more frequent updates, join my page at MeWe at https://mewe.com/p/melanienillesauthor.

Welcome 2021!

It could get worse than 2020 but I'm an optimist and look forward to a 2021 that will be better than the past year.

I woke up to heavy fog this morning, which has, as of these pictures at 11 am, lightened enough to see more than a few feet away.

The crystalline glow of hoarfrost is always a beautiful remnant of winter fog. Once the fog lifts, that hoarfrost will sparkle and glisten, creating a magical surrealism over the world... until it melts off. It's a beautiful start to the new year!

I'm also glad we finally have snow on the ground. The second half of 2020 was drought for my area. Water tables have lowered and water dugouts for livestock are nearly depleted.  We finally received this snow a few days ago. While it's not enough, we'll take it. It was enough for the kids to have some sledding fun.

And inside, I have been growing this over the past month:

Two tomato plants starting to bud.

I had to put plastic around it because one of our kitties took to chewing off the leaves and killed one sprout and nearly two others. Those two, with regular watering quickly shot up to over three feet tall from the soil surface to the top and continues. I think these tomatoes love their mini-greenhouse made of that heavy-duty plastic. At least, they love not having a cat chew on them, and so do I.

Tomato greens can be toxic to cats, but Jack, being Jack, never showed signs of discomfort that we could see. He's our dog-cat. He eats everything, so we have to be careful. We did plant some kitty grass for him in a little potter after he went after the young tomato plants, and he LOVED that! Unfortunately, he also pooped out grass, which doesn't digest and caused him to have poop hanging from his butt. 🙁

Jack with his special cat grass (wheat, rye, barley mix)

Such is life here. We should have fresh tomatoes by the end of the month and will soon start some more indoor veggies. I hope Jack doesn't chew on those... cauliflower, radishes, and spearmint. I may even plant a head or two of lettuce if I have enough room in front of the the deck doors.

So, we're keeping an indoor garden. In one of the pictures above, you can see our regular garden plot. We've been taking out food waste to compost this spring. We have a pail under the sink to dump egg shells, banana peels, and other plant waste to take out and dump to add to our compost, although it appears that something is coming around to eat on some of that, which is fine too. We have wildlife in our rural neighborhood.

As I get older, I appreciate growing my own food more and more. It's a hobby with fruitful results. 😉