Final Night release and reflections
A year ago, I signed up to a year-long writing course at the Bestseller Academy, determined to get out of my rut of endlessly writing unfinished multi-volume fantasy epics and to complete something I could independently publish.
How did the course go?
Well, it kept me sane and focused during COVID lockdown. I wrote a novel, a novella and a chunky world bible that would also become the basis for a future tabletop roleplaying game in the setting. I also soaked up everything I could about book marketing and independent publishing.
So the important thing was to learn how to write a good book. I learned a lot from professional editors and workshopping my stuff at writing courses and groups. I also finished the RPG, and ran a few games of it, and found it was great having this open feedback loop between the stories, setting and game.
In terms of addressing my original problem—having stuff out there—well—I’ll release the novel next year after another draft, and the game some time after that as I keep on polishing the system.
But the novella, Final Night, is available right now to my mailing list subscribers. It’s a love letter to 80s horror films, and journeys into the Underworld to rescue the people you love. It’s about monsters and forgiveness. As one reader put it: “You have an alternate earth, parallel but different cultural stuff, supernatural monsters, metaphysical rules, alternate realities, reality-bending magic, selective amnesia and weird memory stuff… ” And it all works to tell a story about a woman’s last night in the world. I hope you enjoy it.
Kell
I’m Kell. I write urban fantasy in an interconnected universe. I’ve published one novel so far, and I’m working on the sequel. The premise of the universe is: Did you ever wonder what happened after the Dark Lord was defeated, and when the magic left the world? It’s been two thousand years since the forces of Darkness were defeated. Now, there’s a modern world of cars, skyscrapers and officers. Elves run fashion magazines. Orcs go to office jobs, and everyone thinks that the age of wizards and dragons is folklore. It’s a perfectly ordinary world…on the surface. But magic hasn’t gone away—it’s merely hiding in the cracks of the world. My current series, the Revenant Records, is an urban fantasy series focusing on ghost stories, mysteries and dark adventure. It’s the story of an undead teenager, trying to balance her responsibilities to help lost ghosts, while maintaining a semblance of a normal life. I love roleplaying games and I’m writing a system for my story world/universe. My mega-fandoms are Doctor Who, Final Fantasy VII, and Transformers.
