The Lands of Draknor is something that has been rolling around in my head for a very long time. I still remember the very first short story I wrote in that world. Ashthranh, mercenary for the Gods, and a murderous task. It was a very simplistic tale back then, written by a 16-year-old Sophomore in high school, but it started something much bigger. Over time that simple plot changed a great deal, but the main protagonist, Ashthran the Dryth, never did. Working on these podcasts, many of them being set at various periods in time in the world of Draknor, has really made me want to get back into the creation of this world. And so I think I will. I am getting close to finishing the final draft of The Forest Awakens, so I believe my assassin novel will have to be put off yet again to make way for something much more significant to me.

Check back next Tuesday for the full audio of Marked By The Dragon!

I hope everyone had a good holiday this year. Thanksgiving is always a fun one. It’s just about getting to spend some time with family and having fun. Or at least it always has been. This year we decided the best thing to do would be to host it ourselves.

That sounds like a good idea, ya? Have a few people over, close family, maybe a couple friends. Ya right. Word spreads, and soon there is over a dozen people planning on attending. This is when freak-out mode began for poor Robert. Samantha found this hilarious blog a couple weeks ago and in one of her posts she had such a great quote. It became our slogan for the holidays. “Clean ALL the things!” We were saying it all the time. Hehe.

In the end it all couldn’t have gone better. I think we had about a dozen that stayed for lunch, and about 17 or 18 that showed up after lunch to talk and hang out for a bit. The food was all ready on time, the people got along great, I couldn’t have asked for a better holiday.

Maybe there is something to this pre-holiday freak out time. If we hadn’t done that, and gotten it out of our system, then I don’t think things would have turned out nearly so well. So take that as your holiday-hosting lesson for the year. Hope everyone else had a good Thanksgiving!

Hello everyone, Halloween is upon us! Things hiding in the dark and all that. This year is kind of a bummer for me on my near-favorite holiday. *sighs* I’m sick, again. This year has been filled with sickness, I hates it, precious! On top of that, I get to work tonight, yay… I don’t ever get scheduled to work Sundays so I was a bit bummed about it. Samantha gets to go trick-or-treating with my sister and her kiddos. I would much prefer to do that. Oh well…

I’ve been productive lately, in a not-so-bloggy kind of way. I’m sure you guys are used to my quietness by now so I’ll stop apologizing for it. Muahah. But I’ve been reading and writing a lot. The Forest Awakens has an entirely new prologue and a new chapter one has been fully fleshed out as well (the writing has just begun). You may be thinking… your percent bar doesn’t really reflect still working on the first chapter, but, alas, it does. These are the two main goals for this draft. I’ve touched up chapters here and there in no particular order, but this is the meat of what I hope is the final, final draft that brings me an agent.

Pushed to the Edge is coming to a close soon. I’ve been too sick to write this week so it’s going to get delayed a week. I tried (and actually completed) a draft of it. But I hit the magic button and it got DELETED. Trust me, it was for the best. I have about 1000 words of a newer, much better version.

To finish, here are some books I’ve read lately. We’re hyped up for Towers of Midnight coming out Tuesday!

• His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman
• The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell
• The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

For a number of reasons, some that I’ll mention in a moment, David and I have decided to change the format of our podcast. Instead of bringing new episodes every week we’re going to do it every other Tuesday and make each episode last a bit longer. It may not be a permanent change, but for now it’s how we’ll run things. Because of this I’m going to attempt to do more posts than just the Tuesday Night Stories. I figure one post every two weeks might be a bit too rare.

To keep up Tuesday posts, I’m going to talk a little bit about where the story is at on the days that we don’t have a podcast episode. It will be a way to get into my mind as I’m plotting and writing these. Hopefully a little insight into my process will be entertaining. It’s possible that I might have something else to share about the stories on the off weeks, but it’s too soon to talk about it just yet! For now it’s my super-secret TNS plan. *gives a drastic villain cackle*

So, some reasons why we’re moving the podcast to every other Tuesday:

• Time has become a serious factor for me lately. The point of this isn’t to let my writing suffer by pushing too hard. Longer episodes, a bit more spread out, will let me dedicate the time needed for each one.
• Some of the stories are 7-9 episodes each. Without any breaks that is more than two months per story. That seems like a long time to keep people’s attention. Longer episodes should mean that each story can be released faster.
• Since I started this my writing time for non-podcast projects has been a lot more limited than I originally planned. Having more time for each one will let me get back to work on my novels. That’s really important to me.
• Last but not least, I think each episode will contain a lot better writing by not having to rush (sometimes I’ve have to rush it a lot more than I want). This goes for David as well, giving him plenty of time to get a perfect recording.

I appreciate your understanding in this matter. I hope that it will only increase the quality of our podcast. Sometimes writing just needs a little more time to marinate!

It’s been a sickly week around the Leonard household. I was taking a lot of cold medication this last week so I apologize about the missing podcast Tuesday. The story is written and has already been sent off to David so no worries about it this coming week. I’m finally feeling a bit better, but Samantha is sick now! This is why I don’t go to Chuck E. Cheese! It’s one of those places for kid parties. Pizza, video games, etc. Everything is sticky. Everything is just waiting to get you sick. *shudders*

Anyway, thanks for your patience.

Hip, hip, hooray to my little sister for graduating from high school tonight. It was great to watch all the kids walk across the stage and get their diplomas. She’s currently caught somewhere between feeling that great relief and crying that her friends won’t be joining her at college. It’s so hard to grow up! She’s definitely a people person though, and even though she may not see it yet, she’ll have plenty of friends soon enough I’m sure.

So here’s to you, little sis! I’m so proud. You have the world at your fingertips now, so go get ‘em!

Yesterday we went to my little niece’s graduation from kindergarten. They gave all the kiddos graduation caps to wear and let them line up on a stage. It was very cute. My niece is shaping up to be a very intelligent little girl. There’s an inquisitiveness about her that I don’t see in a lot of other kids, they are the ones that always fascinate me. She really enjoys taking the time to figure things out. So, of course, we get along great together.

The other day when we visited she said they (they being her and her little brother) wanted to play teacher with me. I laughed, a bit curious about what the game could be. So the two of them sat side by side and handed me a book. Teacher is a game where I get to read to them, showing them the pages. I got a kick out of it, I remember when it was just asking me to read a book.

I’ve always thought it would be fun to teach kids that young, but I feel I would be more useful when they are a bit older. I’m glad to get to help out with these kids though! It’s always a fun getting to be around them. Now that it’s summer I imagine we’ll be going swimming quite often. No complaints here!

I had no intention of taking a month off the blog. I am sorry about that. Some of my last posts said our grandfather was diagnosed with cancer and was going to start treatment for it. Well, sometimes these things just don’t end well despite all the hopes and good thoughts coming from their family and friends. David, Daddy Dave to all his grandchildren, passed away in the hospital, his body was just too weak to fight everything going on inside it. It all seemed to happen very quickly.

His death hit me a lot harder than I thought it would, I thought I was pretty much ready to accept whatever happened. Even now it doesn’t always feel real. Everyone in the family will agree that the best thing we can do now is try to show as many people as we can why he was so special. It has meant the world to me how much Samantha’s family included me these last weeks.

One thing I do know is that DaDave wouldn’t want me to stay away from my writing or from my blog either. If anything he would keep urging me on like he always did, hoping I would strive for more. So I will not let my grief control me, because that is what I think he would want. Anyone still with me here, thanks for sticking around, I really do appreciate it. And in many ways it does feel good to be back.