Not Dead Yet Newsletter #4

Hey there,

I'm not dead yet. Unlike the unfortunate characters in my stories, I'm alive and writing. As you may know, I write fantasy in the grimdark genre.

News

I am at the quarter mark for first draft to the sequel to "Everyone Dies". To ensure enough time for editing, I will be moving the publication date to July 20th.

Personal Notes

As someone who tries to have a positive outlook on life, sometimes I wonder why my fiction writings tend to be dark. It could be an outlet for negative emotions. Perhaps by writing about negative worlds and events I am able to extract those bad feelings from my person in a constructive way. However, that doesn't explain why I like to read about dark settings, characters, and situations. If I ever figure that out, I'll share it here.

For those of you curious about what tools I use to write my books, here's a quick list:

• Writernaut, an alpha-stage Mac markdown writing tool for authors by my wife, Audrey. Not yet available for sale, but it will be soon!
• Quarto for processing markdown into epub and pdf and word (docx) formats
• Kindle Create for processing docx into kdf for uploading to Amazon KDP

I've tried writing books in Google Docs to make it easier on editors. The problems were that once something gets into the tens of thousands of words Google Docs slows down on anything but the fastest connection. Also writing offline didn't work so well. Eventually I had to break up books into many chapters to make it work, requiring me to painfully stitch them together for export to word format.

Awesome book deals

The beginning of the author Paul J Bennet's epic 15 book best selling fantasy series.
While not claiming to be grimdark or even dark fantasy, it absolutely fits in the genre.

The end of the author Paul J Bennet's epic 15 book best selling fantasy series.
As a fan of both abstract art and the Dutch masters, I love the cover.
Impressively, the author made good on finishing his series. Wow!

A dark biopunk tragedy where every choice cuts like a scalpel and compassion is the most dangerous medicine.
Grimdaniel's opinion: If you like grimdark and dystopian horror, this is a great read. Read my review!

An epic fantasy about the weight of history, the cost of power and the fragile loyalties that bind kingdoms.

A dark dungeon and kingdom-building fantasy about power, survival, and carving a future from the depths.

Blood magick. Demons. Rent due Tuesday.

Indie book collections

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