Outpost Report | November Monthly Roundup

Updates, notes, AMA, editor meetings, and more.

LUMICRON CAPTURE | RALLOC CASTLE
INCIDENT REPORT 482-B | WITNESS: JYNERUL GABRIEL ZAHN.
Cause of death confirmed: repeated blunt-force trauma and lacerations from a cheese grater.
Prime suspect: Sularan Godfrey.
Status: Murder investigation—Closed.

Here we are, another month in the can. The older I get, time just goes by faster, and I’ve got less of it to write. The hard part’s just getting started. We’re past the point of mercy, so let’s see the blood of it.

Town Herald:
Survey: To the individual who filled out the survey, thank you! I appreciate that! Just shouting you out cause you’re awesome.

Free Ko-don Post: Just want to draw attention to a post from earlier in the month, a free Ko-don tier piece: Inside the Mind of a Dark Fantasy Writer—if you haven’t read it yet, please do! It goes into depth about the personalities that gravitate to my work, cracking open the psychology of the reader base. There’s something about the world of Ermaeyth, and we need to know why it calls to us. Tell me down in the comments what drew you in.

Wander back through the archives and see where you fall on the spectrum. It was made available Nov 20^th, 2025. In fact, I encourage you to dig through the posts from time to time, you might find other free things that didn’t hit your inbox.

AMA: Another piece I dropped on the DL was an Ask Me Anything post. If you have questions regarding the DLS or writing in general, feel free to plant it in the comments. I’m sure other people have questions they’re dying to ask, but everyone’s afraid of being the first. Don’t be shy.

Battleground Formations:
Decimation Protocol:
I’ve finished the fifth and final draft. I might need to go in and add a few lines of every important dialogue—that may or may not directly relate to that novel itself. Read into that as you will.

Combat Log:
Chapters: | 41/41 | Encrypted
Prologue/Epilogue: Done.
Word Count: 117.6K
Morale: … taking off.

Other than that, it’s ready to go to the editor. I reached out to Jon in England, and May’s the soonest he can schedule me. While our conversations have always been courteous and professional, the details of this collaboration didn’t feel as productive. This may lead to a shake-up in the Dire Universe, and I’ll have to follow that path wherever it may go. Stay tuned.

The fifth-draft purge took its toll on my weary soul, and the afterburner engines are still glowing hot, but the story’s structure is strong. This one’s been through the grinder, and it put me through it as well; to say that I had to buckle down and dig deep isn’t an exaggeration, and as mentioned in an earlier post: by the fifth draft, I’m ready to throw the book at you. But it’s nice to see what will be the final shape of the story. I can’t wait to bring it to you.

Vol. I Update:
Over in the Dark Legacy trenches, Volume I continues its resurrection, the buzzards picking the bones clean. Okay, maybe it’s not that grim, but you get it. I took the time to stitch the muscle and connective tissue back to the skeleton that I carved too deep on last month. The rhythm’s returning, the world’s brought to life, and the story can breathe again. In short, I furrowed deep on the front quarter of the book to get readers hooked and invested—a page turner. Now, I can slow down a touch, open the world, and reveal the spiderweb of cracks beneath.

One awesome thing about going back through the book is stumbling across a passage and going, “Oh, I wrote that? That’s cool! I don’t remember that.” Believe it or not, doing this is really helping me with the plans of the final book. I’ve been taking notes, annotating the small details that most overlook—myself included.

Combat Log:
Starting Word Count: 205K
Deep Cut: 185K
Present Cut: 194K
Difference: +11K
Chapters: 39/87
Prologue: Done
Epilogue: 0/3
Morale: … holding steady.

On my old blog post, I had a huge write up on Vol. I and my love/hate relationship with it. I can still feel the embers of that confrontation bubbling up inside me. Maybe I should do a new post about it here. I hate it because I spent so many years toiling over the same passages, rewriting and rewriting, and I just burned out. On the other hand, it was my first labor of love, and it brought me into the world of writing.

The whole point to going back through is to clean it up and make it presentable to the wider global audience. I did this kind of clean up with The Demon’s Fate, The Dark Portal, Flawed to the Core, so it makes sense to do it to Vol. I & II. The original Vol. I skews into a high fantasy backbone with dark undertones and some grimdark/horror elements.

Vol. II was a strong step in the direction that would eventually be my overall tone, but it has the ghosts of high fantasy still haunting its origins. Vol. II’s biggest critique is wordiness, so streamlining it will go a long way to alleviate that. Also, the originals, when paired side by side to Vol. III, most people probably wonder: is this the same damn series? Right now the first two books feel like ancient and very distant ancestors instead of first cousins. That’s where we want to get to: cousin status.

In other news … I still have several printed copies of first editions of Volumes I & II available, and I’ll be selling them soon-ish. When I do, they’ll be signed, and you guys will be the first to know. Why should you buy this version? Well, it’ll be more dense in the lore, a first cut. Some things were trimmed back for the rewrite, streamlined, but this one will have all the juicy details.

Saved Rounds:
I have some other ideas floating through my head, and I’ve got to be honest, doing the revision of The Dark Portal is really making me want to go back and write the planned sequel to The Dark Portal. That said, the notes I have about it have been lost, but the essence of the story I vaguely remember.

On deck:
Maro 3 needs another pass/ round of revisions. It’s slated next for release after Decimation Protocol. After Vol. I is finished, I’m turning to Vol. II. Vol. IV is just beyond that, the final round before going to the editor … if it even survives that!

Out of Office:
I’m heading to Japan soon, my old stomping grounds, breathing in the humid air, slurping the noodles, and munching on the authentic sushi. Yeah, it’s going to be tough. What I’ll be working on while away is Vol. I, as I’m taking my laptop with me. Also, however much I have recorded of my audiobooks, I’ll be cutting while there.

Well, the booming voice from the town herald has shouted out the news. Now, citizens return to their lives. That’s all I got for this round—short, sharp, and sweet. I shall return…