FROM: MASTER-OPERATIVE | BYLOS LAKET
TO: APPRENTICE-OPERATIVE | SABEL TUNRICK
“Rule sixteen? Consider that rescinded as long as it doesn’t hinder our work or your training.”
Quiet doesn’t mean the war’s stopped. It rolls on … always. The hard part’s just getting started. We’re past the point of mercy. Let’s see the blood of it.
Paperbacks: Maro 1 & 2, and The Dark Portal (with its new cover), have now gone worldwide across all major platforms—9/11/2025. If you hate Amazon, you can order yourself a 6x9 copy for your shelves from elsewhere. I’m considering doing my own website where people can order directly from me with quicker turnaround time, but that’s something on the back burner and half-a-year away at the earliest.
Audiobooks: I’m making slow progress on Flawed to the Core. Two chapters are recorded, six more to go. I never realized how perfect things must be for a mere thirty minutes of recording time: no kids outside, screaming or riding dirt bikes, and the voice has to be rested, no sandpaper on wood. Editing speed is brutal and glacial, one hour for every four minutes of audio. Searching for efficiency. Pray I find it.
Maro III: Maro’s next adventure is one of chance, and he’s looking to press his luck. I’ve finished the third draft of Maro’s next adventure, and the cards have been dealt. Word count’s sitting around 32,000. I finished 9/8/2025. Now, I’m setting it aside for a spell, and shifting focus to two darker fronts that’ll demand more time and blood.
Decimation Protocol: The final draft enters production. This draft cuts deepest, other than the first. My process is threefold: each chapter sifted three times consecutively before it’s worthy of the editor. Chapter length could stretch time anywhere from 2–3 hours per—and my fantasy series?—4–5 hours. The goal: a chapter a day keeps the madness at bay.
Vol I: Eight years since release, it deserves a tactical war polish. The story stands, the characters breathe, but the prose leans high fantasy rather than the efficient grimdark—where I make my home now, most notable in Vol. III and beyond, and the Maro stories. Everything will still be there, just as brutal and heart wrenching, just more efficient.
The blades been sharpened, and it’s ready to sheathe itself in a warm body. Pray it’s not you. That’s all I got for this round—short, sharp, and sweet. I shall return…