Sharp Things and Echoes of Rylia are now available. Click on their cover images to purchase on Amazon.

I wrote the first 14,000 words or so of Sharp Things quite a long time ago. I’d guess around 2004. I remember bits and pieces of my original storyline, but the book did not go in that direction once I started working on it again. Why is that? No interesting reason exists. I am simply a slightly different person than I was in 2004, and my brain takes different tracks than it did then.

Anytime I write a Jacob Cable book, the one I am working on ends up being my favorite. In Sharp Things, I enjoyed elaborating on one of Cable’s experiences in World War II that was hinted at in other books. I also liked that I got to look at that experience through the interpretation of another character. In that regard, the event is the essential truth of what happened to Cable in the war, but it is probably not exactly what happened (but close enough). In some of Stephen King’s works, he put stories inside stories, like the Misery novel within Misery or the short story about the pie-eating contest within The Body. It was fun to do a similar thing in Sharp Things. Also, the event came from my first draft of Shiny Things. I cut it from the final version, however, because I felt it distracted from the main story.

I read a lot of Jim Thompson during the crafting of Sharp Things. I wanted to experiment with using some of Thompson’s style elements, both in writing and plotting. I ran some of Sharp Things’ dialogue in a Thompson format (but not necessarily voice). Plot-wise, I had fun throwing the scenario on the plate and letting some of the elements run together.

Onto the second book…

I believe the first draft of Echoes of Rylia was written around 2005. I can’t exactly remember anymore. After writing Jacob Cable books, DogSS of War and other stuff, I thought I’d give the fantasy adventure genre a shot. I always enjoyed Robert E. Howard. Howard is pretty much where my knowledge of fantasy begins and ends. I have read other authors in the genre, but Howard is the one I naturally gravitate toward. That being said, I don’t think Echoes of Rylia is particularly Howardian in nature (I actually believe there is more Howard in the Jacob Cable books). Echoes of Rylia is its own thing. It has a dragon. It has a knight. It has a prince and princess. It has an evil king, but it is all my interpretation of such things.

My favorite character in the book was the dragon, of course. His name is Dirge, and he has a peculiar voice. Style-wise, I wanted elements of Dirge’s voice to be found throughout the book. I doubt anyone will notice that but me, but it was something I kept in mind as I wrote the book. For example, I used less commas and let the prose run together a bit more.

I had a decent draft of Echoes of Rylia to work from, but it still took some revision. Completing it and Sharp Things in a year made things pretty busy for me. Glad to get them both done. I hope you enjoy them.

Now I must plan what I’d like to do in 2022 when it comes to writing…