​While I'm delighted to be back working on the Phoenix Saga, I can't help but feel that *Mysterious Project No.3*, as exciting as it was at the time, has been something of a palette cleanser.

Moving on to a new series was always going to be a challenge in itself, of course, even more so if you were as foolish enough, as I, to think you could detach yourself from your SIP (series/saga in progress, is that a thing?). Not to say that it isn't doable. Certainly, for the more experienced writers out there, a capacity for cold-blooded ruthlessness when it comes to switching between projects has often long-since been cultivated. Take Will Wight for instance, currently demonstrating such a feat with his The Elder Empire series... boy, is that guy just damn productive....

Welcome one and all, and an outrageously belated Happy New Year to you lovely people!

For those of you who haven't come across my guest appearance on Yakira Goldberg's blog (which you can catch here) I thought I'd cobble together a quick post to inform you all of a recent change of heart I've had in regard to my writing.

I'm still writing, by the way! I won't be hanging up the keyboard just yet.

I had been working since the Summer on a completely separate project, basically with the idea of seeing how quickly I could write a novel (extremely rough first draft, more like). Inevitably, however, life tends to get in the way of our goals and I was thrust once more into university life, and all the fun and joy that it entails. Not to say I'm not enjoying it, but, as one might expect, it has made writing more of a juggling exercise.

As such - and considering how much I've missed the Phoenix Saga - I've decided to focus all my attentions on the third book and the following instalments before I attempt such an ambitious move again.

Bring on the Phoenix.

So... I was wondering this morning about the practicalities of designing either a 'soft' or 'hard' magic system within a book.

Establishing strong characters and an equally compelling story line should, in my opinion, always be the first port of call for any genre. But magic systems are also the calling cards of Fantasy - they make the genre distinctive.

Harry Potter has wands and spells; the Mistborn Trilogy has a strict system of rules and limitations, requiring the consumption of metals for magic and for the 'magic user' to have been born able to use one or all of the metals; and then you have Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (LoTR), where the limitations and extent of magic are shrouded in mystery.

So, with Autumn officially upon us (at least for those us hailing from the Northern Hemisphere), let us bid goodbye to another thoroughly disappointing Summer (for those of us unlucky souls in the UK, that is).

Entering into a new season, the afterglow of having self-published Nathaniel Grey and the Obsidian Crown (available at an Amazon near you) has officially faded and I must cast an eye to completing my latest project, Mysterious Project Number 3. Which, for now, shall continue to go unnamed. Sorry!

Considering how the story is currently progressing, I'd say we're roughly 60% of the way through. Of course, as we near the New Year, we'll soon see just how bloody optimistic that statement was. Ideally however, I am hoping to be editing and sending the manuscript out to betas come early 2020! 

* cough cough - if you'd like to be an official beta reader for mysterious project number 3 feel free to let me know in the comments, or better yet, just hit me up in the contact section - cough cough *

Well... I guess that's everything!

- Farrell

Howdy.

Well... I don't really have anything important to say, so how about I just throw in another scene from my current project without any accompanying context or explanation? Sound good? Great!

I'll just drop some text this time rather than a screenshot, as I think there were some difficulties in expanding the posted image. Enjoy!