Kenn Ghannon: Blog

I've got a few things coming up in the next two weeks which are going to be running me ragged. Therefore, I've decided I will probably take a week off from posting next week. I'll post as normal on 5/6 but my next post after that will very likely not be until 5/20. If I don't post on 5/14, I'll make up for it by posting two chapters on 5/20.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

I have a process. It probably isn't great but it's what I use. I plan out my stories before I start writing them. Before I ever began writing Runesward, I knew how it was going to end. I almost always write the ending first.

Getting to the end is the exciting part for me. I know the ending, so finding a beginning and then writing the pieces that get me to the end is what I enjoy in writing a story.

The ending is NOT stagnant - the CONCLUSION is stanant, the story will end as it will end, but the details, the true ending, is not. As I give voices and personalities to the people who must get me there, they change details and perspectives about the ending I've written. I know what I need to get there... I just don't know how I'm going to get there.

Tome 1 was simple. It focused on getting my main character to the place I wanted him to start his journeys. Tome 1 was always meant to be the beginning - but he needed a reason to 'move'. The Red Guard were that reason.

When I dreamed up the Red Guard, they had to come from somewhere and they had to have a reason for entering Yren's life and a reason for Yren to have to 'move'. The reason complicated my life so much that there are times I wish I can go back and re-write the Red Guard out of existence (or, at least, Arlade Tinsto). I could've opted just to make the Empire the bad guys, the Red Guard invaded and so on. BUT... that wouldn't get me to the conclusion I had envisioned for this story.

Now, we're in Tome 2. Yren has to have a reason to continue the journey. He has to find a purpose. That's what Tome 2 is really about - and what Tome 3 will continue. Yren has a reason to 'move' but now he needs a purpose beyond that 'movement'. Something has to drive him.

I've received a lot of constructive criticism, most of it because we're 9 chapters into Tome 2 and Yren has yet to make an appearance. The problem is my effort to keep Tome 1 'simple'. Much of the pieces I need to put into play to get to the conclusion I purposefully kept out of Tome 1. Oh, I mucked with the Empire a bit because it was necessary, but there are pieces I needed to move that I probably should have started in Tome 1... but that would have left them flapping in the wind. I would have started them in motion but with no conclusion. I didn't want to do that.

I promise, Yren will return. His return begins in Chapter 38 and continues in Chapter 39 and 40.

Thank you for reading.

In the United States, we celebrate 'President's Day' today. For me, it is an extra day off - a long weekend.

On a whim, my wife and I decided to do something inappropriately extravagant and dash off to hide for the weekend. It wasn't planned. It was more of a 'You wanna?' 'I wanna' discussion on Friday.

In my haste to run away and hide before our kids could insert themselves into our plans, I didn't even think about needing to prep and submit a new chapter on Friday for publishing on Saturday. Thus, the reason this week's chapter is late.

I've submitted it just now and I'm sure it will be published shortly. Apologies for the delay.

After consideration, I'm going to change the way I list future crowd-source changes. Instead of including a summary of the change at the end of the chapter as well as the name of the person making the change, I'm just going to list the names of people who've contributed.

As it is, I have to make the change in two places - the upload copy and then again in the master copy. I then have to copy it one last time to the end of the upload copy in the 'Editing Credits' section and affix the name of the crowd-source editor. It might be laziness, but it takes quite a bit of time - time I'd rather be writing.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

I hope that you and yours have a safe and happy new year. Let's hope 2022 brings us the relief we prayed for in 2021.

Some of you might have noticed I put a New Year present in your stocking (unless you or your significant other, like mine, decided to take down the stockings the day after Christmas, in which case the analogy just doesn't work) - I've started posting Tome 2 of 'Runesward'. I'm doing this against my better judgement and going back on a promise I've made to myself several times - not to begin posting a story until it was complete.

Tome 2 is NOT completely written. It is, however, in a good place and I feel that I have sufficient time in coming months to finish it off. For this reason, I feel that I am going to post it one chapter per week - at least for now. I may re-think this in the future but for now, you should receive a fresh chapter every Saturday.

I acknowledge this is slow - and I'm truly sorry. However, like all authors, you can read faster than I can write (a fact I constantly lament as I finished 'A Better Man, Book 2' by G. Younger - available for sale on his web-site - in a single day and now have to wait possibly several months for the next installment... we really need to come up with a device that can read an author's mind and just write the book directly from the author's head...). Plus, my process has me going back over my writing a month or so later to 'tidy up' what I've written so that it seems to make sense to me.

You'll notice that Chapter 30 was edited by Robberhands. He did initial editing on many of these early chapters but then, as Covid raged, I lost track of him. It's been two years or more since I've heard from him. I like to think that he's out, traveling the world, enjoying himself.

I hope you enjoy the second book of Yren's adventure.