Actually, it was completed a few weeks ago. Why was there no update? Two reasons: I am horrible at promotion and marketing, and; I was planning to complete the first quick edit by Christmas and announce that not only was the draft complete, but it was in the hands of my editor. Then I got sick. So, very, very, very sick. So sick, we canceled Christmas. I am now well enough to be out of bed (with barely any time to wait before returning to work on Jan. 2nd!) and have adjusted my goals. Being realistic, I plan to have the draft to my editor before the end of January. I have a secret deadline that is earlier than that, but I don’t want to jinx myself, as ALL my plans for this December have gone so terribly badly that I do not want to tempt the Fates. It is a long book, but it holds together pretty well. There is some opportunity to pare it down a bit and tighten it up, but I will wait for my editor‘s and Alpha readers’ feedback. I do think the ending needs some punching up, but not an extensive amount. Overall, I feel pretty good about it, and I hope you will agree when you read it. I plan to publish in Spring 2025. Until then, have a wonderful year-end and the very best New Year full of health, happiness, and prosperity.

I knew a Game Master once who liked running games for low-level characters. Was it because he loved to see the characters' progression and their story arcs develop from new adventurer to murder hobo to seasoned heroes? Well, that certainly was part of it, but it wasn't his entire reason. In his mind, it was easier than running high-level campaigns. While he still had to match the adversaries to the party's skills, provide them a challenge and an opportunity for growth, he had many more stock creatures, items, and adventures to work with for low to mid-level games. He didn't have to create new challenges constantly when he could do some quick modifications and changes appropriate for the campaign. He gave the players conflict that tested their skills, good stories, and a great time without much effort. He was a fine Game Master and ran great one-shots, but, unfortunately, my friends and I loved playing our characters and working to level them up to practically god levels. We enjoyed epic story arcs and intersecting storylines. When we started new characters and campaigns, it was in our homegrown world which was shaped by the adventures (or misadventures) of our prior characters in earlier campaigns. Our old characters often became NPCs and might occasionally make an appearance. That put a big challenge on our group's two Game Masters. Their challenge wasn't creativity. They were both highly creative and knew how to shift and change based on our party's newest stupidity. Their challenge was to keep the game balanced. They needed to match foes and challenges to our insane power levels. They needed to create stories that were more complex, involved, and could take months to complete and lead into the next campaign. They needed to ensure that no character was "left behind" in story spotlights and character advancement. As a player, I loved what they did but never really understood the level of work and energy they put into it. The world of NECROMANTIC NIGHTS is of my design. I am not using a preexisting game system or other "world," and so I have to build everything from scratch. As I write NECROMANTIC NIGHTS, I have a similar challenge as my Game Master friends. This isn't a tale of some nascent magic users and would-be adventurers. This story features archmages and avatars of the gods, a swashbuckling lass, and, for lack of a better word, fop. I think my solution is simple but elegant for the mages and is familiar to many. There is a myriad of different magical disciplines. Mages learn some, master a few, and have no skills or knowledge in others. Magic may work differently on other worlds, and perhaps mages from those worlds use magic differently with different results. The puzzle for me is to determine which mage can do what, at what level, what do they know about other arcane disciplines, and how does that impact their ability to interact or defend against that magic? For example, Kairee has no interest in or desire to learn anything about necromancy; however, the villain in Necromantic Nights has skills in necromancy. If he attacks her with a necromantic spell, what can she use to defend herself? What is necromancy? How does it work? What is possible with necromantic magic, and what is not possible? And so on. The avatars, for me, are proving even a little more challenging. They are blood descendants of the Gods of the First Divine Court. They have power nearly reaching god-like levels, but is that overkill for the rest of the characters? Would it though the conflict out of balance? I don't want them to be Deus Ex Machina. They will have problems to deal with and other issues to overcome, but what is the extent of their powers? How do I dampen their abilities enough to be still formidable but not way beyond the capabilities of our villain? How do I keep them from overshadowing the other characters? Why would they partner with mages if they are much more powerful? I think the easiest solution is that while they have their own power, their power is turbo-charged by their connection to their patron gods. Since the gods have "gone dark" in NECROMANTIC NIGHTS, their power is still tremendous and legendary but not as formidable as when their divine connection is strong. Now I just have to figure out their unique abilities since each patron god is different. As for our swashbuckling lass, Mercy . . . Well, she's a hero and will have to figure out what that means in the company of archmages and avatars. What about the fop., you ask? We'll just have to wait and find out.

I have been world-building the “universe’ in which NECROMANTIC NIGHTS is set over a number of decades. I have broad concepts and many ideas, but, as they say, the devil is in the details. As I started writing NECROMANTIC NIGHTS , I had to produce those details. I needed to think through a slew of things from high concept down to the nitty-gritty. As I did that, I checked myself by asking, “Why?” Why is something possible? Why does this thing exist? I leveraged the “Five Whys” technique. The “Five Whys” is a troubleshooting technique to help you get past the symptoms of a problem to the actual root cause. It can take fewer than asking “why” five times or more than five iterations, but ultimately you reach the answer that can’t be reduced any further. For example, let’s use the problem statement, “People can’t travel between the mortal realm, the heavens, hells, realms of the dead, and other realms without magic.” Why? - There are barriers in place that prevent that travel. Why? - The gods put those barriers in place as the Celestial Accord requires to keep the various planes and realms separated. Why? - They want to protect themselves and the rest of Creation from destructive scourges that can all too easily rampage across planes. Why? - The Blood King assaulted the Court of the First Divine Court, killed a god, rampaged across the Mortal Realm in an orgy of destruction, and ripped at the very fabric of Ordered Reality until it was confronted and defeated by the combined avatars of the majority of gods. Why? - The Blood King wanted to destroy all Creation as far as they were able to determine, and the gods do not wish to be un-made. The answers to the “Why” statements could also generate new problem statements, such as “Magic can be used to travel between the mortal realm, the heavens, hells, realms of the dead, and other realms.” Why? - It is impossible to fully seal off all the planes and realms from each other. Why? - The underlying “nature” of Creation, The Nexus,” needs to flow throughout Creation. Why? - It is the heart’s blood of Creation. Why? - It is the mystical energy that holds Creation together, propagates more Creation, and withstands the forces of Chaos. In this case, I only needed four whys to get to the “answer” or a deep enough answer in service of defining the universe and, always, in service of the story. I think this technique can also work with other interrogatives, such as “How?” depending on the question you are trying to answer, but it may not need many iterations. Periodically, I like to change the question and ask, “Why not?” It’s essentially asking “why,” but it tackles it from the other way around. I usually use this when trying to figure out what my characters can and can’t do and why they can’t take a different approach. It’s not as clean as asking the many iterations of “why,” but the “why not?” question helps you challenge an assumption. Unless it’s a straightforward “why not” answer, I find that further questions transform into the “five whys” as I go along. That, however, may be the way my mind was trained! Regardless of if you use this technique or another, defining your world will result in creating guidelines or boundaries in your world that can add to the conflict, drama, and-or adds to the back story. Let’s say your story involves a demon that plagues your hero. Demons can’t just cross into the Mortal Realm, so how did it get into the Mortal Realm? Does it know a secret way? Was it trapped in the Mortal Realm when the Celestial Accord was put in place? These questions will lead to other questions. While it’s not precisely the “five whys,” asking questions is critical, in my opinion, to fully fleshing out your world.

Grief is one of those things for which you can never really prepare. Like so many, I have needed to grieve throughout my life; grief for lost friendships and broken trusts, grief over personal failures, and grief from the loss of loved ones. Each time, grief has affected me differently. I don’t ever recall going through the seven stages of grief. I don’t remember ever being in denial over the loss and hurt. I have been angry, but not every time. When my father died, I withdrew. I kept my grief private. The pain was for no one but me. I was angry when my mother died. I had lost my father a little less than two years previously. It wasn’t fair, and I wasn’t ready to be an orphan. But my anger was short-lived. Her death was for the best. Her illnesses were of the type where there was no hope of recovery. She would cry and tell me how much she wanted to be with my father again. Finally, her wish was realized, and I pray they are reunited. After they passed, I still had my brother. Losing my brother last year hit me so very hard. He was sick with cancer for most of the year. Early hopes vanished as the disease quickly metastasized. I was helpless to help him. The best I could do was to be with him and my sister-in-law. As much as I could, I supported his preparation for the end. We laughed at our memories, we told stories, he teased me the way brothers always do, and we said our goodbyes. We spoke about the afterlife and the promise of being reunited with those we loved who went before us. I think it gave him comfort. His rage at death lurking at his door, promising to steal his future and leaving his beloved wife alone, eventually eased to a resigned acceptance. He no longer vented his anger nor gave voice to his regrets and fears, but my brother was not the type to go “quietly into that good night” and continued to push against the tide. For me, life was grey. I had trouble staying focused during his long illness. Nothing mattered. I was overwhelmed by my helplessness; there was nothing I could do. In some ways, I am surprised I was able to go to work and still be competent at my job. I am thankful for the support I received from my employer. I clung to my professionalism, but the one thing I could not do was write. When my brother died, all I could do was cry. I still worked, but I mourned. He was dead, and I wanted everyone to know his name and who he was when alive. The stress over his all too quickly impending death evaporated only to be replaced by the proverbial gaping hole in my heart with which I filled with tears. Wounds I thought long healed from the loss of my parents reopened, and my grief over their loss joined my grief for my brother. There was so much pain, so much loss. I felt it all again. I never felt so alone. Months have passed, and while I still cry, it is not as often or as long as I did. I feel like I turned a corner with the new year. I am starting to write again..

UPDATE July 2021 Due to a very close family members serious illness, I will not be attending Evil Expo this year. I hope you got tickets and plan to attend in person or virtually. It really is a fun time. I am sorry to miss it but I will be back next year. =-=-=-= It returns . I RETURN! MUHAHAHAHAHA! I am very pleased to announce that I will be appearing at EvilExpo 2021 . We had a great show last year. We explored Talent Management in an Evil Organization and Creating Well-rounded Villains. I was introduced to The Big Bad Overlord himself (@BigBadOverlord). We had a great time playing the Big Bad Overlord game. (check it out at Big Bad Ideas). I also bonded over villainy with Dr. Discord (formerly known as Dr Evil) (@villainpodcast) and Minion #1. He is a terrific evil mastermind and host of A Necessary Evil podcast . What will I be doing this year? Well, scheduling is underway but Dr. Discord and I will be running a session on Evil Foods . (details to come. ) I have a few other ideas floating around and if they aren’t careful, they will be caught by The Dark Lord (@darklordjournal ) and forced to perform! I’ll update this post as more details are firmed up. In the meanwhile, it’s never too late to buy tickets and start your planning to attend EvilExpo 2021 ! UPDATES! 8/13/20 My author page is up for Exil Expo. Check it out and give me a thumbs up! https://evilexpo.com/m-g-martin/