Category: News

Hi everyone! It’s June!! We have made it half way through the year and the weather is finally turning for the better! I hope you all had a great last month and are ready for summer to come! Let’s get ourselves rolling into another monthly update so we can see what we’ve been up to! 

 

 

Things are slowly finishing off!

The big cards keep on rolling here as we finish off our crop of projects…and uh, not really add all that much for the remainder of the year.

Starting at the top as we all work downwards I am happy to say that Threads of Fate is going along awesomely and I am getting more and more words out every day as I write new content and edit it into the stuff previously written – in fact that’s what I expect to be focusing my next week or so on as I do one of my editing and continuity passes before getting the chunk of chapters ready for Yonder. And yes, that’s right! That means that you will all be able to soon read Threads of Fate this summer – though unlike the previous books this book will be going back to its web serial roots and will be delivered on a three chapter a week pattern until the book is completed. The audiobook on the other hand will be delivered as per usual once the whole book is completed and everything is recorded!

Beyond Ascend Online I am happy to say that Gray and I finished off our secret project this last month and it is now off into editing! We will have many more announcements to come with this new series of ours but I am happy to say that it will be released this year – likely in December! As for the other projects they are still in production limbo and I don’t have any other updates at the moment – but the second I do, you will all know!

Lastly on the list – we are on the second last step of the process with the collectors edition! They are now on a boat and enroute to the warehouse for delivery! As soon as they arrive they will be on their way to your hands ASAP!

And that’s all folks!

For those of you reading all the cards I am sure that there’s one thing that you’ve noticed – that there aren’t any newer projects on the card and that things are winding down a bit. Well – that’s intentional…because we are all looking at taking a little bit of a break once we have Scion of Magic and Threads of Fate finished. We’ve been hitting things hard nonstop the last year and once the current crop of projects are over, I am looking for a well-earned rest for a month or two. I’m still not quite sure when that time will land month wise, but we are hoping that it is this year when we can enjoy some much needed rest and relaxation! In the meantime I’ll be back again for an update next month! Until then, we hope that you all stay happy and healthy!

See you all again soon!

Luke

Hi everyone! Happy May! I hope you all had a great month for April and that the weather is finally turning  for the better wherever you are! I don’t know about you – but I am ready for the green! Until it shows up through – let’s keep ourselves occupied with another monthly update!  

 

 

The Smörgåsupdate 2: Electric Boogaloo

Okay! So here we are with a pretty full card again, though really it’s all more of the same as last month – just further along as we round out these projects!

At the top of the list, right now we have Scion of Magic in a mostly paused state as I turn my full focus onto Ascend Online. The book as it stands right now has been sent off for some editing as well as beta reads so I can get some much-needed feedback on it while I switch tracks for a while.

As for work on Ascend Online, things are going great as a whole! I am really enjoying how the story is coming together so far and while there is still a fair amount more to go yet, I am very much enjoying the experience of writing a ‘shorter’ Ascend Online story (all things are relative after all, haha). As things go, I am still not certain as how long this book might end up being. Initially I thought that this book was going to be in and around the 150k mark, but I feel that it’s possible I could find the ending a bit sooner than that – it’s still too early to say. In any case though, I am having a heap of fun writing the story, and after being away from it for so long, that is a great feeling.

Beyond those two projects I am happy to say that all of the cowrites on deck are happily moving into their next stages in production! We have Paragon of Shadow now in production for audio and its eventual release, and both of the two other secret projects are on their way to completion and all the post production that follows afterwards. With luck we will have a fantastic later half of the year to share with you all!

Lastly on the list – I am happy to say that the Legacy of the Fallen Collectors Edition is now in printing! Woo! As soon as we have these books delivered to us at the fulfillment house and start getting them ready for delivery, I will be sure to let all of you know!

And that’s a wrap!

That’s all we’ve got for this month’s update! I know there wasn’t much in terms of earthshattering announcements this time around, but things are moving along well as a whole! I am hoping that once we get into the June-August stretch of updates we’ll be able to throw out some more active timelines and release dates for things, but in the meantime we are just going to keep working away on everything we’ve got on the table! Until then, we hope that you all stay happy and healthy until our next update!

See you all again soon!

Luke

Hi everyone! Happy April! We are marching through the year and I don’t know about you all, but I am happy to finally see some green outside! We’ve had quite the winter over here and I am 150% ready for the spring and summer to arrive, bringing back some of that nice warm weather in the process! But while we wait for the weather to full turn, let’s take a look on what we’ve been doing this last month, which is just a colossal amount of stuff!

 

 

The Smörgåsupdate

So as I am sure you can all see – the card this month is just PACKED with goodies on it, and it’s just super hard to pick any one of them apart in a meaningful way without mentioning the other so we are just going to jump straight into it.

So first off – we are still grinding away on Scion of Magic as we try and get it into a readable state and fix up the issues that all of you glorious beta readers have pointed out for me! Unfortunately considering how busy this last month has been combined with a huge case of writer’s block in fixing these problems I’ve just not been able to make as much progress as I’d hoped and this project is still lingering on my plate. I am really hoping that we can finally put Scion to bed this month and have sent out for formal editing, especially because I’ve finally gotten back to working on Ascend Online in a meaningful and I am having a blast!

After a couple months of outlining and planning we’ve been able to hammer out a sizeable chunk of words for Book 5 I am hoping to pick up speed as I weave the new beginning that I am writing into the chunk that I split off from the original draft of Glory to the Brave. In any case, I feel like I have a pretty clear vision of what I want to do for this book and I am excited to be able to burn away on it over the next couple months. As things stand right now my goal is to have the text version of book 5 out early summer on Yonder first, then to follow with Audible as soon as the book is recorded.

Next on this crazy list are the rest of my cowritten and backburner projects that I have on the go! We have two untitled secret projects that have finally made their way onto this list, the first being a satire comedic fantasy with G.D Penman and a Norse themed progression fantasy with Demi Harper! These projects have been ticking away in the background for the last several months, but if all goes to plan, they will be nearing completion over the next couple months and be in your hands ASAP afterwards! Sharp eyes will notice too that there is another novel project on the list too – The Blood Crown! This is a super exciting gladiator-based fantasy/progression fantasy story that has been gradually coming together over the last year and just can’t wait to be able to share more with you when it’s ready! (Though all the other projects on this list will generally take priority over it in the short term.) For those interested in seeing what I have so far – there is a very rough draft of the story posted on my patreon!

Moving on from there and onto our last update – I am happy to announce that the Legacy of the Fallen Collectors Edition is a stone’s throw away from going into print! We’ve had a crazily busy stretch in getting everything finished for the project and it is looking absolutely amazing! As soon as we are ready to share more of the details there will be a big kickstarter update going out to all backers to outline what to expect in the coming weeks and months!

The End

And that’s all I got! It’s a been a crazy month of work getting everything sorted and I expect this to be another crazy month as well! We are so close to heaving a bunch of projects out the door in the near future and I cannot wait to hear what you all think about them! As soon as we have some tangible release dates for those projects too – we will absolutely let you all know when to expect them too! Until then, we hope that you all stay happy and healthy until our next update!

See you all again soon!

Luke

Hi everyone! Happy March! (Gosh can you believe it’s March already?!) It’s been a blur of a few weeks since we last saw you all here – so welcome back for another awesome monthly update and let’s see what we’ve been up to this last month!

 

 

 

Editing Galore!!

Much like last month we have been hard at work with a TON of editing this last little while and as of right now I am happy to say that both Paragon of Shadow and Immortal’s Ascent Book 3 have received the silver stamp of approval to head into formal editing! Now that they’re off our hands our brilliant and hardworking editors will be working hard to find, fix, and flag every single error and plot hole that Alex, Chris, and I have hidden away in our respective works. Once they’ve finished their passes on the manuscripts – we’ll be right back at both of them to give them the gold treatment for publishing (which as of yet is still TBD other than 2023!)

Beyond those two projects I have made fairly decent way on Editing and Revising Scion of Magic – but truthfully it’s been a little bit of a bear on my plate until this last week. Fortunately thanks to a handful of helpful alpha readers I’ve managed to untangle myself from my mental block and I am hoping to give the book my full attention come March and have it silver stamped and sent to the editors ASAP afterwards!

But that’s not the only thing I’ve been working on!

Yes – the vague blogging is finally over! I can finally talk about one of my secret projects – which is short story in the ‘When Swords Fall Silent’ Anthology that will be coming out next week on March 7^th on Audible narrated by some of your most favorite narrators and authored by some of your favorite authors! But I won’t waste my own words in describing the book when I can use someone’s much, much better words instead! Check out the description below:

 

***

 

Only one profession is at once more reviled and revered than any other…that of the hired blade. The paid killer. The assassin.

The When Swords Fall Silent anthology showcases the imaginations and talents of more than a dozen of the best modern science-fiction and fantasy authors, with each tale centered around one or more characters burdened with a bloody task they will see to completion no matter the cost. Every story takes you for a vicious ride through a world of shadow and death, each as unique in perspective and execution as the contracts carried out within.

This anthology includes work from the following writers:

Terry Mancour, Bryce O’Connor, David Dalglish, JA Andrews, Jonathan French, Luke Chmilenko, M.L. Wang, Marie Brennan, Michael J. Sullivan, Philip C. Quaintrell, RJ Barker, Andrew Rowe, Jay Boyce, Peter Flannery.

The stories within are read by the following narrators:

Tim Gerard Reynolds, Travis Baldree, John Lee, Kate Reading, Steven Brand, Emily Lawrence, Matthew Wolf, Mikael Naramore, Nikki Massoud, Kevin Kenerly, Eva Kaminsky, Kaleo Griffith.

***

That just sounds awesome, doesn’t it?! And guess what – that isn’t all of it either! In addition to this anthology hitting Audible next week, Wraithmarked will be launching another one of a kind Collector’s Edition on Kickstarter that is just packed to the brim with goodies that just won’t be found anywhere else! This Collector’s Edition will feature:

• custom, gorgeous dust jacket
• black-on-red foil case
• full-color end sheets
• customized interior
• 14 character illustrations
• Stretch Goals for editor’s signatures, black page edges, and a lot more!

If this sounds like something that you must absolutely have on your shelves – well, then follow the project here! That will get you the instant notification when the project goes live on March 7^th!

Back to the mines!

And that’s another wrap for the month! We’re in the home stretch for finishing another book, so I am off to go do exactly that! I can’t wait to have this current crop of books, plus the ones I haven’t told you all about yet (whoops), in your hands as soon as possible! Until then though we’re going to sign off with a huge thank you for all the support you send our way! We truly appreciate it and hope that you enjoy our next project!

Luke

Hi everyone! Happy New Year and Happy February! I know we missed a big update last month and truthfully – that was because things were just too busy! It’s been a whirlwind of a last couple months and I have a bunch of exciting things to update you all on – so lets hop right too it with the update card!

 

 

Finish, Finish, Finish!

As you can all see from this list we have finished projects piling right up to the moon and back and believe me when I say I am drowning in post-production, editing, and polishing! Over the last couple months we have been able to finish our first and seconds drafts of Immortal’s Ascent Book 3, our first draft of Paragon of Shadow, and our first draft of Scion of Magic. With all of that now done, we are entering all of the various stages of post-production, grey hair growing, revising, anxiety, and editing for each of the books!

Given the sheer scope of work for all of this – I am generally expecting that all of this will be taking up the majority of February and likely March – especially as beta reader and editor feedback comes in for the various projects. Scion of Magic is already undergoing a chunk of revisions as we speak thanks to some early readers, and I hope to polish that off first before circling over to IA and Paragon for their respective read throughs and revisions.

Issue #2 is a go!

Beyond the novel writing I am happy to announce that the next issue of the Ascend Online Comic Series will be underway soon! Kayla, Jason, and I are super excited to bring you the next chapter of the series and hope to give you all some exciting sneak peeks about the production process over the months to come! For those of you who have already asked about this issue’s Kickstarter – it likely won’t be until towards the end of the year, and after Legacy of the Fallen’s Collectors Edition is completed and delivered. That said however – we will make an announcement when the pre-launch page is ready so you can all follow the project ahead of time and plan ahead if you’re interested in supporting it!

Speaking of Kickstarter…

…there is another project coming! A big project. An awesome one. In March! But at the same time…I can’t tell you all about it yet. That said however, if any of you are interested in backing another project by me and a bunch of other super amazing authors, then you should know something is coming early next month! Super vague, I know. But that’s all I can say until I get the green light to talk about it! Until then, stay tuned for more information!

Done!

Okay, that’s it! Update over! Back to the word mines for polishing, revisions, and editing! Hopefully when I come back I’ll be ready to yeet a pile of books your way before retreating back into the caverns again. In the meantime, thank you all heaps for all the support, excitement, and encouragement! We truly appreciate it!

Luke

Hi everyone!!! Happy December! How did we make it here already?! Can you believe that we are in the final month of the year? It feels like just yesterday that it was January! In any case in the spirit of National Novel Writing month, it’s been a fantastic one and I positively ripped through my writing of Scion of Magic this month and we are finally on the door stop of having it done! Let’s check things out and see how it went!

 

We’ve Broken Six Figures!

Over the last month I really found my stride in not only writing Scion of Magic, but just writing in general and I am happy to announce that hit my best month ever of writing this last month! From October 24^th to November 24^th I managed a whopping 46,000 words, which for a slow guy like me is absolutely stellar! Now that I have that big crop of words done for Scion of Magic we are on the doorstop of finishing the book which I really hope to wrap this month! For this month I am finishing off my second draft of everything written so far to solidify it in preparation for the final stretch of the book! So fingers cross all goes well and we can get this book off into editing before the years out!

The Ascend Online: Legacy of the Fallen Kickstarter Has Funded!

I am super happy to announce that we’ve successfully funded our third project and our latest Collectors Edition is now officially going to happen! Thank you for all of your support in seeing this campaign through and I am super excited for what comes next now!

Over the next few weeks we’re going to be finalizing the design for the book layout and the remaining artwork. But while we do that, there is still plenty of opportunity for those who didn’t get a chance to pledge to still get a chance at their rewards! If you’re interested in getting a copy of the Legacy of the Fallen Collectors Edition then head on over to our store here and order it now! We also have extra copies of Book 1’s Collectors edition, plus a whole bundle of other goodies such as Issue #1 of the Ascend Online Comic Book and Cover Art Posters!

And That’s It!

We are going to be heading straight back into to work now as we look to finish off Scion of Magic before the year ticks over and we find ourselves in January once again. We hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season in the meantime and thank you all for another year of absolutely awesome support! Here is to staying healthy and happy for the rest of 2022, and we’ll see you all again next year!

Luke

Hi everyone!!! Happy November! It’s been a blur of a month here, but I hope that you’ve all been doing well this last little while! Much like October it’s been another month of full steam ahead as we charge through Scion of Magic and get through the re-writes plus new content that we’ve planned out! So, let’s see how we did!

Charging on ahead!

So, while last month was a more of a revisionist month for Scion of Magic we did get an incredible amount of words done! At one point I believe I split the book down as low as around 40k, pushing content in to book 2 before letting my hands fly and catch me back up to a solid 80k words finished! We’re finally finding our stride with huge gains every day in the book and I am really itching at finding the end of the book this month! Here’s to hoping that we’ll make it with plenty of time to spare!

With all the work on SoM though, that meant that Threads of Fate fell by the wayside for October, and I expect it to this month as well. With how close I am to polishing off SoM I am going to throw every minute I can at it, so we can have it off my plate and I can focus on Threads of Fate next!

But that doesn’t mean I don’t have Ascend Online News!

For those of you who already haven’t heard, Ascend Online has made the jump over to the new reading app Yonder along with many other authors and books in the LitRPG community. I had an opportunity to join in with this new platform and I’ve been very excited with the reception so far! It gives us and Ascend Online a chance to reach a whole new readership that would have never ever found the series otherwise.

In terms of changes that this move brings – the only meaningful one is that the Ascend Online series is no longer in Kindle Unlimited. The first four books and the audio books are still available on Amazon and always will be, however those who do not wish to use Amazon, or are unable to, will now have a chance to grab the series and enjoy it! Going forward as well for book 5 and beyond – there will be a slight difference in the timing of release, the digital ebook version will be released on Yonder first and come to Amazon at a later date, and the Audiobook will be released as per normal as soon as we can have it recorded and ready. 

That’s not all either!

With the wind down of our Ascend Online Comic series Kickstarter we are now happy to announce that we are moving onto our next project, which is theLegacy of the Fallen Collectors Edition Kickstarter, due to start mere hours after this blog hits the presses!

Yes, that’s right! We have another kickstarter starting TODAY at 12pm EST with special Early Bird Tiers for the first 24 hours. So, if you want a chance to get the next edition of this the Ascend Online Collectors Edition set, and possibly pick up extra copies of book 1 – then follow the project here so you get a notification as soon as it goes live! We hope you love what we have in store for you for this project!

And that’s a wrap!

Woof, that was a busy month wasn’t it? There was plenty of things to talk about and sort this month, plus more than a few exciting things coming our way, (like today!). We hope that you all check out our Kickstarter and support us there, even if it’s just dropping a comment!

With all the excitement going on this month, we’ll definitely be back again to announce how our Kickstarter is doing, but until then – we hope you all stay healthy and happy! Have a great month!!

Luke

Hi everyone!!! Happy October! It’s been a blur of the month here, but I hope that you’ve all been doing well this last little while! We’ve had another awesome month here focusing mostly on a big crop of editing and rewrites – so let’s get right into it now!

 

 

 

Rewrites and Edits Galore!

So this month was a fairly big ‘push forward and circle back’ month for me on both Scion of Magic and Threads of Fate. For SoM I unfortunately hit a bit of a wall in my progress and had to go back to tweak things so I could find my path forward again. A process which involved pending a chunk of words for the time being. In any case I’m happy to say that everything worked out very well and I’m pushing back into new words again! The Threads of Fate side of things was very much in a similar vein, which had me starting to retool a huge swath of chapters in the middle of the book and the whole story is actively becoming less and less terrible with every passing week! Everything for both of these projects is coming along awesomely so far and I am aiming to have Scion of magic finished hopefully by early November and for Threads of Fate to be done early 2023.

Comics Will To Be Arriving To A Mailbox Near You!

Yes we are finally at the end stage with this project and the comics are now off to the fulfillment house to get sent off and out into the world! We very much wanted to get these out into the world much sooner, but we forced to reprint a substantial portion of the comics due to catastrophic shipping damage which set us back much further than we wanted to be.

As soon as the comics reach the fulfillment house we will also be sending out the digital editions so that both will be arriving close together! Once that side of fulfillment is complete then the books will go live on Amazon for those who missed out on the Kickstarter and still wish to purchase it!

 

And That’s The End Of Another Busy Month!

Once again, that’s all we’ve got for the month as our projects continue to wind down and others start to spin up! I’m sure we’ll have next month’s card be a little bit busier as a few more of the pending cowrites pop up, but in the meantime we’re just plugging along! Hoping that you all have an awesome month for October and we’ll see you again next month!

Luke

Hi everyone!!! Happy September! I hope that the last month has been great over on all of your ends of things and you’ve all had a chance to enjoy the summer! It’s been a super productive month over here on our end of things, but also one short on meaningful updates since it was all writing and not much else!

 

 

The Hands Are Flying!

It was a super busy month over here on my major focus for the month, Scion of Magic, and things finally starting to come together as I unblocked myself on a few key story points. Right now we are set to keep sailing forward as I insert a few chapters here and there while working in some of the bits and pieces that I’ve already written. I am really hoping that by the end of this month I’ll be staring down the final end to the story and can knock it out reasonably quickly come October. Here’s to having our fingers crossed that it all keeps flying together! Once it’s done and off to the editors I’ll be looking to jump full time into Threads of Fate and polish it off for early next year sometime as well!

The Comics Are Almost Here!

We know this project has stretched out quite a bit further than we hoped before delivery and we are doing our best to adjust adapt to that going forward for our future projects! It’s definitely been a big learning curve. In any case we are in the final stages of signing the comicbooks before they go out for fulfillment. With luck you will all start seeing them arrive sometime this month! We can’t wait to hear what you all think about them!

And Back To The Word Mines We Go!

And that’s all we really have for the month this month I’m afraid! With all of the kickstarters and other projects out of the way we’re back to the usual grind of words, which I am absolutely loving! I’ve no doubt that this next month will be fantastic one for production and I can’t wait to share with you all how far we get! Till then – I hope you all stay healthy and happy and thank you all for support!!

Luke