Book three is done. I have sent it for proofreading and technical corrections.

Next steps are the formatting and production of the physical book, and I need to update the glossary and include the appendices on relevant lore from this text.

Once I have more information I can give a rough date for publication!

In 2011, I made the move to the People’s Republic of China for work. I hadn’t had a lot of success finding a job teaching, I had given up on my dream of writing books, and I was in a ton of student loan debt and scraping out a life in my parent’s basement.

When I got the job offer in Tianjin, China, I did not have enough money to buy the airfare to get me there. Then my grandmother gave me a check for $1000 to help me make it once I was there. It quite literally fed and sheltered me for the first month plus I was in my new home, while I waited for that first paycheck and reimbursement.

In the two years I was there, my now wife, Molly, would come to see me over the holidays. We got engaged the second time she came over. I came back to Maine to start my teaching career in private school with Molly. I’ve written two books. We’ve got a son now.

My grandmother quite literally saved me by getting me to China and helping me eke out that first month. A few days ago we found out she had contracted COVID-19. She is doing alright so far, and the assisted living center she is in did, and is continuing to do, an excellent job caring for her. But this is, quite frankly, just bullshit.

She’s nearly 94 and survived World War II, where my grandfather was a ball-turret gunner on B-17s. She had four kids, and has eight grandchildren, and now three great grandchildren. The woman always, always did whatever she had to do for her family. The reason I say this is bullshit is because we can’t go and do anything for her.

Hopefully she will continue to trend in the right direction and we’ll get up to see her soon. In the meantime, whether you’re at risk or not, whether you worry about the virus or not, just wear your damned mask and socially distance as much as you can. I don’t want anyone else worrying about their family members as we enter 2021.

The book has made a lot of progress and I think I’ll be sending it for copy-editing in a few days, to be followed by formatting and prep for publication. I’ll keep everyone upated.

Please stay safe and happy new year.

T.H.

Oh hey! It’s updates and changes I can’t talk about because spoilers!

But yes, more got done today. And I have a path to what happens tomorrow and afterwards. Some of these adjustments are going to be a bit ambiguous. For example, there needs to be enough reminding of who characters are and what they look like without making it so repetitive and boring for the reader. But, of course, there are so many characters! Where to add the details? Where to keep them thin and simple?

The book will have a glossary like the last two, probably expanded. I heard a lot of positive feedback about that and how it helped readers, so it will continue to show up in later books and newer editions of the old ones.

I am extremely close to the point where I think a through read-through of the book with Molly will benefit me a lot. We have already started it, but the later part of the story needed a bunch of alterations. Now that those feel like they are in a strong enough place, I need her ears and ideas on it.

Hopefully you and yours had a great holiday. I’m going back to the grind now.

T.H.

Today’s not over, but there has been further progress here. One of the things Wes had pointed out was the layout of Alderlast, the capital of the Angladaics, is something that needs to be clarified for the reader. This is especially important because the actual design of the city is part of the plot of a few books, so it really needs to be clear how the layout looks!

I’m sketching a rough version of the city now:

It’s a little fuzzy, but the image does render more clarity about how Alderlast is designed. The eight “slices” of the pie are the Highlord districts, while the “spokes” of the wheel are raised roads that lead from main gates (the sections that splay out like spikes on the wheel) to the Angladaic Palace. Between each district there are two tunnels through the roads, gated with big doors, and smaller staircases allow foot traffic up from the district to the raised roads.

The idea is a city that is supremely difficult to take for an invading force. You could, in theory, push through and level or occupy the palace, but every surrounding district would be against you if you never came down from the elevated roads/walls. And, if you did do that, taking one district would only secure 1/8th of the city, meaning a long and hard fight for the other seven.

Hopefully, polishing this map up and including it in book three will help readers get a clearer idea of what the Angladaic capital looks like.

Additionally, I added about 2000 words to clarify some character motivations and personalities. The next steps are going through some smaller notes on later chapters and then starting from the beginning of the book and adding in reminders here and there of what characters look like, what happened to them in previous books, what certain places or things are and why they matter, and so on.

The goal is to help the reader say, “Oh right, that person/place! Now I remember” instead of “why am I getting reminded of this thing I already know about from before?” The balancing act continues.

T.H.

As the semester ends and I finally head into a long break, I am working on a steady list of fixes and alterations for book three. Today, the Story Thus Far got revised completely and, I feel, works much better now. I also made adjustments to a character’s internal thoughts and development, which should flesh them out better than in the earlier drafts.

Tomorrow, I plan to tackle the missing details of one major plot thread and begin the slow process of filling in “reminder details” on characters from previous books. As the series is 1) long and 2) has a lot of characters in it, I am now realizing I’ve got to strike a balance between reminding the reader who is who and not bogging them down in arduous descriptive stretches.

T.H.

It won’t make a major impact now, and probably won’t later, but I need to draw attention to an author that I have discovered only recently but am now deeply invested in.

Derek Owusu is a writer from London who published his first work, a combination of fictionalized and semi-autobiographical memories that began as a work of poetry, called That Reminds Me. Derek’s book is a real achievement. It uses the lens of partial, incomplete, and complex memories we all have of our experiences to specifically cover the lives of black people in London, taking the reader through narrator K’s experiences as a child and adult.

For me, the eye-opening parts were related to the 2011 England Riots around the killing of Mark Duggan by police. It highlighted how the plight of black people and their relationship to police is not an issue exclusive to the United States. Additionally, Derek writes very realistically from the perspective of someone battling mental health issues. As someone who has become more and more open about his own anxiety and depression, I appreciated how real and relatable this all felt.

Finally, Derek was kind enough to take time out of his day to talk to one of my English classes that read That Reminds Me and he was an incredible presence. He spoke honestly and directly, and was willing to address each and every question that came his way. Treating the students as equals was something I was so happy to see him do, and it meant a lot to them and to me.

So there is my plug for Derek Owusu. I can’t wait to see what he writes next, and I know he is working on his second book now.

As for my own status, I have simply a brief update to report on the progress with the audio book: it is closing in on a completed version of the Prologue, which will be released here on the website. Additionally, I have a content meeting with Wes today to iron out necessary changes and tweaks to the third book so I can plunge headfirst into finalizing that this month. Look for an early 2021 release date for The Steed.

T.H.

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been radio silent for a while, but that’s largely been due to the intensity of teaching during the 2020 COVID pandemic. I had thought, rather foolishly it seems now, that the lockdown and subsequent regulations would give me more time to write and finish the third book in The Legacy Chronicle before the winter.

I forgot I had a two year old at home. And no child care. And a regular day job.

But, here we are, with the other big project I wanted to get off the ground in 2020, an actual website. So, from this point forward, all of the major content for The Legacy Chronicle and my other projects will live here. The Facebook page will remain up, at least for a while, but ultimately the intention is to migrate to a standalone website, store, and content hub.

For now, the web store functionally won’t let you make purchases straight from it, but that’s something I hope to have sorted out soon. You can always email me directly to place orders with PayPal, Venmo, or by mailing a check. All the information is on the Contact T.H. page, and you can reach out if you want to know about shirt sizes or other details.

Additionally, you can still purchase the books from Amazon. More excitingly, we will be offering audio books with professional voice work really soon! Zach Aguilar has built a nice little team of voice actors and is working to record the prologue from The Sword as I type this. Right now the plan is to release that finished product on this website for free, though there is a preview of it on The Legacy Chronicle tab right now if you are interested. Once we have recorded a good chunk of the book, it will be available for purchase on Audible. The plan is to offer it in sections, say 5-10 chapters at a time, and then as a complete novel at a slight discount from buying it section by section. All of this could change, but the bottom line is yes, we really will have an audio book of the series!

And finally, yes, book three of The Legacy Chronicle is coming. I have to have some substantial content meetings with Wes to hash out a number of alterations it needs and Shane is working on a larger, two-page map for the third book, but it is coming. Please, if you have questions, send them along! There is the About page where those can be left right on the site and as mentioned above you can also email me or find me on Twitter under @LegacyChronicle.

So, welcome to the new site and thank you for your continued support!

T.H.