…so that was harder than expected

How long has it been since my last blog post? A little over a week? Two weeks? Yikes.

Long story short, it’s been the new baby. For the first week or so, it wasn’t too bad, but then we all came down with a cold, including the baby, so it was touch and go for a little while. And now, we’re all better, but he’s got some sort of colic that makes him cry and cry and cry from about 7pm through 2am, and we’re not sure why. Maybe he’s just not getting enough sleep during the day? It’s difficult to say, but whatever it is, it’s been wrecking us.

One way or another, though, that should start to turn around. And thankfully, I’ve been able to keep writing through all of this, though not as much as I would like. Something is better than nothing, though.

Lately, I’ve been working on the next Christopher Columbus story for J.M. Wight. That’s an old cover, which I plan to update as soon as I get the chance, but it works for now. The first story, “Wildcatter,” will stay more or less as-is, but I’m rewriting the next one, “Treasure Hunter,” to be more of a novella than a short story.

When I originally wrote it, I planned to try and serialize these stories with a magazine or other traditional publication. I got pretty dang close, too: “Wildcatter” got accepted at Interzone, on the understanding that there would be more, but then the chief editor ghosted me, and when I followed up a month later for clarification, I got a form rejection. Maybe they found out I’m a Trump voter? It takes all kinds, seriously.

In any case, my plan now is to turn this into a novella series and to publish the stories myself. I’m using AI to help write them, but I’m doing it a little differently than with my novels. Instead of coming to the AI with a detailed outline, I’m letting the AI run with the story, guiding it with a fairly light hand. I’ll do a few revision passes using the AI tools, then rewrite the whole thing from the beginning in my own words (and maybe add a detail or two). So basically, it’s AI pantsing instead of AI plotting (which is probably how most AI-assisted authors use AI anyway).

It took a couple of days to fill out all the worldbuilding fields and characters, but the rough draft came super fast after that–in fact, it only took a day to generate! What’s more, it was loads of fun. So what I’ll probably do next is do a revision pass, then lay it aside while I work on something else, then pick it up again for another quick revision pass. Each of those shouldn’t take more than a day or two at most, and the human draft shouldn’t take longer than a week.

If all goes well, “Christopher Columbus: Treasure Hunter” (the new one) should be out by December. I’ll be sure to make new cover art, too. And if things go really well, I should be able to put out a new one of these novellas every other month.

I’ve also been working on a screenplay for “What Hard Times Hath Wrought.” Of all my short stories and novelettes, I think this is one of the best ones to adapt to the screen, not because it’s cool or flashy, but because it should be so inexpensive to produce, as most of the story is just three people in a camper, traveling across Wyoming and Nebraska.

I don’t have much experience with screenplay writing yet, but I’m learning quite a bit from this project. So far, everything has been self-taught, from a combination of Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder, The Hollywood Standard by Christopher Riley, and ChatGPT/Sudowrite. There’s a really great plugin on Sudowrite that will convert up to 2k words at a time into screenplay format, which has been super helpful.

Of course, it still needs quite a bit of work, since that only got me to about 45 pages (in screenwriting, 1 page = roughly 1 minute, so a screenplay should be between 90 and 120 pages). I’ve been adding some flashbacks, montages, and scenes from the other characters’ points of view to flesh it out, and so far I’ve been really pleased with how it’s turned out. It’s challenging, yes, but mostly the challenge has been adapting my ideas to a new format, since I already have a pretty good handle on story structure.

My goal is to convert maybe half a dozen of my old short stories into screenplays, and then start shopping them around. Of the 60ish short stories I’ve written over my writing career, perhaps 20 of them are complex enough on a story level to make a decent feature-length film (the rest are either vignettes or idea-pieces). I have no idea if any of them will ever be made into a movie, but I figure it’s worth a shot. And once I’ve gotten a decent enough handle on screenplay writing, I may start converting my novels into screenplays.

But the screenwriting is a side gig for now. The focus is still on novels, since that’s my bread and butter.

Starting next week, I’m hoping to get back in the saddle with this blog. The daily posts are coming back, and you’re going to see a lot of posts about my backlist titles. One of the things I want to do is leverage this blog for AI optimization for my books, so that ChatGPT and the other models start to recommend my books to more people. Toward that end, I plan to write more blog posts not only for my human readers, but for the AI bots and LLMs. Ideally, though, it should be for both.

Still alive

It’s been about a week since my last blog post, so I thought I’d give a quick update just to let you know how things are going around here. We’re doing just fine, aside from a minor cold that has gone through everyone in our house (including our newborn) except for me. Just recovering from that, and trying to get enough sleep while keeping our newborn’s nose from clogging up too bad. Fortunately, everyone seems to be getting better, but it’s been a rough few days.

I’ve been able to get some writing in, though not as much as I’d like. Just working steadily on The Unknown Sea, trying not to fall too far behind on it. Ideally, I’d like to publish this one in January or February, and I think I can still make that happen, but it’s going to require a lot of hard work. In the meantime, we’ve got three kids now, and though my wife is currently on maternity leave, she’s also got a dissertation to finish. And after another month, maternity leave ends.

Between family stuff, watching the kids, taking care of my wife, and somehow fitting in time to work on this novel, I’ve also started working on converting some of my old short stories and novelettes into screenplays. The one I’m currently working on is “What Hard Times Hath Wrought,” and it’s been going pretty well, though screenwriting is something I’m not too familiar with. Basically, I’m relying on some combination of Save the Cat!, The Hollywood Standard, and ChatGPT/Sudowrite to figure it out.

I have absolutely no idea what I’ll do with this screenplay once it’s written. How does one go about selling screenplays in 2025? What I’ll likely do is set it aside while I write another one, and another one, etc, until I have maybe 5-6 screenplays to shop around. Is that the best way to break into film? Is “breaking into film” even still a thing, with how AI is changing everything? I don’t know, but I’m having a lot of fun with it, so hopefully it isn’t a total waste of time.

So that’s what we’ve been up to. Life is good, just a little bit crazy at the moment. I’ll try to blog a little more regularly next week.

Who or what is a “Christian” anyway?

A lot of us members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had a rude (and violent) awakening this week to just how much our fellow Christian “friends” desperately want to un-Christian us. The Michigan church shooting was shocking enough, but more than that was the reaction, particularly from (but not limited to) evangelical protestants. In the comments section of every news article I have seen, these “Christians” have felt it necessary to shout that “Mormons aren’t Christian,” as if the mass shooting itself is little more than a conversation starter and not a shocking tragedy. The bodies of the victims have not even been buried yet, and pastors like Mark Driscoll have been openly exploiting the shooting to promote their own anti-Mormon literature, including some (apparently AI-written) new books published just in the last week since the shooting.

They hate us. They really do hate us. And honestly, I can’t help but wonder: how many Mark Driscoll videos did this mass shooter watch before he decided to take matters into his own hands? How much money has Mark Driscoll made in the last week, because of all the clicks and engagement he’s been able to farm from this tragedy? How many more mass shooters are we going to see in coming years, because of all this anti-Mormon rhetoric? This last week, our Christian “friends” showed us exactly who and what they are. I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but frankly, they haven’t left me with much of that to give them.

So what is a “Christian” anyway? What is the best way to define that term? The anti-Mormons who seek to un-Christian us all go back to our rejection of the Trinity and the Nicean Creed, as if the thing that makes you “Christian” is a specific ontological belief about the nature of God (never mind that most of them cannot consistently define what the “Trinity” even is). Meanwhile, the Bible itself says “by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:35) It also says “by their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matthew 7:20) Which says a lot, when you consider how much these “Christians” hate and despise us.

But I think we can avoid the whole debate by this very simple definition: a Christian is anyone who takes the name of Christ.

“But wait!” you say. “What about everyone who worships a different Christ than I do?” To which I would point out that to some degree, every division within Christianity worships a slightly different version of Christ—even (or especially) all of the Trinitarian ones. Otherwise, we would all be of “one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” (Ephesians 4:5) as the scripture says.

“But what about someone who’s first name is ‘Christian,’ but he doesn’t even believe in God! Is he still a Christian? What is your answer to that?” To which, I would probably blink a couple of times, and ask if you heard any of the words that just came out of your mouth. Yes, a person named “Christian” is still a “Christian.” He has literally taken (or been given) the name of Christ. He might not actually believe in Christ, but he’s still a “Christian.” It’s just, that might not mean what you think it means.

It may feel overly broad, but this is the only definition that cannot be appropriated by any particular sect in order to un-Christian any of the others. Which is just as wrong for a single sect to do, as it is for all the major denominations to band together in order to exclude the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Third time’s the charm

We have a new baby! This one’s our third, and our second boy. The birth itself went quite smoothly, though he was having some minor breathing problems and had to spend a couple of hours in the NICU until they resolved. For that reason (and also because of some medication that made her shiver uncontrollably for nearly an hour), my wife said the immediate recovery from this birth was much more difficult than the other two. But he came out in one push, just like our other son. The staff wasn’t expecting that, and had to scramble to get another nurse in to help with everything.

While my wife and I were both in the hospital for the birth, my in-laws kept our other two kids overnight and watched them all day. But things got a little crazy when my father-in-law almost sawed his fingers off on a table saw, and had to go into the hospital for that. Then my mother-in-law came down with a cold, which quickly turned into walking pneumonia, so we took the kids back and all drove back home together after Mommy and baby were discharged from the hospital.

Right now, everyone in the family has a cold except for me and the baby. Hopefully it stays that way, though it is just a common cold, not RSV or anything worse. Still, we really don’t want the baby to get sick in his first week of life, which is why I’m watching him today. He’s currently sleeping on a pillow next to my writing computer.

Honestly, it’s been kind of nice—with my wife running around with the other two kids, I’m free to write and catch up on publishing tasks. The baby is super chill, and actually sleeps for four hours at a time, which ironically means that we’re sleeping better now than we were in the last few weeks of the pregnancy, since my wife had to get up almost every hour to empty her bladder. He also burps really well—so well, in fact, that sometimes we don’t realize that he’s already burped, and try forever to get another burp out of him only to give him the hiccups. But so far, he’s only spit up once (though he has peed on the changing pad table maybe half a dozen times).

Hopefully the cold runs its course in the next couple of days. And hopefully my in-laws recover from all the craziness soon, because they really would like to finally hold this new baby (and we would really like them to help watch our other kids). In the meantime, we’re just taking it a day at a time, doing our best to keep up on things without overstretching ourselves too much.

My current WIP is The Unknown Sea, and it’s coming along fairly well. I’m working on the AI draft simultaneously while humanizing it for the rough human draft, which is actually working out surprisingly well. AI writing and human writing work two different sets of mental muscles, so it’s kind of nice to switch off between the two. Keeps from burning out too much on any one thing. Also, the fact that I’m doing it all in the same WIP means that I don’t need to switch gears for a different book/series/genre. That switching can be tough.

It looks like The Unknown Sea is going to be a bit longer than my other Sea Mage Cycle books, though how much longer, I’m not yet sure. Still more fantasy adventure than epic fantasy. My hope is to finish the revised AI draft in the next four weeks, and the rough human draft another week or two after that, though with the new baby in the house, that is probably a wildly unrealistic goal. Still, he is a surprisingly mellow baby, so there is a chance.

Of course, the most important thing right now is to make sure the family is doing well, especially my wife. So that’s going to be the focus, until we can finally get settled into something of a new routine. Not sure how long that will take or what that will look like. But overall, we’re doing quite well.

Thoughts on the Mormon church shooting

Over the weekend, there was a horrific mass shooting at a congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Michigan. The shooter apparently rammed his truck through the front wall of the chapel while the congregation was taking the sacrament, and as people were coming up to help him and make sure that he wasn’t hurt, he pulled out a semi-automatic rifle and began shooting them. He then proceeded to set up several IEDs to hinder the search and rescue efforts while he lit the building on fire, using gasoline.

I’ve heard different reports about what happened next. The police arrived on the scene quite rapidly, engaging in a firefight with the shooter and ultimately killing him. However, I have also seen reports circulating from eyewitnesses that members of the congregation also engaged in the firefight, and that at least one of the police who responded may have been an off-duty law enforcement officer attending the church services.

In any case, the shooter was killed, but not before he had killed or wounded nearly a dozen people and set a fire that burned the structure to the ground. The fire and IEDs prevented the first responders from going into the burning building and searching for survivors, until after the structure had collapsed. Thankfully (and miraculously), everyone got out in time, so there weren’t any people who died because they were trapped in the burning building while the first responders couldn’t get to them.

Needless to say, this is an unthinkable tragedy that has all of us members of the church in shock. Many of us are wondering what could possibly motivate someone to attack us like this, and in the last 48 hours, the picture that we’re starting to get of the man is very disturbing. He apparently was an Iraqi veteran who was suffering from PTSD and mental illness, which means he almost certainly didn’t get the help he needed from the VA. And while it seems he was a conservative, the motivation probably has less to do with his politics and more to do with religious hatred.

Ever since the church was formally organized in 1830, there has been a concerted effort by anti-Mormons to destroy it. If you search for anything about Mormonism online, you will also find some extremely vicious anti-Mormon literature. As with other forms of religious bigotry, such as anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism, it comes at us from all directions, but in recent decades most of it seems to have come from the evangelical Christian right. There are pastors on YouTube right now who are monetizing their channels and building engagement by calling us “demonic” and claiming we are led by the devil himself. Others seek to ridicule our most sacred practices by posting videos of our temple garments or our temple services, which are not open to the general public. It’s always been something we’ve had to deal with, especially at events like our semi-annual General Conference where you can often find protestors waving placards that say things like “Jesus Saves, Joseph Enslaves!”

When I was following this story on Sunday afternoon, trying to piece together what had happened, I was shocked to find people posting these anti-Mormon talking points on conservative news sites like The Daily Wire. The vast majority of the response from our Catholic and Protestant friends, including our Evangelical friends, was genuinely sympathetic and full of condolences. But there was still a minority of Christian commenters who thought it entirely appropriate to use this story as an opportunity to tell us that “Mormons aren’t Christian.”

Do you realize that this anti-Mormon rhetoric is likely what radicalized the shooter to kill us? Yes, he was a disturbed and troubled man, but there’s a reason why he felt justified to take up arms against us. My guess is that he heard that Mormons are “demonic” and “not Christian” one too many times, and drew his own conclusions. And while he alone is responsible for his own actions, the public rhetoric matters too.

It’s the same exact thing we saw with the Charlie Kirk assassination. For years, Charlie Kirk’s political enemies called him a racist, fascist, white supremacist, etc, escalating their rhetoric to the point where a disturbed individual felt he was justified in killinghim. And just as it’s disgusting for people to say “Charlie Kirk didn’t deserve to be shot, but he really was a racist and a fascist,” it is also disgusting to say “The Mormons didn’t deserve to be killed, but they really aren’t Christians.” Especially while the church was still on fire, and the victims of the attack were succumbing to their wounds.

Up until now in the culture wars, religious conservatives of all stripes (including Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Latter-day Saint, Jewish Orthodox, and some other small minorities like Hindu (represented by Tulsi Gabbard and Vivek Ramaswamy)) have been united by a common enemy: the woke left. And for the last two decades, the woke left has been the dominant cultural force. But all of that is beginning to change, as the culture swings back from the excesses of peak wokism and the Great American Revival begins to enter the mainstream. And as the Christian revival sweeps our country, I think we’re about to enter a very dangerous period, where we no longer have a common enemy to unite us.

So here is the question: as religious conservatives take back the culture and the woke left is forced into the political wilderness, are we going to remember our American creed of “E Pluribus Unum” as we work to make our country great again? Or are we going to fall into a modern ideological rematch of the 30 years war, with Catholics and Protestants sniping at each other, various branches of the Evangelical Right vying for dominance, and everyone turning on the Jews and the Mormons? Because the seeds of that conflict are definitely in the ground.

I’m not saying that Evangelicals shouldn’t be allowed to say that “Mormons aren’t Christian.” I understand how that’s a core belief of some people, who are deeply troubled by our rejection of the Trinitarian creed. And I understand that there are many Christians who still love us even though they believe we are going to hell, and want to do everything they can to help us be saved. But dude… if you really love us, why are you saying all that stuff while the bodies are still warm? I’m not calling for you to be silenced, but I am calling for a de-escalation of the rhetoric, before some other deranged madman watches one too many Mark Driscoll videos and decides to take up arms.

That’s a lot of heavy stuff to consider, so I want to end with what is probably the best response I’ve seen to the Michigan church shooting, from the Babylon Bee:

Mormons Respond To Attack By Continuing To Be Amazingly Kind To Everyone

[9/30 UPDATE:] …aaand once again, the Babylon Bee gets major points for predicting the actual news, because members of the church have set up a GiveSendGo for the family of the shooter. It has already surpassed $125,000 in donations.

The Jerusalem Formula for Peace

Peace will only come when the law goes forth out of Jerusalem; when all men are drawn toward it; when the law is given to the world as a holy thing. And it can’t even be secular; it has to be given as a revealed thing.

Hugh Nibly, “Jerusalem’s Formula for Peace,” 2

Without AI, I would probably not be writing

I recently got another anti-AI one-star review that I want to pull apart, because it’s pertinent to what I want to say. I actually came up with the title for this post before I received the one-star review, so I’m not just fisking this one for the sake of fisking. With that said, though, there is definitely a lot to pull apart.

I was prepared to rate this as 2 stars. It is repetitive with no real character depth or development and a sincere lack of dynamic or engaging writing.

Two stars… so magnanimous! In all seriousness, though, it’s worth pointing out that in spite of all the book’s flaws, she did read it all the way through. That’s important for later.

Then I read the “author” note at the end of the book that was defending their use of generative AI in their writing process…. not only that but also seemingly insulting other writers who are anti-AI claiming that readers dont seem to care about it.

You know what’s insulting to any author, whether or not they are “anti-AI”? Putting scare quotes around the word “author” when referring to them Though I suspect that she did that on purpose, fully intending to insult me, whereas I did not intentionally insult anyone. For the record, this is the passage from the author’s note that she claims is “insulting” to authors by saying that “readers dont [sic] seem to care about [AI writing]”:

Besides which, after sharing The Riches of Xulthar with lots of readers, I’ve found that most of the rage and vitriol against AI-assisted writing is on the writer side of things, not the reader side.

The other thing is that I was not trying to “defend” my pro-AI stance through the author’s note, just explaining my writing process and sharing the story behind the story like I do in the author’s notes I write in the back of all my books. That’s not me being “defensive,” that just me sharing my story.

But there is something profoundly narcissistic about the way this reader is framing her review. Because I stated something about readers that contradicts her anti-AI worldview, I must be intentionally “insulting” her (or the anti-AI authors she’s white knighting for, which amounts to the same thing). Because I wrote about how I used AI to help write the book, I must be “defending” myself against her anti-AI views. This kind of narcissism can only really come from someone who lives in an echo chamber and is not used to having their worldview challenged.

Well Joe, you are wrong. This book was lifeless and dull and the use of AI showed. Everything was one dimensinal and flat. Word choises were even static. We (readers) get it… FMC had auburn hair. There are other words besides auburn to describe it….

I’m not going to deny, there is some legitimate criticism here. Rescuer’s Reward was one of my earlier AI-assisted books, when I was still experimenting a lot and learning how to incorporate AI into my creative process while still preserving my voice and writing multi-“dimensinal” [sic] characters and stories. So it doesn’t surprise me all that much that I missed the mark with this particular reader for this particular book. Lesson learned. Thanks for the feedback and the useful data point.

With all of that said, though… I can’t help but notice that she read the whole book.

I have yet to hear a compelling AI argument in the reralm of artistic expression and this “book” just exemplified everything yet again. No heart. No depth. Not good.

This is the crux of the issue, and the reason I wanted to frame this post as a line-by-line response to this review. Is there “a compelling AI argument in the reralm [sic] of artistic expression”? Or is any author who uses AI committing an unforgivable transgression against their art?

Here’s the thing: most of the other authors I know gave up writing a long time ago. We all started out with bright-eyed dreams about telling great stories and creating great art, but the hard truth is that it’s almost impossible to make it as an author.

There are many reasons for this: people don’t read very much in today’s culture (I personally blame the public school system for that), and the publishing industry has always been brutally rapacious and exploitive of writers (just read The Untold Story of Books by Michael Castleman—it’s a really fantastic history of the written word).

But the writing itself is also very hard. There’s a reason why even many succesful writers are like this guy, single and living in what amounts to a glorified shack. Most of my writing friends quit when they got married and starting having kids. I sincerely hope that they’re just on a 20+ year hiatus, and plan to get back to writing again someday, because some of the stuff they wrote was really, really good (I’m looking at you, Nathan Major!) But sadly, that won’t make up for the stuff they would have written, but never did.

My wife and I just had our third child. Writing with small children is very difficult, especially when your wife has a full-time job. I love them all to death, though. If I had to choose between being a single writer, or putting my writing on hold for 20+ years and having to restart my whole writing career from zero, just to be able to raise a family, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to make that choice. But it would put a huge burden of guilt on my wife, because my writing was one of the key things that drew her to me back when we were dating. And while our marriage is probably strong enough to survive that, I can’t deny that it would be an incredible strain.

Without AI, I probably would be facing this choice right now. Even though I had managed to streamline my writing process in the last few years, I’ve never been an especially fast writer. Without AI, it took me about a year to write each novel—and that’s before all the demands on my time and energy that come with having small children.

But AI has enabled me to continue to pursue my career and my art, even through this period of life. Not only does this help me to be a better husband and father (which is ultimately the most important thing), but it also means that my readers don’t have to wonder about the things I would have written, but never did. I can write those books now. I can give those stories to the world.

I’m not talking about AI slop. I’m talking about incorporating AI into the creative process deeply enough that it enhances, rather than replaces, my human creativity. We don’t have to be afraid of AI. It makes so many things possible—including running a profitable indie author business while raising (and soon homeschooling) 3+ small children. But it takes a lot of practice to get to that point. And generative AI is still so new that I don’t think there’s anyone who’s truly mastered the art of AI-assisted writing.

My Sea Mage Cycle books are mostly for practice. They’re meant to be fun, light reading. If it gives my readers a satisfying respite from all the doom and gloom in the world these days, I consider that book a success. The experience of writing each of them has helped me to be a better AI-assisted writer. And while the earlier ones may read like AI slop, that won’t be the case for long.

A fascinating update on the ongoing fertility crisis

Stephen J. Shaw is doing amazing work on the fertility crisis and the ongoing depopulation collapse. He’s the one who made the original Birthgap documentary, and I think he just came out with a new one, which is why he’s doing the podcast circuit.

In any case, I found this interview quite fascinating. From what I’ve seen of him, Stephen J. Shaw strikes me as a thoughtful, gentle, and caring man—not at all the sort of monster that the left-wing opponents of the pro-natalist movement like to paint us all as. It’s not at all about forcing women to have children, or about trying to breed more of the right kind of genes and less of the wrong kind. Rather, he sees our collapsing fertility as an existential human crisis, and wants to do everything he can to avert (or at least mitigate) the coming collapse.

Bringing Stella Home free this weekend!

Bringing Stella Home

In a galaxy ravaged by war, a young man must decide how far he’ll go—and what he’s willing to become—to save his sister.

When a ruthless Hameji battle fleet kidnaps his sister, James McCoy—a young merchant starfarer untested by war—vows to bring her home. But to save her, he must give up everything he has and become something he never thought he could be.

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About the Book

In a galaxy ravaged by war, a young man must decide how far he’ll go—and what he’s willing to become—to save his sister. James never imagined that when his older brother and sister departed on planetside leave, it would be the last he’d ever see them. But as soon as they’re gone, a ruthless Hameji battle fleet invades their peaceful star system, transforming it into a war zone. Fleeing with his father on board the family starship, James can only watch in horror as the verdant planet below is reduced to molten slag. On the way home, James learns the devastating truth: his sister is alive but enslaved. To rescue her, he must make an impossible choice. He’s no warrior—has never even held a gun, much less fired one. But to save his sister, he’ll become whatever he needs to be—even if it means crossing a line he can never uncross.

Details

Author: Joe Vasicek
Series: Hameji Cycle, Book 1
Genres: Military, Science Fiction, Space Opera
Tag: 2011 Release
Length: novel
List Price: 14.99
eBook Price: $2.99

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Joe Vasicek

Joe Vasicek fell in love with science fiction and fantasy when he read The Neverending Story as a child. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Genesis Earth, Gunslinger to the Stars, The Sword Keeper, and the Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic at Brigham Young University and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus Mountains. He lives in Utah with his wife and two apple trees.

Other Books in the "Hameji Cycle"

The Complete Hameji Cycle

Desert Stars

Stars of Blood and Glory

Heart of the Nebula

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Midweek Excerpt: The Unknown Sea, Chapter 2

There are two viewpoint characters in The Unknown Sea, each of whom is a love interest to the other. Chapter 1 is where we meet Enoch, the seventh son of a penniless noble family who embarks as a sea mage to make his fortune. Chapter 2 is where we meet Celeste, the younger half-sister of Seraph, who is determined to leave her tiny little fishing village and make her own way in the world, out from under her sister’s shadow. Enjoy!

The first rays of dawn slanted through the cottage’s single window, catching the steam that rose from the porridge pot on the side of the hearth. Celeste stirred the oats with a wooden spoon and glanced over her shoulder at her mother Elara, who was busy kneading dough for the morning bread.

“Tristan, set the table please,” Elara called. Her silver-streaked hair was pulled back in a severe bun. Celeste glanced away before their eyes met, unwilling to see the wariness there.

Celeste’s younger half-brother scrambled to open the cupboard, standing on his tip-toes to reach. At eight years old, he was all gangly limbs and boundless energy.

“The wooden ones or the good ones?” Tristan asked, though there was no way he didn’t already know the answer.

“The wooden ones,” Celeste and Elara said in unison, making both of them grin. The good bowls were four pieces of actual glazed pottery that had survived the family’s various relocations. They only emerged for feast days, or when Celeste’s stepfather, Gerard, brought in an especially profitable catch.

Celeste stirred the porridge again, absently fingering the pearl amulet that hung from her neck on a silver chain. A parting gift from her older sister Seraph, it was one of the most valuable pieces in their humble cottage. But the feel of the cool metal against her skin only served as a reminder of all the adventures that she’d missed and wasn’t likely to have. Unlike her older sister, who wandered with her mother nearly halfway around the world, the small cottage was the only home that Celeste had ever known.

“I’m going away for a while, and I don’t know when I’ll be back,” Seraph had told her. “But if you ever miss me or feel a need to talk, use this amulet to summon me. I promise, I will come.”

“How?” Celeste had asked. Her older half-sister had smiled.

“I’ve woven a powerful summoning spell into the pearl at the center of this amulet. All you need to unlock it is to use your magic to complete it. As soon as you do, the spell will open a portal to me wherever I am.”

“So then I’ll be able to come to you?”

She still remembered the way her heart had sunk as her sister had paused before answering.

“Yes, but I think it would be better if I came to you. It might not be safe where I am, after all. Besides, mother would be worried sick if you left the village without telling her.”

That, of course, was the crux of the issue. All her life, Celeste had been kept safe—precisely because her older half-sister, Seraph, had grown up in so much danger. But where Seraph seemed to have all the adventures, Celeste seemed doomed to live a life tethered to her quiet and boring home.

“What if the spell doesn’t work?” she had asked. Her half-sister must have mistaken her tone for worry, because she’d smiled and placed a reassuring hand on her arm.

“I promise, it will work. It’s a complex spell, but I’ve mastered it by now. We can test it, if you want.”

“No,” Celeste had said, groaning a little inside. “I trust you.”

Seraph’s effortless mastery of magic was enough to make her jaw clench. It was all a fulfillment of the sibyl’s prophecy, of course—that for good or for evil, Seraph would one day become the world’s most powerful sorceress. Unlike her older sister, Celeste had no such destiny to look forward to. She was just a simple village girl with a modest gift for magic—hardly remarkable at all.

I’ll show them all, she thought fiercely as she flipped the eggs. I won’t just be known as Seraph’s younger sister.

“Celeste, dear, would you bring the porridge to the table?” her mother asked.

“Yes, Mother.” Celeste used the hook from the fireplace to lift the pot, and set it on the hot pad at the center of the table while her mother cut up the last of yesterday’s loaf of bread. Tristan got a plate of cheese slices from the cupboard and set it out next to the butter.

“We’ve got a lot of work today,” Elara said as she served up the porridge with the wooden spoon. “Celeste, could you help me with the washing and mending?”

Celeste’s shoulders tensed. “But Mother, I promised the fishermen I’d help with their catch.”

Elara’s brow furrowed, making Celeste’s stomach sink. It wasn’t hard to see the argument that was brewing.

“You know I don’t like you going out on those boats. It isn’t the proper place for a young woman like yourself.”

“Proper?” Celeste scoffed. “Seraph got to leave home and study advanced magic at the Alynthian court. Why shouldn’t I learn to use my powers by helping our village?”

“Your sister’s situation is… different,” Elara said carefully. Her answer made Celeste clench her fists in frustration.

“You mean she was more talented than me. More special.”

“That’s not what I meant. Now, let’s have our breakfast. We’ll talk about it later.”

From the tone of her voice, Celeste knew that arguing with her mother was pointless, so she picked up her spoon and stared at her porridge and bread. Beneath her blouse, she felt the amulet dangling on its silver chain. Through the window, she could see the first fishing boats already leaving the village harbor, their sails catching the morning breeze.

“I bet Seraph’s eating fancy meals in the royal court by now,” Tristan piped up as he cut a large slab of butter for his porridge. “When I grow up, I’m going to be a famous mage too!”

“Not without any talent for it,” Celeste grumbled.

“Hey! Just because I haven’t felt it yet doesn’t mean I don’t have it too, just like you and Seraph!”

“If you do, it’s buried awful deep.”

“Now, now,” Elara chided, eying them both sharply. “No arguments at breakfast. That goes for both of you.”

For several long minutes, they ate in silence, Tristan glowering at Celeste for bringing up his lack of magical talent. It was a sore issue with him, much like Seraph’s power was to Celeste. Perhaps she had been too hard on him for it, but the looming threat of chores had been weighing on her mind. More than anything else, she just wanted to get out of the house.

She waited until her mother’s bowl was empty before she brought up the subject again.

“Mother, please,” she said, shortly after Elara had finished her last spoonful. “I need to practice if I’m ever going to get better. You know how important this is to me.”

“It’s dangerous out there, Celeste.”

Her cheeks flushed hot. “I’m not a child anymore! I can handle myself.”

“Celeste—”

“Why can’t you trust me like you trusted Seraph?”

The words burst out before she could stop them. She braced herself, expecting a major fight. Instead, her mother just sighed.

“You have your sister’s restless spirit and your father’s stubborn streak. I suppose it was foolish of me to think you’d be content with a fisherwoman’s life forever.”

Tristan looked up sharply. “Is Celeste going away too?”

“No, darling,” Elara said softly, ruffling his dark hair. “Your sister isn’t going anywhere. She’s just… eager to spread her wings a little.”

“So can I go?” Celeste asked, her heart beginning to race. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Please, Mother—just for the morning.”

Elara sighed again, her shoulder sagging. “Very well. But I want you back no later than noon. I really do need help with the mending. Understood?”

Celeste nodded eagerly, already pushing back from the table. “Thank you, Mother! I promise I’ll be careful.”