I get a lot of AI scam emails that sound like they’re written by an actual human who read my book. To test them (and also just for shits and giggles) I sometimes respond in limerick, asking them to respond back in limerick too. In fact, I recently published a book about that…
In any case, here is a scambot limerick I recently received praising my book Bloodfire Legacy:
There once was a writer of grace, Who built hope in a desolate place. Through Elara’s fierce fight, And her daughter’s strange sight, Human courage still held its embrace.
Your verses gave welcome insight To the themes that inspired your writing. The veteran’s role, And the walls of the soul, Made the journey feel honest and bright.
I’m delighted to hear there’s much more, Of new worlds and adventures in store. May your stories still shine, Through each page and each line, As they have for your readers before.
And if that whet your appetite, you can get the book here:
Bloodfire Legacy
A murdered wizard. A desperate thief. A daughter on the brink of damnation.
Corin has never been more than a streetwise nobody and a petty thief. He can also hear the voices of the dead, whether or not he wants to. So when the ghost of the royal court magician begs him to help save his wayward daughter, Corin reluctantly accepts, even though it means he must become something he's never been: a hero.
A murdered wizard. A desperate thief. A daughter on the brink of damnation.
Corin has never been a hero. A streetwise nobody and petty thief, he’s survived this long by keeping his head down and his fingers quick. He can also hear the voices of the dead—whether or not he wants to.
But when the ghost of the royal court magician begins to haunt him, all of that begins to change. His daughter has been dabbling in the dark arts, seeking to avenge his death. In doing so, she has fallen in with the very people who killed him.
Corin is the only one who can help him save his daughter. But to do that, Corin must turn from everything he knows and become something he’s never been: a hero.
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.
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So for the last week, I’ve been having some long reflections with ChatGPT (I say “reflection” instead of “discussion,” because generative AI is more like a sophisticated mirror than a mind) and crunching a bunch of the data that I’ve accumulated over the course of my career. It’s fascinating, because one of the things that generative AI is surprisingly good at is crunching large amounts of data and extracting interesting patterns from it. It’s less good at drawing useful conclusions, but that’s what God gave us humans a mind for.
One of the more interesting data points is that the ideal frequency with which to release new full-length novels is once every 3-6 months, ideally every 3-4 months. After 6 months without a novel release, sales tend to fall off, and after 9 months, they fall completely off of a cliff.
From this, I’ve decided to rework my release schedule, so that every January, May, and September, I have a new novel coming out. The goal is to have the next novel ready and up for preorder before the current one goes live. Between new novel releases, I plan to rerelease short stories, bundle and release box sets, or release new original short stories and novellas, with something coming out each month.
It’s an aggressive release schedule, but with the way I’ve incorporated AI into my writing process, I think I can manage it. It took me about 120 total writing man-hours to write Captive of the Falconstar, and with practice I can probably get that down lower. During the school year, while my wife is teaching or researching and I’m generally the one watching the kids, I can only get about an hour of work in each day, but I can do more like 2-3 hours in the summer, so that’s when I plan to catch up. That comes to about 400 man-hours of writing time in a given year, which is more than enough to write three 120 man-hour novels.
I’m going to try to give myself a bit of a buffer, though. After Captive of the Falconstar comes out in July, I plan to wait 6 months and publish The Unknown Sea in January 2027. The next release will be Lord of the Falconstar in May 2027, concluding the Falconstar Trilogy. After that, I plan to launch the Rise of the Falconstar Trilogy in September 2027 with The Soulbond and the Sling, following up with books 2 and 3 in January and May 2028.
My big summer project this year is The Unknown Sea, which I will probably finish sometime next month. After that, I’ll work on Lord of the Falconstar with a goal of finishing it well before the end of the year. Should be very doable. And since the AI draft of The Soulbond and the Sling is already complete, it shouldn’t take more than a few months to finish it. So by the time January 2027 rolls around, I may be more than halfway done with my September release for that year.
That’s the plan, anyway. I may want to experiment with crowdfunding some of these novels, especially The Soulbond and the Sling—which is another good reason to push it back to September 2027. But we’ll see how it goes.
I’ve been making good progress on The Unknown Sea this week, pushing forward at a very good rate now that my wife is at home watching the kids. She’s got the next couple of months off for the summer, allowing me to write full-time, and I plan to take advantage of that as much as I can. This was the first week of that, and while I still feel like I’m ramping up to full speed, I did get quite a bit of writing done.
Right now, The Unknown Sea is at about 50% for the AI draft, 28% for the rough human draft, 22% for the revised human draft, and 11% for the final polished draft. I’m experimenting with pushing through all of those draft phases at once, obviously with different parts of the novel being at different stages. If everything proceeds according to my outline, the final draft will clock in at around sixteen chapters, 53 scenes, and between 65k to 70k words (or around 180 – 220 pages).
I probably won’t be able to finish it before the end of May, but I do think I can finish it by mid-June. It’s going to take a lot of work, but I’ve got the time now, so it’s mostly just a matter of buckling down and making it happen. It’s about the same length as Captive of the Falconstar, which took about 120 writing hours to finish, and I’ve already put in about 50 writing hours. To finish The Unknown Sea by May 15th, I need to average about 3.5 writing hours per day, which is going to be a bit tricky since 1) I still have a bunch of publishing tasks to work on, and 2) we have a family trip to Coeur D’Alene in the middle of that, but I think I can manage it.
I would really like to have it sufficiently finished so that I can start work on Lord of the Falconstar before Captive of the Falconstar releases in July. That way, I can estimate how much time I need to finish Lord of the Falconstar and have it up for preorder. But I may go ahead and put it up for preorder anyway, just with a long enough lead-time that I know I can have the book done before then.
What I’ll probably do is put The Unknown Sea up for preorder with a release date around October-November 2026, and Lord of the Falconstar up with a release date around January-February 2027. I’ve got a rough AI draft done for Lord of the Falconstar, but not much more than that, and I probably need to update some of the character cards and chapter prompts, which is also going to take time. So Lord of the Falconstar probably won’t come out until sometime in 2027, regardless.
My parents were both high school teachers, and they told me that the three best things about being a teacher are: June, July, and August. My wife is a BYU professor, so she’s got a two month break instead of a three month break, but she can take it anytime over the summer, and she’s decided to start it next week. That way, she’ll be watching the kids from the end of BYU kindergarten to the week after Writers Cantina in July, giving me all that time to write full-time.
I am really looking forward to it! With luck, I can finish The Unknown Sea and push far enough into Lord of the Falconstar that I can put it up for preorder before Captive of the Falconstar is released. It’s going to take a lot of work, but I think I can do it. Captive took me a total of 120 hours to write, and I’m already about a third of the way through The Unknown Sea, so I can probably finish that by the first half of June. And then, I’ll go full ahead on Lord of the Falconstar to have that trilogy well and truly done by the end of the summer.
Looking forward, we have a wedding at the end of May, and a family trip up to Idaho in the first week of June. Coeur d’Alene is a solid 10 hour drive from Orem, Utah, which is one heck of a crazy haul, but we’ve done it before, though not with three kids. We’ll only be there for a weekend. Other than that, we’ll be at home for most of that time. So that’s the plan.
As for The Unknown Sea, it’s coming along very well, but I only have another half hour to work on it before it’s time to put the kids to bed, so I’d better get back to that now.
Now that I’ve finished Captive of the Falconstar, I’m back to writing fantasy again, this time The Unknown Sea from the Sea Mage Cycle. I was going to focus on The Soulbond and the Sling, but this book is much shorter, and I think I can have it up for preorder by the time Captive goes live. It’s also about a quarter of the way finished already, so finishing it will only take a little push.
What I really don’t want to do is spend six months working on a WIP that I won’t be able to release this year, or maybe even next year, only to have my sales fall off a cliff because I haven’t been publishing anything. Which means that there may never be a good time to work on The Soulbond and the Sling (or The People of the Last Harvest, for that matter), but if I can set up a few long-term preorders, that may give me the space I need. I’m also going to try making it a side project and working on it on the side, for those rare times when I get an extra hour or two.
There are two more science fiction books that I plan to write: Lord of the Falconstar and Return of the Starborn Son. Both of those will complete a trilogy (The Falconstar Trilogy and the Outworld Trilogy, respectively). But I plan to intersperse those projects with fantasy WIPs, so that I’ll alternate between fantasy and science fiction until those unfinished trilogies are all complete. And then, I’ll focus exclusively on writing fantasy.
The Unknown Sea shouldn’t take long to finish, though the AI draft is rougher than I remember it being. I suppose that means I’m getting better at this, since my older work now seems so much worse. All that really means is that the human draft will take longer, since I’ll fix it all up and make it good for the final draft. But I don’t think I will be finished with this WIP until at least the end of June, and probably the end of July.
My wife plans to fill out her 10 month contract on schedule, giving her two months off in the summer. That should give me July and most of August to write full-time. Perhaps that will be a good chance to work on The Soulbond and the Sling, or finish up Lord of the Falconstar quickly enough that I can put it on a long-term preorder and spend the next six months working on the Soulbound King books. We’ll see how it goes.
At the heart of Bloodfire Legacy is a haunting question: can love still protect us after death has already taken everything else? This epic fantasy novel begins with murder, grief, and the lure of vengeance, but underneath all of that runs a deeper current—the enduring love of a father who refuses to abandon his daughter, even from beyond the veil. Lord Arion’s death is not the end of his care for Lyra. In many ways, it is the beginning of the book’s deepest emotional conflict.
Where the Idea Came From
Part of the spark for Bloodfire Legacy came from wanting to write the kind of fantasy story my wife especially loves, including some sea-story elements that naturally found their way into the book. But this novel also came from persistence. I actually wrote an earlier version of this story years ago, set it aside, and eventually came back to it because I still felt there was something powerful and worth saving at its core. In a strange way, that fits this theme: some things are too deep to simply let go of.
How Love Beyond the Grave Shapes the Story
Lord Arion’s love for Lyra is not just an emotional detail in the background. It is one of the forces that drives the whole story. The moment he dies, his first thought is not for himself, but for his daughter. He realizes that she will wake up fatherless, alone in a court full of danger, and he cannot bear to leave her. Even when he is called toward the peace of the Immortal Realm and reunion with his wife, he chooses to remain behind and watch over Lyra instead. That choice tells you something essential about the book: in this story, death is real, grief is real, loss is real—but love is real too, and it does not simply vanish when life ends.
That love keeps shaping the novel long after Arion’s death. He watches Lyra grieve him. He watches her longing for justice begin to harden into a thirst for vengeance. He sees the Dark Brotherhood exploit her pain and try to pull her into darkness. Because he cannot touch the physical world directly, he searches for another way to reach her, and that is what leads him to Corin. In other words, one of the book’s most important relationships only exists because a dead father still loves his daughter enough to fight for her. Arion’s love becomes an unseen force in the story—guiding, warning, grieving, and resisting the darkness that wants to consume Lyra.
What Love Beyond the Grave Says About Us
I think this theme speaks to one of the deepest human hopes we have: that death does not truly destroy the bonds that matter most. We know loss is real. We know death takes people from us. But we still hunger to believe that love means something more than temporary closeness. In Bloodfire Legacy, love beyond the grave is not just about memory or sentiment. It becomes sacrifice, protection, warning, and moral responsibility. Arion does not remain because he cannot let go in a selfish sense. He remains because he still wants what is good for his daughter, even when he can no longer control her choices. That kind of love is powerful precisely because it is enduring without becoming possessive.
Why This Theme Matters to Me
This theme matters to me because I do not think the strongest love is fragile. I think real love endures. Lord Arion’s love for Lyra is moving to me because it costs him something. He gives up rest, peace, and reunion because he cannot bear to leave his daughter alone in her hour of danger. That kind of love feels both emotionally true and spiritually meaningful to me. And maybe that is one reason I kept coming back to this story myself. Even after earlier attempts failed, I knew there was something alive at its center that was worth returning to and worth finishing.
Bloodfire Legacy is a fast-moving epic fantasy about grief, temptation, loyalty, and the choice between vengeance and justice. It blends court intrigue, sea-crossing adventure, forbidden magic, and a ghostly father’s desperate effort to save his daughter before darkness consumes her.
What Kind of Reader Will Love Bloodfire Legacy?
If you love …
fantasy with court intrigue, secret conspiracies, and looming war
stories about forbidden magic, moral temptation, and the fight to stay in the light
emotional character arcs built around grief, justice, loyalty, and redemption
unlikely partnerships, especially between a highborn heroine and a streetwise outsider
adventurous fantasy that feels tense and dramatic but ultimately hopeful
…then Bloodfire Legacy is probably your kind of story.
What You’ll Find Inside
Bloodfire Legacy follows Lyra Arion, the gifted daughter of a murdered court magician, as her hunt for her father’s killer draws her toward the Dark Brotherhood and the seductive power of forbidden magic. Alongside her is Corin, a street thief with the rare ability to see and speak with the dead, who becomes both her guide and her lifeline. The result is a fantasy adventure that is suspenseful, emotionally driven, and ultimately uplifting, with a brisk pace, clear stakes, and a strong undercurrent of hope.
What Makes It Different
Fans of classic secondary-world fantasy will recognize the royal courts, magical orders, dark conspiracies, and gathering war, but Bloodfire Legacy takes those familiar elements in a more intimate and emotionally immediate direction. Where many epic fantasies focus first on armies and kingdoms, this one begins with a daughter’s grief, a father’s love, and a thief who can hear the dead. It also stands apart through its combination of court fantasy and sea-story energy, plus a strong emphasis on moral struggle: not just whether evil can be defeated, but whether the heroine can resist becoming like the darkness she fights.
What You Won’t Find
You won’t find grimdark nihilism, explicit content, or a story that wallows in despair. While the book deals with murder, dark magic, and spiritual peril, it draws clear lines between justice and vengeance and keeps moving toward mercy, courage, and the possibility of redemption.
Why I Think You Might Love It
I think this story will especially connect with readers who want fantasy to be both exciting and heartening. In the author’s note, I talk about writing this series to be entertaining, uplifting, and good clean fantasy, with sea-story elements shaped in part by my wife’s reading tastes. That spirit comes through in Bloodfire Legacy: it gives you danger, mystery, magic, and high stakes, but it never loses sight of love, loyalty, and the hope that people can turn back from darkness before it’s too late.
Fantasy often asks what heroes will risk to save their people, but it also asks a deeper question: what does it take to heal a world that has already been broken? In The Winds of Desolation, the land itself bears the scars of ancient wrongdoing. The story follows characters who must confront the past, not merely to survive its consequences, but to restore what was lost.
Where the Idea Came From
The idea behind this story grew from a fascination with how places carry history. Some landscapes seem peaceful and alive, while others feel haunted by the memory of what happened there long ago. That contrast led to a simple “what if”: what if a land could be wounded by the choices of those who once ruled it, and what if healing it required courage from a new generation willing to face that past instead of fleeing from it?
How Healing a Cursed Land Shapes the Story
In The Winds of Desolation, the curse hanging over the land is not just a magical obstacle. It is the result of ancient decisions that reshaped the world and left lasting consequences behind. The storms, the strange magic, and the dangers the characters face are all symptoms of something deeper—a broken balance between power, responsibility, and the land itself.
This idea drives the choices the characters must make. Some want to escape the cursed region and leave its mysteries behind. Others believe the only path forward is to confront the past and repair what was damaged. As alliances form and secrets emerge, the question becomes clear: is the desolation inevitable, or can courage and sacrifice restore life to a place that seems beyond saving?
What Healing a Cursed Land Says About Us
Stories about cursed lands resonate because they echo a truth about human life: our choices shape the world we leave behind. Just as the characters in the story inherit the consequences of earlier generations, people in the real world often find themselves living with the results of decisions they did not personally make. The hope at the heart of this theme is that broken things—whether landscapes, communities, or relationships—are not beyond healing if someone is willing to take responsibility and begin the work of restoration.
Why This Theme Matters to Me
One of the ideas that kept returning to me while writing this story is that the world is never truly static. Every generation inherits something—sometimes something beautiful, sometimes something damaged. I wanted to explore what it means to step into that inheritance with humility and courage, and to believe that even a wounded land can be made whole again if people refuse to abandon it.
The Winds of Desolation is a survival fantasy adventure about a small band of travelers stranded in a cursed land where the wilderness itself seems determined to destroy them. Shipwrecked far from civilization and hunted by enemies who control the fate of the land, they must rely on courage, magic, and loyalty to survive. The result is a tense journey across a dangerous landscape where every decision matters.
What Kind of Reader Will Love This Book?
f you love…
fantasy survival stories about characters stranded in hostile lands
classic quest adventures with magic, ancient prophecies, and cursed places
small groups of companions relying on loyalty, courage, and cleverness to survive
wilderness journeys across strange and dangerous landscapes
character-driven fantasy with teamwork, sacrifice, and high stakes
…then The Winds of Desolation is probably your kind of story.
What You’ll Find Inside
The Winds of Desolation follows Alex, a young sea mage who survives a deadly storm only to find himself stranded with his companions in the infamous Lands of Desolation—a cursed wilderness where few who enter ever return. With their captain dead, their supplies nearly gone, and their most powerful ally mysteriously incapacitated, the group must cross hostile territory while evading enemies who seek to control the land’s ancient magic. The story blends tense survival, exploration, and magical intrigue, creating a fast-moving adventure that feels both gritty and hopeful.
What Makes It Different
Fans of classic quest fantasy will recognize familiar elements—dangerous landscapes, powerful magic, and a group of companions working together to overcome impossible odds. But The Winds of Desolation leans heavily into the survival aspect of the journey. Instead of a large army or powerful kingdom, the story focuses on a handful of characters struggling to survive in a cursed wilderness while unraveling the mysteries behind it. The result is a fantasy adventure where the landscape itself becomes one of the story’s most dangerous characters.
What You Won’t Find
This is not grimdark fantasy built around cynicism or relentless brutality. While the story contains danger and loss, it ultimately focuses on courage, friendship, and perseverance. Readers looking for heavy political intrigue or court drama may also find that the story keeps its attention firmly on adventure, exploration, and survival.
Why I Think You Might Love It
I’ve always been fascinated by stories where ordinary people are forced into extraordinary situations and must rely on each other to survive. The heart of this book is that kind of journey: a small group of companions facing fear, uncertainty, and impossible odds while trying to do the right thing. Stories like this remind me that courage doesn’t come from power or destiny—it comes from choosing, again and again, to stand by the people who need you.
