This series has a long and winding history. It began as an original set of five books, which themselves grew out of an even earlier trilogy that never saw publication. That first trilogy was called The Phoenix Wars, and the books were The Phoenix Wars, Out of the Ashes, and The Infinite Plains.
While working on a prequel to The Phoenix Wars — a book titled Ruins of the Empire — I realized it wasn’t just a prequel. It became the foundation of a new series: The Phoenix Chronicles. I followed it with This Burning Sky, another version of Out of the Ashes, and then expanded the universe further with Red Horizons and Heretic.
At that point, I thought the story had reached its natural end. But the characters weren’t done with me yet. I found myself writing a sixth book set after Heretic, a story called Beautiful War. What started as a small trilogy has grown into a sprawling saga that continues to evolve.
As things happen, my writing style and thought process had gotten more advanced over the years and as I wrote Beautiful War, using the first five books for notes, I realized there was a huge gap in not only how I was writing but also what my theme was. The five books seemed rushed, awkward and most importantly I didn’t feel they were telling the story with themes that I really wanted to tell. With that in mind, I set about on this new journey to rewrite my original books in both English and Spanish.
And, as it turns out, as I wrote them they became and are becoming completely different books . As I looked at the series as a whole I realized which characters deserved more attention and who really wasn’t adding much to the overall story. And there were characters that mattered but they needed to be reworked and changed completely to really make their mark in the story. As the characters grew and changed, so did the story. While the overall arch is similar, each book is now completely different. I’ve loved expanding and adding more to the lore and while I look back at earlier writings I see that it was just the bone and adding the meat changes the stories completely.
I’ve fallen in love with these characters again and have been able to flesh them out. I have the second book, Under a Burning Sky, complete in English and am finishing up the tweaks in that version and working on the Spanish version. The front cover is done and I’ll be working on the back soon. As for the third book, Rise from the Ashes, Im about 80% done with the English version. I’ve got the complete rough drafts of Lost Horizon and Shadows of the Dawn done and so far I`m so happy with how it is looking.
Something I did different in these books that was so helpful to me was creating short stories about these characters. Some of the stories are referenced in the books and others are incorporated in a shorter version but I probably have over 100 short stories about these characters in different parts of their lives. When they were younger, before the war and military. A few long after the events in the books have concluded. Others during the books. They were never meant to be in a book, they were written so that I could get to know these characters better and in doing so, present them to you, the reader. My plan is to present these short stories here, add some depth to the books for those who want it.
Something else I did was create pictures of the characters, scenes, and locations for the books. Seeing them as I envisioned them all these years was really an incredible experience and having them together in a scene I wrote in an image is mind-blowing as an author. I’ve got a bunch on the main page and I plan to continue to share all of them as I released the stories or in a gallery.
I spent most of my day doing a WordPress website. I kept thinking of the meme, “they said do a WordPress site. It would be fun they said. It would be easy they said.” It took a lot longer than I thought and while I used WP previously I forgot a lot but luckily it came back to me for the most part. The reason I decided to go back to WP was that it offers more flexibly and options and can grow with me as an author and photographer in ways a basic templated site can`t. Most importantly, writing these books was all about getting outside of my comfort zone and challenging myself so I figure that my webpage should do the same. All feedback is welcomed for the books and the site!
