Well, well, well … what number of things have happened since Ember in the Forge was released?
I realized only now as I am beginning to book events for 2024 that I have been entirely silent across all platforms since October. There is one main culprit for this, but let’s just take this opportunity to recap Q4 2023 up to now.
Baldur’s Gate 3
Thar she is: my harmless addiction. It should come as no surprise as a fantasy author with deep ties to D&D that Baldur’s Gate is big for me. I played the original Baldur’s Gate when it came out, and Minsc has since and will forever and always be my favorite canonical character. So, I came into Baldur’s Gate 3 for the nostalgia and the promise of a return to the old adventures I loved—because I’ve played Larian games before and knew they would do it justice, unlike when the new Dark Alliance butchered my longtime favorite D&D game—but I found so much more in Larian’s story.
There’s such depth to the characters. It’s not a soulless remake with the BG name slapped on it. The characters feel real. They deal with real traumas that many of us face. I resonated with a particular character whose story was so true to my own and so therapeutic to experience with that character. Part of the reason I have played through the game six times in three months is to relive that part of the story. Even the characters I hated were hated due to aspects about them that shone from fantastic writing.
For anyone who loves adventure, loves D&D, or loves a story that feels real and has actual, real consequences to decisions, I highly recommend Baldur’s Gate 3.
Just maybe go into it with a firm grasp on your self-control.
As a little offshoot of my obsession with Baldur’s Gate 3, I discovered the precious man and powerhouse actor that is Neil Newbon. I have since been watching his Twitch/YouTube videos of his BG3 gameplay and even went so far as to get a motivational tattoo inspired by his words:
On two separate occasions, he has talked in his streams about body image and body positivity, and the one word that can be used to summarize those notions is “useful.” It doesn’t matter what your body looks like. If your body does the things that you need it to do—you, not someone else—then it’s a good body. It’s fantastic. Those who have seen me at events will have seen in my appearance and perhaps in how I carry myself that I am generally not someone who feels positively about her body. I am now. When I went on the Scotland book tour last year, I wasn’t trying to lose weight ahead of the trip; I was trying to build endurance so I could physically get to Restenneth and do all the other things I wanted to do. At that time, my body did all the things I needed it to. It was useful to me. That is a very healthy way of looking at body image, so I—perhaps impulsively—had it tattooed on my bicep in the Baldur’s Gate font.
ORF Closing Weekend
Since I last checked in, I had my final event of 2023. There were a couple milestones during that event. Foremost, I discovered a new passion that will take some work to actualize: blacksmithing.
There was a blacksmith shop just a few shops down from me in Whimsy Woods, and they offered something called Forge a Memory. I had one of my helpers go down to their forges, since I couldn’t leave the booth, and ask them about that process. She told them it would be useful for me for research for Ember, and a few of the smiths purchased my books because the newest one featured a master smith.
One of the ladies who bought all the books decided to do so from the moment she saw Ember on the cover of her book. Not only was that a smith, like her, but Ember is stocky, and although she is crimson because she is a mining dwarf, the models I gave the cover artist for the facial features and hair were Black women. This smith was a Black woman who’d rarely ever seen herself represented in books. Now, Ember in the Forge has a full ship of POC (Native American, Māori, Ancient Greek, Egyptian), but they are not token POC. I want the diversity in Ambergrove to be effortless and all-encompassing. I’d always imagined Kip as a Black man and described him in that way in the book. But I didn’t make a big deal about it or single him out for his appearance. That’s what Ambergrove is. It’s not a world with green and blue people but not Black or Indigenous ones. It’s not a world where the non-white people (blue or otherwise) are all the bad guys. It’s just a world. Good and bad. Hopefully, something that feels real. Hopefully, something that includes at least one character that every reader can resonate with. I want people of all backgrounds, cultures, and interests to feel seen by the world and its characters, and it absolutely warmed my heart to hear what it meant to this middle-aged blacksmith to hold a book in her hands about a middle-aged blacksmith and also see herself in the artwork.
Anyway, on the blacksmithing front … I ended up participating in the Forge a Memory, and I made a tiny knife out of a masonry nail. The smith used the forge, held the hot metal, and cleaned up the little blade I made, but I hammered it into shape, and I talked with them about the process as we went. In that, I learned two things:
- I had the details right with Ember from the months of research I’d done into smithing while writing (and the time I’d spent watching Forged in Fire).
- I loved it and want to do it.
The gears immediately started turning, and I have a plan to build a small shop at home. Eventually, through time playing with masonry nails, I intend to make small replicas of significant weapons and other items from Ambergrove and have them available for purchase at events. Hopefully it won’t take as long to actualize that as it took for me to publish the first book, or I’ll have more than Ember’s one white streak in my hair when I get around to it!
The other fantastic thing was a visit from the Queen Elizabeth of the festival. I’d always admired her, and of all the immersive things about the festival throughout my life, the thing that held strongest in my mind was that she was someone important to be revered. Well, after five days over two years, she came into my shop while I was running a D&D game a few feet away. She brought over a copy of one of my books for me to sign (and, flustered as I was that the queen was buying my book, I misspelled “majesty” in the inscription). She also gave me a little placard to display in my booth. She handed another copy of it to the person running the till in the booth at the time, so I now have one copy to display in my booth from now on and one copy tucked into the frame of one of the cover art pieces in my alcove.
All-in-all, it felt like a fantastic end to my events of 2023!
What About Ember on the Anvil?
I have been working on it. I started a new “day job” in October and also moved from editing as my full-time job to editing as an additional freelance job. As someone who, candidly, has been scraping by for quite a while now, I took the freelance opportunity by the horns and drastically overworked myself. I didn’t have the time for EotA for the longest time. Yes, part of that was because I would stay up until the wee hours working on an editing assignment only to “reward” myself for that work by playing Baldur’s Gate instead of going to bed. (To be entirely transparent, it’s what I’m fixing to do today. Because, while there are not many things that will completely decimate my self-control, this game is one of them.) I have also spent the first weeks of this year taking care of my poor dog after she had to have surgery to remove a few cysts, because she doesn’t seem to understand that 31 staples means she can’t roll around and tussle with her brother for a while. Last month, I also helped a non-writer with an amazing story to tell figure out how to put it together, and I will be helping him along the way as he goes.
I am working toward a middle ground. I do feel like I’ve finally found something like one. I’ve plotted out the book scene by scene, and I will soon start sitting down to draft it. The cover artist is ahead of the curve, however, and has finalized her sketch with the intention of starting on the actual piece by the start of February. As a tax for the many months of silence, here is a peek of one part of the cover.
Detail-oriented readers may recognize the significance of this. If you don’t, I recommend rereading Ember in the Forge before Ember on the Anvil is released!
What’s Next?
Well, I’ll probably play a little more Baldur’s Gate. Just a little. A teeny bit. Another playthrough or two.
However, I will also be diving into the deep waters of EotA. My projected publication for this one is Summer 2024, hopefully June.
I will be actually for real, for real, really this time keeping up with the authorly things that you adventurers see: the blog, the website, the social media accounts.
I’m also scheduling events for the year. So far, I have two new events this spring and two returning events this fall. Check out the events tab for details!
I will also be looking out at how mystical my standing stone looks blanketed by snow when it is too gross outside to actually go sit by it. I suspect more than a few chapters will end up being drafted under that maple by those stones.
But for now …
Until next time, adventurers.
Tales of Ambergrove 