Song of the Mysteries Status Updates

originally posted by Xepheus Shazar

Greetings
I live in New Zealand and am struggling to find where I can buy "The Decoy" eBook online. Please would someone point me in the right direction? Thank you in advance to the kind someone, or someones, who can provide me with a link.

originally posted by Jeff

Here's a direct link to the page for the short stories:

https://www.paravia.com/StudioShop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=23_41_42& products_id=212

originally posted by Annette

Would love to see a preview Janny.

Gads, this book!!! Hair pull. I had the next subchapter well along, and…for the second time, had to rip it to bits, adjust and revise the material for a more gripping presentation.

Last arc - no slack, the build on the page matters.

Most of it is going like this - worth it, though, What is nailed down is solid. Vol I wrote exactly like this…the difference (then) you didn't know what you were seeing yet (but I did). Now, you do. Or, what you are seeing will unzip a whole dang lot, so no room to get a foot wrong, anywhere.

Yes, I am writing every day, and the reading at the DragonCon is set for 1 PM Sunday.

originally posted by Annette

Hope you have a great time at DragonCon Janny.

Home from the Dragon, back in the groove…tossed everything on this sub chapter I'd done before, nearly, and rewrote the whole draft…nailed it at last. Now the one liners, and this bit is wrapped.

As I work away on the finishing touches of this chapter set, the vote is up, again, at r/fantasy for your favorite standalones. Stand up and be counted, books that make this list stay on the map!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/d28fnq/the_2019_rfantasy_favourite_sta ndalones_poll/

originally posted by DarthJazy

Hi Janny

So book should be out by next Christmas please. hehe

Ha, no.

Just back from our SAR team's search and recovery deployment in the Bahamas, with more standby time looming. In places the devastation there is beyond total, please don't stop sending donations for relief to get the Bahamians back on their feet. Lovely people. Awful disaster.

Working chapter set V and all hell about to bust loose on the page.

Yay! The chat is fixed.

I am well into the first subchapter of V set, main being in full draft, I am putting finishing touches on it.

In celebration of the chat being fixed, I will try to put up a preview post.

This is old chat software, there will need to be an update, I will try to let you folks know what we do so there's not a sudden cut off.

originally posted by Walt

Good to see Janny!

originally posted by Ben Crofts

Yay! It's back. Thought it had gone.

Good to have chat back! Keeping ancient software alive is probably more difficult than dealing with an invasion of free wraiths.

originally posted by Neil

good to see the chat back - looking forward to this book - keep up the good work Janny ! :slight_smile:

originally posted by Annette

I am also relieved to see the chat area back.

originally posted by Daisy

Hi Janny, I just wanted to let you know I have thoroughly enjoyed your books. Thank you for continuing the story. I was obviously much younger when Curse of the Mistwraith was first published and I reread every book when a new volume is released so that I can soak up the.whole story all over again. You have brought me endless enjoyment. I continuously sympathise with both Arithon’s and Lysaer’s actions and thoughts and am happy and sad for both of them. I will be disappointed when the last book is released but can’t wait!!! Thank you again.

Hi Daisy, welcome here and thanks for the enthusiastic post!

I hope you've found the new preview I just posted for Song of the Mysteries, and the 5 related short fiction works to fill things in!

originally posted by Julie

So glad the chat is back !!!

The old year passing finds me tearing up a portion of Chapter 5…the retool will be SO much better; knew some dang thing was missing…

On another note: the chat…this software is VERY VERY OLD, and some sort of change needs to happen.

There are several choices - can I have opinions from the usership as to what you'd like to do?

We could:

1) try to find another software and keep the chat HERE…although it may be hard to 'archive' the old threads, we could perhaps keep the best of them in the FAQ area…

2) revitalize an existing discussion group hosted on another forum that has gone 'dead' mostly - due to the fact few users there read the book. (There is one such that I know of, nobody posted there at all in 2019, though there are existing threads, it's not active or being kept up)

3) create a user group on an existing platform like GoodReads or Reddit…with all of the flak and adverts. etc such sites are prone to.

4) If we move the chat off site, I'd have to 'create' a page here for previews of manuscript…due to copyright issues. But the off site could have discussion of the preview, and I could post a direct link to here.

Anybody else have any other ideas or would you mind stating your preferences?

While I do post announcements on Twitter and sparingly (not fond of the toxicity or the ethic) Facebook - I personally would rather not take the chat there.

This entire website needs an update - and given the chat had difficulties getting up and going with a site migration, now's our chance to discuss this ahead of another likely crash and hard cut off.

thoughts?

Janny,

I've sent you my thoughts before by email, but for community discussion's sake, I'll repost here.

Separating the need to preserve the past from the need for a new solution:

1) Since the old "discus" posts are stored as flat HTML files, there are plenty of ways to preserve them for history's sake. I can assist with ways to style them to match whatever the new website will eventually be.

2) There are several modern chat solutions that work both for desktop computers and mobile. This would allow you to keep the most control over content posted (copyrights and such). The main change would be needing to make new accounts. Happy to help setup, troubleshoot, or run the forum software as needed.

3) Chat forums on other platforms would function equally well, as long as you review the guidelines and rules of those communities stringently in advance.

Regards,
BU