Tag: ya dragon books

A November 2020 Update on Sand and Smoke, the Dragon Destiny trilogy, and Dragons of Marak

Hey there! It’s been a while since I’ve provided an update about the books I’m working on. Right now, I’m working on two series–the Dragon Destiny trilogy, of which Sand and Smoke was the first book in the series, and Dragons of Marak, which is going to run a bit more than three books, I’m not sure how long it will run though. They’re both high epic fantasy, and Sand and Smoke is available on Kindle Unlimited for free and for purchase on many sites. It’s an indie novel.

By the way, in case you’re not familiar with who I am, hi. I’m Carl Cota-Robles, an indie author and self-published author on Amazon. I mostly write indie fantasy, but I also write indie children’s books with a sprinkle of science fiction. Feel free to check out my books here: https://carlcotarobles.com/books

Sand and Smoke is an indie high epic fantasy set in a world where dragon riders and cowboys co-exist. The sequel picks up where it left off, following characters like Al Hardin, Maya Samoralt, Joel Forquid, and Li Lok, and it also includes some new characters. The sequel to Sand and Smoke is going to be called Battle and Burning, and it’ll be released September 14, 2021. As of now, I’ve finished the first draft and am going to start revisions either next week or the week after. You can pre-order it. For a limited time before its release, I’ve made it available to pre-order for just $0.99. It will go up to a higher price eventually, though. Here’s the pre-order link: mybook.to/battleandburning

So, regarding my other series Dragons of Marak, it’s in a bit of disarray right now. The last month or so, I had planned to work on drafting book 3 of the series, but I wasn’t able to because I had a number of health issues come up. If you haven’t had to deal with anything like that in your life, you’re definitely lucky in at least one way. Last time I had to deal with something like this was in 2016, but it was different than what I’m going through right now. Back then, it was just a lot of pain, and I think what I needed most was rest. Right now, it’s involving a lot of doctors appointments that seem to be never ending.

So…anyway…those health issues are what has affected my plans for Dragons of Marak. Books 1 and 2 have both been drafted, and book 1 has gone through one thorough round of revisions and is now in the hand of some beta readers (sent out a few weeks before my health issues popped up). I’m hoping to squeeze in the writing of book 3 in between drafts of Battle and Burning, but I’m not sure if it’ll happen. Either way, Battle and Burning should be released by September 14, 2021. Dragons of Marak may take a bit longer than I expected.

There hasn’t been any kind of release date announced for Dragons of Marak, and I don’t have any plans to announce any release dates anytime soon. The series will go nicely with Sand and Smoke, though, because they are both young adult fantasy with dragons. While Dragons of Marak doesn’t have any dragon riders like Sand and Smoke does, it does have dragons and people who partner with dragons. The twist is that the dragons actually have special powers that allow them to equip to people as various weapons like a sword, an axe, a knife, a bow, etc. And while Sand and Smoke is told from multiple points of view, Dragons of Marak has just one point of view, and I plan to stick to that point of view throughout the series (well, right now that’s the plan anyway). There’s also a bit more romance in Dragons of Marak.

Over the next month or so, I’m probably going to be commissioning some art for the Battle and Burning and the Dragon Destiny trilogy. For a while now I’ve been dying to commission some art that’s an accurate portrayal of what a Sun dragon looks like. I go into quite a bit of detail about it in Sand and Smoke, so it’ll be really cool to get an accurate drawing made! If you want to see that art and see what a Sun dragon looks like for real, I’ll share it with you if you subscribe to my mailing list. You can subscribe at this link: www.rebrand.ly/storiesbycarl or at the link at the top of the page.

A bonus to being subscribed to my mailing list is that I let you know whenever I have marked down my books. I do this sometimes as a promotion to try and get a higher rank on Amazon and/or garner some reviews.

This is pretty much it as far as news goes at this point in time. The main new things to go down have been that the sequel to Sand and Smoke finally has a title now–it will be called Battle and Burning–and it has a release date: September 14, 2021. Like Sand and Smoke, it’ll be available on Kindle Unlimited for free and on the same retailers. I’m really excited about the artwork too! Can’t wait to get that process started and to see what a Sun dragon looks like.

As a writer, I constantly have ideas popping up in my head for new books, so there’s definitely been a part of me that is itching to start some other ideas. Most of these are dragon related…ha. Though, Sand and Smoke and Dragons of Marak may be it for series that involve dragons partnering with humans. The other couple of ideas I have floating around in my head involve dragons that are also part human. So it’s a different take on the whole thing, less stereotypical, and I also have some ideas about how to combine dragon-human hybrids with other mainstream genres.

Anyway, I can’t wait to dive into revisions for Battle and Burning! The draft I wrote needs some revising pretty badly, so I’ll probably be at it for a couple months before I send it to beta readers. In my opinion, revising is one of the hardest parts of writing, but I’ve learned some tricks to do it well.

PS: Here’s that link to subscribe to my mailing list again: http://www.rebrand.ly/storiesbycarl

Book Updates for a Sandy November

Welcome! This post is part of my author blog. If by chance you find yourself here, wondering who I am, I’m an author from Portland, OR. I write epic fantasy and children’s science fiction. Feel free to check out my books using the menu bar above!

This month I am participating in Nanowrimo! Even though I am a chronic write-aholic, I thought I would give it a go just to be involved a bit more in the writing community, rather than being very hobbit-like about my writing. Which I usually am. But though I’ve got 49,200 words already written for the month (don’t judge me, I write like a cat sheds) I really don’t think I’ve spoken with anyone else who’s doing Nanowrimo all month. Or if I have, I haven’t spoken to them about Nanowrimo. Anyway, I’d done Nanowrimo twice in the past, once I failed and once I succeeded, so despite my bragging about being a write-aholic I can occasionally fail to get the words out too. The point I’m trying to get across is that I would love to speak with others who are doing Nanowrimo just because connections and community.

But beyond Nanowrimo this month, I’m going to be trying a whole bunch of new things in my writing plans regarding my books and I’ve been gearing up for them! The first of those was that I purchased a brand new epic cover for my fantasy novel titled Sand and Smoke. My last cover was self-designed, and so I think this one looks a whole lot more professional! And it’s on display below using a 3d mockup.

Also I wrote a short story to accompany the novel. If you want to read the short story and find out everything there is to know about this awesome dragon-infested world I’ve created, all you need to do is subscribe to my mailing list, and I’ll send it to you for free: https://www.rebrand.ly/ingridrising.

What else?

My book Middle School Robots is gonna be exclusively available for my mailing list subscribers in January, and then later on I’ll be publishing it, I’m not sure exactly when yet.

Oh, and I am going to be doubling down on my efforts at writing and publishing YA fantasy books, probably ones with lots of dragons in them. Honestly I am feeling pretty good about what I’ve accomplished so far in writing and publishing TWO full books, completing a first draft for a third book (School Robots), and completing over three-quarters of the first draft for a fourth book this month for Nanowrimo, since roughly April of 2018 when I started all of this bonanza.

But despite the fact that I’ve written pretty much what I’ve aimed to, I know that I need to write faster and write more, especially in completing some of the series I started. With that in mind I have a kind of bold goal for myself in 2020, and I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to meet it, but I’m going to try hella hard. My bold goal is to write a book a month, or depending on how I feel midway through I might adjust that goal to be 10 books in 10 months with 2 rest months worked in there somewhere.

It’s gonna be hard, but I think I can do it. Nanowrimo this month is already going fantastic for me. It’s kinda ending up being the warm-up exercise. Now that I’ve hit a stride with understanding how to churn material out, how to structure my writing, what genre I want to target and knowing a few subjects of things in that genre that seem to grip my readers, I think I am ready to tackle the one-book-a-month challenge for a year.

I even have some ideas for those months. The book I’m writing right now for Nanowrimo, I want to make it into a trilogy. I want to write books 2 and 3 in the Sand and Smoke trilogy. I want to revive an old book I wrote as a kid, improving upon the execution with a complete rewrite and a more distinct and engrossing world. I want to make that book into a series, five books I think. And I’m not wholly sure about the other three months, maybe I can find other writers who are just as hungry as me to team up with, or maybe I’ll think up new ideas in the interim. All in all, next year’s goal is going to be producing a lot of first drafts, which will probably mean not a lot of new publications, other than School Robots. But writing the first draft is the most enjoyable part for me at least…so it should be fun! And if I’m successful, there should be a bonanza of new publications coming in 2021. I might see if I can revise one well enough to publish next fall in 2020 also…we’ll see.