Howdy, y’all. Wait, this isn’t a Grimluk related post, I should do that again. Hail and well met, friends. It is once more time for the Letter of News. I hope you’re all doing well. Let’s get goin.

Music

First up, I shared Neon Odin’s “Allfather” album last time. This time, especially with what’s below, it seems smart to share one of the major driving forces for writing this book: Bear McCreary’s Masters of the Universe: Revelation soundtracks (volume 1 and volume 2). Both sides offer a variety of pieces for a variety of moods that fit the show wonderfully. It’s orchestral, bombastic, epic, with a metallic edge thanks to McCreary incorporating heavy guitars throughout. “He-Man Transforms” is a theme that runs throughout most of the bigger pieces too. The guitars and horns work so well together that it’s hard not to get hyped when Adam says the words and calls down the Power. Volume 2, similarly, has “Birth of the Savage“, a shift in the “Transforms” theme when Adam decides to call down the Power without the sword. Sure, Savage He-Man is basically the Hulk, but you see, I’m a huge Hulk fan and the driving drums feel so good for any barbarian writing. Just really makes you wanna punch a Skeleton Wizard in the face, ya know? But hey, if you’re familiar with McCreary’s work at all, then that’s not surprising. He’s REALLY good at his job. And this is not the last time you’ll see him mentioned for the Gruflek series considering he’s done the Norse saga God of War soundtracks and Godzilla: King of Monsters. He knows how to give some damn good barbarian/warrior themes. Highly recommended these two volumes and I’m hoping we’ll get one for Revolution volume 1 as well, though that seems unlikely at the moment.

News

Now, to business. The first book in the Gruflek the Crimson series is over the 26,000 word mark. Part of me is frustrated that I’m not farther along after six months but I also haven’t whole hog written a book since the second draft of By Demons Be Driven in 2020. The past four years have been hard so the fact that I’m this far is still cause to celebrate. It’s just hard not to worry about being able to bounce back after four years between releases (provided I CAN get this thing funded and out by next October). My saving grace, I think, is that even with with my neverending quest to mash genres together, this one has a more conventional genre at its core. Science Fantasy that still leans heavily on the Fantasy in ways that will be much more recognizable than “orc gunslinger,” ya know? No matter how heavily I lean into the Fantasy elements with Grimluk, I still have to get through the average reader’s disinterest in Westerns. But Gruflek? A big ol’ orc holding a magic sword aloft is a much easier sell in the Fantasy market.

Which brings me to the next order of business: the public reveal of the title and logo for this book. I think I’ve still got some tweaking to do with it but it’s 98% complete and I’m still in love with it. On top of that, I have a logo for the series as well, which may also get some extra work, but as a brand thing, I’m happy with it so far. (And hey, if you haven’t seen already, hit up the Grimluk page and check out his fresh new series logo as well!) I already revealed these on Patreon, so some of you may have seen them already but here we go! First, the series logo.

I played around with a variety of different styles for that one. At first, I went for a metallic look but I never could get it to look right and then I remembered something I tried with the title logo and combined that with some inspiration from the aforementioned soundtracks (the word Revelation as seen on the album cover), which produced this. Part of me wonders if I should do a taller, stacked version or just a tall version of this but I like it. As for the title…

Gruflek the Crimson, book 1, The Secrets of Bloodhenge! I’m so stinkin proud of how this turned out. I think I want to tweak the bloodstone inner some, just to add some bigger veins in certain areas, but it turns out, if you take a marble block and turn the veins red, it looks really good. And the gold border is mostly from a tutorial I found on youtube from TextureLabs, with a generous amount of tweaking to make my particular use case work. At first, I wanted something with an iridescent rainbow sheen, but I never could figure out how to make that work. I tried silver too, but when I tried the gold, everything just popped.

And hey, let’s talk about that title: The Secrets of Bloodhenge. I already knew that Bloodhenge was going to be my Grayskull, thanks in part to a friend of mine telling me to use the name from a location sacred to an orc clan in his D&D homebrew setting. I needed something evocative. I was stuck, originally, on something to do with the Crimson Blade of Blank or the Crimson Warrior of Blank. The more I workshopped titles, I finally realized I needed to pull further inspo from He-Man. What is it Skeletor has spent so much time trying to gain? The secrets of Grayskull! And I’ve said this before, just from a pure, instinctual reaction, Castle Grayskull is fucking metal. It sounds cool, feels cool, LOOKS cool. Bloodhenge will look metal and sound cool (I hope), and currently, it’s a secret thing. Gruflek is going to spend most of the book just getting there. It’s hidden and ancient and little is known about it. Just a legend. I typed it out in that font and it just CLICKED. Now here I am, 26 thousand words into the story and finally sharing the title and the logo with the public.

I’m still very excited about this book. Some days I only manage a small amount of words and others, much more, but I’m making progress. I’m still wondering if this one might end up around the 100K mark when it’s all finished. We’ll see.

That’s all I really have to tell at the moment. Grimluk 5 also has a title but is still very much in preproduction. I haven’t manage to do much work on it at all and I’m still debating switching gears to the space western book instead but as it stands now, I can still only manage one book at a time. Take care of yourselves and have a good summer!