Published: 2023-11-21T00:00:00.000+00:00
Edited: 2023-11-21T00:00:00.000+00:00
Status: 🌲evergreen

Roar of the Flames Update and Excerpt

Reading time: 2 minutes

It feels like I've been promising you Bazrad's next adventure for decades at this point. Rest assured that Roar of the Flames hasn't been abandoned, it's merely been hibernating.

One of the difficult things about being a writer with ADHD is that it is very easy to get distracted by shiny new story ideas. Especially when the going gets tough in a current project. It's even harder to tell when you're engaging in productive procrastination---focusing on something else while your subconscious works through the tangles in the current story---or if you're just straight up avoiding the story because it's not fun any more.

For a while I was worried I was engaging in the latter with Roar of the Flames. And while I believe it's best not to force a story out---readers can always tell a story that was written that way---I worried I was letting people down because I'd been promising Bazrad's next adventure for so long.

I still worry that I'm letting people down by not having Roar of the Flames published already, but I've finally had conformation that I'm not just avoiding Roar of the Flames. Several plot tangles have recently unravelled themselves, usually in the most unlikely of places. The shower is a frequent location for writing related Eureka moments. And I swear I literally dreamed the solution to one of my plot problems.

So I'm taking steps to get back into Bazrad's head, and hoping to use the momentum of NaNoWriMo to get the story finished.

Success is far from guaranteed, but for the first time in a long time I'm feeling confident about things. And I'm genuinely itching to get back into the adventure.

In the meantime, please enjoy this little excerpt from the next Bazrad adventure Roar of the Flames, or Bazrad encounters a dragon.

"Good luck, Bazrad. Try not to get killed."

"Just make sure the healers have plenty of burn salve at the ready," I muttered. I'd never been very good with emotional goodbyes. Fortunately, neither was Arcaena, so they gave me a curt nod of the head before disappearing into the twilight forest.

And then I was on my own. Except for the several-hundred pound flying lizard somewhere ahead of me. I started walking.

By the time I came upon the clearing, my heart had started hammering a staccato song against my rib cage. This was perhaps the most dangerous thing I'd ever attempted in my entire Ancestor's-damned life. Why in the name of the Stone hadn't Elarnaud tried harder to stop me?

It was too late for regrets, and way too late to turn back. The forest stank of burning sulphur and beyond the pounding of my own pulse in my ears I could hear then noisy breaths of a very, very large creature sleeping.

"Time to wake up, sleeping beauty," I murmured to myself.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. What I wouldn't give right now for a drink to calm my nerves.

Stepping into the clearing, I immediately spotted the damn lizard that had caused all this mess in the first place.

It was maybe thirty, forty feet in length, though it was hard to tell with it curled up in a tiny ball, snout tucked under its tail like an enormous scaly puppy. A magnificent pair of wings were folded against its back, either of them larger and strong enough to flatten me into paste. Small puffs of smoke escaped from under its tail as the damned thing snored in its sleep.

In the darkness, it was hard to appreciate the burnished copper of the dragon's scales. Instead, they appeared a dark brown, almost black, in the starlit forest. The claws at the end of each leg were about half as long as I was tall, and could likely slice me to ribbons without even a thought. I didn't dare speculate on its teeth. This thing was the very definition of beautiful yet deadly, no less terrifying for being asleep on the ground.

And I'd come to parley with the damn thing.

Oh well, no time like the present. It wasn't like I was getting any more tender.

I cleared my throat as politely as I could without shitting myself. "Excuse me, Mx Dragon. Could I possibly have a word with you?"