It may have struck some of you as odd that I’ve leaned my past several months into a project other than Questline. I have every intention of cranking out Questline this year, but before I could lean into it fully I needed to get this larger story out of my head and onto some metaphorical paper. Thus I felt that perhaps I ought to offer up a bit of explanation as to what this is that I’m working on.
Unfortunately I cannot be too precise about the story itself as of yet, since I’m still hammering pieces of it out. But I can give an overview of the vision behind this series and what’s going to be happening on a general level.
This story has its roots in some day dreaming I did while wandering a few lonely trails in the woods behind the campus of the community college I attended before going off to my camp ministry internship. I had been reading the latest (at that time) installment in The Edge Chronicles, by Chris Riddel and Paul Stewart. As always, I was delighted by their imaginative worldbuilding and illustrations (the story wasn’t bad, these are just what really make their stories pop). Feeling inspired, I took to imagining my own quirky world. I wasn’t planning to write anything on it at this point, just amusing myself while I haunted the woods behind campus on my regular walking path that avoided any potential drug deals quite likely happening among the trees.
Those ideas piled up at a rather alarming rate and began yammering for a life of their own and eventually coerced me into considering a book.
The yammering insisted on a series.
I negotiated it down to a potential trilogy that I had no intention of actually getting to and a spontaneous standalone book that my friend challenged me to write apace with him as he tackled a novel of his own.
That book I wrote, The Voyage of Uriah Witherwhip, came out as a nice hefty 200+ page mass of something. I’m interested in someday revisiting that project and seeing if it can be reworked into something usable. I’ve got ideas, but it’s likely too early to say anything for sure.
Anyways, that world building was fun, but didn’t amount to too much other than a map, a few fun creatures and a general idea for a map-making adventure, and a tragedy-at-sea-storyline. I ended up going off to a camp ministry internship and barely finished Witherwhip’s manuscript before completely dropping any ambition of writing for a rather extensive period.
Fast forward to 2024.
As I said in an earlier post, I’d been reading, or listening, to a aggressive amount of books over the last few years and delighting in what I saw these authors doing (things like the Dragonlance trilogy by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis, the first trilogy in The Legend of Drizzt by R A Salvatore, Dawn of Wonder by Jonathan Renshaw, and the first several books in the Stormlight archives by Brandon Sanderson, to name a few off the top of my head). My brain started buzzing with thoughts of picking back up this whole writing thing again and exploring a story with rich world building and characters that had real thoughts. Suddenly I remembered my efforts from college and was a little surprised to find all of my thoughts on that project more or less right where I’d left them.
Perhaps a nerdy tidbit for anyone out there interested in author/worldbuilding process. In returning to this project, I specifically did not allow myself to look back at what I’d written up on the world back in college. I wanted to see what ideas struck me as important enough to remember over the span of time. If they struck my mind as that important than maybe they would stick in readers minds as well. But, more importantly, I didn’t want to pick up a foundation I’d laid in a less experienced past. I wanted to approach this project with fresh ideas and a better trained skill set.
I am well pleased with the shape this story is taking so far, but am hesitant to share too many details here and now only to find myself boxed in from making changes later. So I will need to keep my details a bit nonspecific at this point.
The Lake Kingdoms, Rawlia and Dwal, in the world of Karthairis do not remember what they were supposed to be united over, and don’t really care to. An ancient book seems to put Peregrine on the trail of some revelation that might bring the peoples back together. His journey seems bound to uncover the intents of an ancient figure, remembered as The Founding King. Wren, Peregrine’s sister, insists that this is a bunch of nonsensical philosophy that won’t fix any real problems, like the problem of being bound to something pointless. Who cares if the Lake Kingdoms don’t want to play together? Let them be their own kingdoms and move on. Perhaps she can help cut the last few strings snagging them together—and earn some freedom for herself in the process.
History and politics have danced themselves gracefully into a knot that must now be untangled hundreds of years later. Can it be done? Does it even matter? Could there be larger stakes in this matter than anyone even begins to think? Linus the bard seems to think so. He is greatly unerved by the odd events beginning to crop up accross the lands. Could he know something to back up the cryptic critiques he makes about the state of the kingdoms?
The story is getting pretty exciting from a writing perspective. I am about halfway through it and the tensions are starting to ramp up. Even though this story has a decent road to travel before it makes it into your hands, I am already eager to share it with you!
JRileyPeak 
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