Betrayal. War. Chaos. Tears of the Moon- Part I Release Day! My thoughts and opinions (and rants).

I can't believe I made it to this point. It's been a wild journey to get here. If you'd told me this time last year if I ever thought I'd have the capacity to write a sequel to Starfall, I would've told you you were mad.

A sudden burst of creativity hit me very late last year and start of this year, after I had a bit of a break between uni trimesters, released my Space Aliens & UFOs poetry collection, and experimented with shrooms. It was like my right brain, which I had completely lost for over year because of mental health struggles, was finally coming back. I was flooded with inspiration and ideas. The release of HBO's House of the Dragon and beginning my reading descent into the astounding works of Joe Abercrombie, also helped fuel my creativity.

Scattered ideas I had had for years about battle scenes, impactful character moments, and terrible horrors, all seemed to weave back together. I spent time reediting Starfall and Little Sparrow, eventually releasing their second editions. With the story fresh in my mind, Tears of the Moon began to take shape. I cracked out a good 1/3 of the novel in the space of two months... then I had a breakup. And it wasn't good. My mental health fluctuated, uni became intense once again, and I left the manuscript untouched for MONTHS.

However, with the help of some amazingly supportive medical practitioners, in June I was started on a new treatment cocktail of drugs which helped fend off most of my self-destructive, depressive episodes. Suddenly, my mind was a lot clearer. Tears of the Moon found its way back to me, and I finished the manuscript during my uni breaks in a matter of weeks! What a feeling. I realised, however, my plans had been far too ambitious, and to fit the entirety of Tears of the Moon into one book was going to results in a 1,200+ page novel. So I decided to break it into two parts... Part II - Thrones of Ash will be coming (hopefully) 2024/25!

I had many criticisms given to me about Starfall. Many I agree with, some I do not. I worked my hardest to try and level them out for Tears of the Moon- my writing style has evolved and matured, I feel. I have continued to strengthen my characters, worldbuilding, and visceral violence (the two parts that most readers seemed to enjoy). I let the characters write themselves, not the other way around, and I spent a lot of time to improve my proofreading and editing, as I have never been able to afford a professional editor.

However, I am proud that I have not given in to some of the criticisms. I will not shy away from sexual violence for one- I have the right to own my own experiences with sexual abuse and project them through my narratives. I have never, and will never, gratuitously detail these acts (despite what some "reviewers" claim), as they only serve to highlight the bleakness of male-dominated societies and the real-world disease that is sexual violence and how it affects people. I will also never take my own ethics and opinions out of my writing, and in fact I think I have grown better at interweaving them into my characters' stories in some interesting ways.

Tears of the Moon Part I won't be for everyone. It's bleak. It's violent. It's, at times, disturbing. But that has always been my vision- crafting a world on the brink of chaos where all the rules are lost in the madness, and where the otherworldly horrors that await appear to be outmatched by the horrors committed by our fellow man.

Thanks for sticking with me. I hope you enjoy Tears of the Moon as much as I enjoyed creating it! Please also consider leaving a review on Amazon and Goodreads if you finish it, as this really helps get my projects out there for more to read.