I Break Silence to Wish You a Happy Thanksgiving!

11/28/2019

I know it's been almost a month since you've heard from me, and as those of you who have followed me for a long time know, "fewer social media posts" means "more writing."

It's been a real storm of word processing over here, and I've made huge progress on Elder Empire since Halloween. Enough that I'm updating the progress counter over to the right in just a second.

Thanks for your patience, everybody! I'm tearing through Elder Empire, after which I will return to Cradle.

And here in America, it's Thanksgiving today, so I wanted to say that I'm thankful for you today. Whether you're reading me hoping for news on Cradle or whether you've been waiting forever for new Elder Empire updates or if you'd prefer more Traveler's Gate over either of those, I'm humbled and filled with gratitude that you would spend your time on me.

Wish me luck, because I'm not out of the writing tunnel yet! I have a lot more words to churn out between now and Christmas.

P.S. I'm planning to do another writing post as my next blog in only a week or so! I don't like these four-week gaps either.

-Will

29 Comments

stuffing is better

11/28/2019 01:48:34 pm

Okay. so now we know will didn't partake in a horror movie style death.

Will link

11/28/2019 01:59:42 pm

Or did he...

ZZZX

11/28/2019 02:03:23 pm

Or perhaps he did, and he did not.. it's complicayed

April

11/28/2019 02:13:44 pm

The OSAS and ODAD preorders on audible gave us great hope. A nice detailed update like this gives more. Do not crush us again, oh great wordsmith. Otherwise we will once again release THE BADGER. He’s happy where he is. Please don’t make us release him.

11/28/2019 02:15:16 pm

Also, Jeremiah sends his greetings as well.

Notaraccoon

11/28/2019 02:27:34 pm

Happy Thanksgiving!

Clint

11/28/2019 02:35:49 pm

Happy Thanksgiving, will.

Lashan

11/28/2019 03:13:34 pm

Happy Thanksgiving Will ,thanks for your work and caring about your fans! Take some time off and enjoy sunshine and take care of yourself and your family! Chea

Green0Photon

11/28/2019 05:28:26 pm

FYI, Will, Whispersync isn't set up on the pre-order for "Of Sea and Shadow: The Elder Empire: Sea, Book 1", so I can't get the Whispersync discount. No matter how much I want to support you and Travis, I'm also a poor college student. I'm not sure if you have any control over that, but I just wanted to let you know. I pre-ordered the other ones, though.

Mestama

11/28/2019 05:53:40 pm

Your last progress update mentioned the complexity of OKAK. A missing progress meter is the effort that went into determining the shape of these stories. Since you have the other meters made, the complexity meter should be at 100%.

Here's a toast on Thanksgiving, and thank you for your books!

Benjamin

11/28/2019 09:20:52 pm

Looking forward to the resumption of the Elder Empire saga. No idea if anyone else has tried publishing the same story from different perspectives but I'm reasonably confident you're the only author who can pull it off without it being repetitive.

That said, merry Thanksgiving and a happy Christmas 👍😁

Maahn

11/29/2019 01:34:41 am

yo, Happy Thanksgiving to all!

DesperateFan

11/29/2019 11:15:20 am

Personally, I'd like to move to daily vlog posts. Or better yet, just have a camera that follows you around everywhere and automatically posts everything you do online.

Nikolai Teves

11/29/2019 03:13:13 pm

Thanks for the great books as well. It has been a pleasure.

Also feed us with more short stories. Or perhaps ang update on Travelers Gate sequel considering we already know that you have content for EE and Cradle but none on mah boy Simon

TWrangling

11/29/2019 10:06:39 pm

Hi Will!

As the tech-savy writer that you are, I'm hoping for some advice with writing software. What do you use?

I ran into Campfire (from Campfiretechnology) which markets itself as a place to organize magic systems, settings, and character arcs for fantasy novels.

I've also seen World Anvil, which does more worldbuilding than Campfire, though seems to be marketed towards pen & paper RPG's rather than novelists like Campfire is.

I've also seen Aeon timeline for plotting and character arcs.

Write or Die for breaking through writer's block

Scrivener for organizing documents and keeping your notes tidy. (And its simpler, free to download cousin Ywriter)

ProWritingAid for a more advanced sentence structure and automated typo-finder than spell-check or grammarly.

Vellum for compiling manuscripts into paperbacks.

Evernote for keeping ideas organized and on the cloud

Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive, or a private web server for backing up your manuscripts.

Illustrator & Photoshop for managing text overlays on top of your cover art and sizing cover art for printing.

How much of this software is vital to writing? How much is useful and how much is just superfluous? Have you personally found any software indispensable or even just useful? I obviously can't buy all the software listed, as the yearly subscription fee to all those things is many times greater than the yearly income of the average self-published Amazon book.

11/29/2019 10:09:21 pm

Also, all the map-making software out there. Like Inkarnate, Worldspinner, and the recent popular choice Wonderdraft.

Legolas

11/30/2019 11:33:08 pm

There was a book I read long, time ago about a kid who's not the chosen one. Popular Dude from his village is. He gets golden hero powers from some rainbow chick. There was also a peasant girl who both the protagonist and Golden Hero Popular Dude is crushing on.

Anyway, the hero meets some edgy stoner guy and gets a really big-ass sword that can cut through space/time to another dimensions to this Halloween haunted house filled with a snarky scarecrow who doesn't want humans stealing from his fruit tree and ghosts with chains that try to strangle you in your sleep.

Anyway, the protagonist gets some edgelord-themed powers that make him super OP against other magical trans-dimensional wizards and he kills a bunch of them alongside Golden Hero Popular Dude on a quest to save the peasant girl who's actually a princess. A tsundere princess if I'm remembering correctly, though I don't think the romance aspects were emphasized very much. I think her dad was the Evil Emperor too. He was a bald, Lex Luthor type guy. I think all the people in his family had access to a magic box that they could pull spears and axes and stuff out of.

It sounds silly what I write it, but I'm not an author. I found it to be a pretty fun read though and I think people who enjoy the Cradle series would really like it because it shares many of the same themes. It was by a new author whose name I can't remember, though I read it a few years back so they've hopefully finished the series by now.

I just wanted to post it here because it was a fun read. Hopefully one of you guys knows which book I'm talking about. I know Will is fairly well-read across self-published fantasy so he might have heard of it. I think it was titled Wandering Rift or something similar? Maybe Adventurer's Rift? I'm pretty sure it was Something-Rift, but I can't get anything to pop up on Amazon.

Billy

11/30/2019 11:52:26 pm

Sounds like a fun book. If you end up finding it, pkease post it. I'd be in favor of anything to tide me over until the next Will Wight book.

Andrew

12/1/2019 12:46:38 am

Was this the book the peasant's enter had slight doll fetish?/cause that a good read

Kory

12/1/2019 02:14:58 pm

Is Will well read in self-published fantasy? I'd figure he'd avoid reading anything too similar to what he writes to preserve is own originality. I talked to a writer friend of mine (who wasn't very successful, but he has finished a book or two) who always said writers should only read stuff like Shakespear and Hemmingway. He said that by imputing exclusively good literature he could output semi-decent literature.

That might be wrong though. He was never a particularly successful as an author. As in: he's had to pay people to beta read his work. I tried to talk him into trying to self-publish or release his book as a web novel but he has his heart set on traditional publication through a big publishing house.

MitchyGoodness link

12/2/2019 08:13:06 am

I think it was called Explorer's Fate

*Twitches and coughs*

Or Travelers 1st Mate

*Spasms*

Or Gilligan's Island. Yeah that's it!

Avid Thinker

12/1/2019 01:33:48 pm

Hey Will, let me just say I am a huge fan of the Cradle series, and it has me super psyched. I've never been so interested in so many different characters before. Your world is also super well developed and incredibly deep. Have you considered working with someone to develop a tabletop RPG out of it or a video game? I'm a huge tabletop person and I've seen so many forums of people trying to play as the characters you create. Definitely looking forward to the next book. Keep up the good work!

Stuart

12/2/2019 02:11:43 pm

Any reason that soulsmith is the only audible book that doesn't get discounted for owning the kndle version? Showing 11.99 vs. 1.99 for all but underlord (which still gets a discount). Not a huge deal, but just started listening to them to share with my wife.

Protagonist-kun

12/2/2019 05:53:13 pm

Will, somebody stole your idea for "I Got Reincarnated Into an Online Game as a Healer" and made it into a manga!

Kanzen Kaihi Healer no Kiseki

Joe

12/2/2019 07:55:35 pm

I've read every one of your books (including the short story collection) at least 3 times. Elder empire is my favorite ("anime-inspired lovecraftian epic fantasy" is a genre i didn't know I wanted), but I enjoy them all quite a bit. Thanks for the literal weeks of real life time I've spent exploring each of the worlds you've created.

P.S. I tweeted you asking how the sword sage was able to be killed considering his body should have been immune to poison like a year ago, got no response, and then you said no one had ever asked in the newest bloopers -_- I cry shenanigans!

Extesian

12/3/2019 08:31:26 pm

I'm delighted to belatedly read this Will. While Cradle hits new giddy heights, and I may be enjoying it the most right now, I personally think Elder Empire is an incredible and unique achievement and I'm so happy you're focusing on it despite Cradle's popularity!
CAN'T
WAIT

Hindireance

12/3/2019 09:21:08 pm

Hey, Will, I don’t know if you read these and/or respond to them but if you do, what’s your stance on fanwork? Fanart, fanfiction, etc.? Do you care if we draw/write/etc. that sort of thing? Do you encourage it? Do you want none to be made?

12/4/2019 05:01:23 am

In reference to your stuff, specifically. Can we make fancontent for Cradle, EE, TG, and any other sense we might make in the future?

Bill

12/5/2019 04:02:02 pm

Will has said in the past that he enjoys fanart and is perfectly fine with fanfiction. That was back with when he was a one man show, but I don't think The Team will have pushed to change his mind on that front.

Will likes to pretend he's a Puppet King, controlled by The Omniscient Council of Vagueness, when he actually has the final say in just about everything. He's a clear case of the Apparently Powerless Puppetmaster trope.

In which we ramble on.
And by we, I mean me.