True North Issue 2 July 2023: Thunder in the Sky
My monthly newsletter where we talk all things bookish and everything in-between
Pour lire ce numéro en français, cliquez ici.
Hi friends!
Despite the wet weather, I’ve been in good spirits and productive: the perfect combination! Summer always has that effect on me, the only time I can forget the harsh winter ever existed.
I’ve been filling my shelves with a lot of new books, which makes me oh-so-happy! Please discount the fact that I won’t have time to read them all by the end of this year. I wish I had more time to read, but I have priorities to keep in sight. For now, it means building and eventually launching my new company Spark Word House, so I can help other fiction and non-fiction writers get their book out into the world. And of course, writing my own fiction, which amounts to finishing my current series Amaranth.
I’ve been busy working on the second draft of Promised Land. After a long hiatus, I’ve been progressing. I wish I could say steadily, but that would be a lie. However, I did get unstuck from the 30% mark, which is pretty good. I’m around the 40% mark now where I need to rewrite a few chapters since I decided to change the POV for a few chapters. It just didn’t work. Picking the right POV can really make or break a scene and I needed to find which character had the most to lose.
As I write these lines, I’m both excited and terrified of finishing this book. It means the series (at least this arc) will be over. I also realize it was a bigger undertaking than I thought. There are so many loose ends to tie. Not only that, but I don’t want to disappoint my readers for sticking around with this series. But enough of that.
I received my copies of North Star in the mail last week and they are STUNNING!
Speaking of books, I’ve read a few of my own, both fiction and non-fiction. I read my first silk fantasy, Grace of Kings by Ken Liu along with Strike the Zither by Joan He. I could feel the Chinese influence and felt a wave of nostalgia while poring over the pages. It did make me want to travel and discover other parts of China I’ve never had time to explore, but frankly, this’ll take a while. In the meantime, I can indulge in reading some silk punk and silk fantasy.
A Few Adjustments
You might have received a few emails these past couple weeks. I’m fiddling with the Substack platform and trying to find the proper way to keep my brand consistent. Since I write both fiction and non-fiction, it can be quite tricky. So if you follow True North and are only expecting to receive fiction-related stuff, you might have seen some non-fiction in your mailbox.
Spark Your Writing Engines will be a non-fiction/fiction, writing tips oriented newsletter and a subsection of True North. I still need to figure out a way to make it work, so please bear with me for any mistake I make while I’m learning. One thing I know is that you can click the unsubscribe button and select which newsletter you want to keep. That might solve the issue of being subscribed to all of my newsletters.
June Bonus Content: Lion Hide Now Posted
As promised, I have shared some bonus content with you in June. Lion Hide is a 5-part short story, which is now available to both free and paid subscribers. It’s the first time I share this story to a larger audience, so I’m pretty happy about that.
I’m still unsure whether I will keep it available to free subscribers for a long time. I recommend you go read it now, just in case.
July Bonus Content: Lion Hide Commentary + The Amaranthverse Archives
Since Lion Hide has been published, I was thinking of sharing a bit more about the world and my thinking process about this story. Let me know in the comments if there is anything you’d like me to talk about.
I was also thinking about sharing exclusive content from the Amaranth series, things that are only brushed upon in the books. Sharing the Archives, as I call them (referring to the Archives in the books on the Ark!) will be like a companion book in the form of posts on Substack. I’m really excited to share more on that soon.
Thunder Hearts
This is the short story I’ve been working on in the past few weeks. It’s a Queer Dark Fantasy with Romance, which had to be created using a few prompts. Mine were “autumn”, “fire”, “to cross” and “indigo”. I had a lot of fun writing this story, but it was challenging. As you read this, I will be working on it along with other authors in a 1-week professional workshop in the first week of July. I’m excited to see what this short story will look like at the end.
Lion Hide was my first attempt at including more queer content, but it doesn't get easier. I’ve never been much of a writer who puts a relationship in the spotlight, though I love reading about them (think Caraval from Stephanie Garber). It’ll be fun to hone my writing skills and explore new ways of writing fiction.
Spark Word House Website
I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished with my rudimentary skills in website design. This had been on my mind for quite some time, ever since Christmas in fact, and now it’s done!
You can check out the website and share it with anyone you think would like to write a book, or could use some help. We help both fiction and non-fiction would-be authors write/edit/query/publish/translate their book!
Crafting a Dazzling First Chapter Course Recording
I’ve been very hard at work — believe me! — and I am now in the process of editing the final videos of Crafting a Dazzling First Chapter, which will be used as an incentive for people who would like to take part in other courses and our coaching programs.
I’ve also had to shop around for a great LMS platform to host all our courses and coaching programs. It was no easy task and I’ve probably spent too much time looking into that. However, the prime choice ended up being Kajabi, which includes so many useful marketing tools. It allows me to save tons on monthly fees because it’s an all-in-one platform. If you'd like to sell your courses or coaching as well, I highly recommend it. It’s very intuitive and user-friendly. I’ll let you know how it goes in a future True North Issue.
Click here to get an extended trial to test Kajabi out.
What If You Wrote That Book? Will Release Soon
The paperback of my non-fiction book has finally arrived!
And I love the feel of the matte cover! It’s silky and the heft is just perfect.
This was my book project for the winter and I’m glad that after scrapping a 60k-word draft, it finally turned out all right. It wasn't easy to condense all the knowledge I’ve gathered in the last 8 years, but I did it nonetheless.
I’ve had to cherrypick the content and tune out my inner voice telling me to add more. With 300 pages, I went way beyond my initial goal of 200 pages (I know…), but the scope of the book was too wide to simply overlook crucial lessons I’ve learned along my publishing journey.
You’ll be able to get your hands on yours some time this summer, once everything is in place. The book will be part of an offer that combines a couple of bonuses. More on that later.
What’s Next?
For the upcoming month, I will be taking part in a professional workshop to finish Thunder Hearts. I hope I can launch Crafting a Dazzling First Chapter mini-course and perhaps even some writing workshops of my own.
If time allows, I would love to be able to go back to editing Promised Land, the last book in the Amaranth series, but that may be wishful thinking.
In the meantime, I wish you a happy bookish summer and let me know in the comments what you are planning.
Happy reading!
Dave Dufour a.k.a David M. Snow
It’s already the end of the Monthly Issue of True North. Here are a few things you don’t want to miss:
If you’re into my fiction: Download your free digital copy of Flower of Memory, the prequel novella to the Amaranth series, a sci-fi dystopian story with a touch of fantasy, for a limited time. Ideal for fans of Hugh Howey’s Silo and The Last of Us.
If you’re into my non-fiction: Download your free digital copy of Write That Book! QuickStart Guide.
Subscribe to this newsletter for more bonus content: