Category Archives: The Healers’ Untitled (Book 4)

Constructive procrastination, part n+1

The Healers' Untitled (Book 4), The Process

Here’s the path that unfolded this week:

“Oh, I ought to update my bio on the Healers books. I haven’t changed it in a million years.”

“…These epub files were all hand-coded, and I kind of mentally refused to do that incredibly fiddly task ever again. …Right.”

*uploads doc version*

*chaos ensues*

*sigh* “Okay, Atticus. Do your thing.” [not an affiliate link, I don’t do that]

*incredibly boring montage: two evenings of correcting chapter titles, chapter breaks of various kinds, and italics*

Result: We have slightly more polished versions of all three Healers ebooks, or we will as soon as Amazon finishes processing them (usually within 24 hours). The print books haven’t changed. I plan to keep hand-coding/laying out the print books, because I’m sure it would be annoying to have books 1-3 match and 4+(?) not match. However, I think an ebook can be re-downloaded at any point, so it doesn’t seem like it’s as big a deal.

That said, if you are a reader who’s run into issues along those lines with my books, please send me an email (info on About page). We’ll figure out what needs to be done.

The actual changes are:

  • took out the summary at the beginning of THR; that isn’t a thing anyone does anymore [I did leave the “previously” summaries in 2 and 3]
  • new copyright page (ooh, thrilling) – same info, just formatted slightly differently
  • nicer font on the chapter headings
  • slight changes to the afterwords, linking to the next book in the series
  • entirely new About page

Since the new About page links to all of my books, I will end up updating it every time I publish another book. I’ve chained myself to this situation, I know, but I like how it turned out. Eventually I will probably whip up a standard About page for the C.A. Moss books as well. (So I can update almost a dozen books every time instead of three.)

Until then, I’m reflecting on the snippets that I read as I skimmed through. As much as I’ve rhapsodized about taking a break from the series, I still really love it, y’all. I do. It’s extremely emotional and the plots don’t always make sense and I love it.

I have started writing Healers 4, picking up where 3 left off. I’d like to finish this one in a more reasonable time than the last. That’s my goal.

EDIT, a few days later: Also added a content notes page at the start of each Healers book. I decided to apply for a cozy fantasy group promotion, and since I know my work is only at the edge of cozy, I thought it would be best to be extra, extra, extra clear about the content.

The promotion hasn’t happened yet, but it’s being organized by promisepress.org if you’re interested in signing up as a reader or author.

Can’t be productive, too surly

The Healers' Untitled (Book 4), website news

Here’s what I did today instead of anything useful:

  • Added a statement to the Healers page explaining that it is not categorically cozy fantasy, FFS, please stop complaining that it’s not (and I know that won’t stop anyone, but hey, I tried)
  • Editing out the “Uncategorized” tags on this blog
  • Breaking up the “Checking In” tag into its component parts – usually games nattering, anime nattering, and book nattering – and leaving “Checking In” for year-end posts and other truly uncategorizable whatsits

Why? Because the next thing on my agenda, aside from beta reading an excellent book that I’m about halfway through, is diving into Healers 4 planning. And as much as I love this world/story, I’m daunted. Almost discouraged. Let’s be honest, though, I’m going to make a solid try of it. Because I love it too much. It’s just hard to take that first step right now.

Let’s wish one another good luck and try again tomorrow.

Quick update: The thing is what it’s always been

The Healers' Home (Book 2), The Healers' Purpose (Book 3), The Healers' Road (Book 1), The Healers' Untitled (Book 4)

As part of trying to study up on the meta/marketing?/etc. of it all, I finally bit the bullet and changed the name of the Balance Academy to The Healers. That’s what I’ve been calling it for nearly a decade; the series veered off its original intent as an anthology almost immediately; the BA name is misleading; the end.

I apologize if this is confusing at any point, but it has been annoying me for ages, and I wanted to finally make that switch. So I did.

Announcement over.

It’s been a year. I mean month.

games nerd corner, The Healers' Untitled (Book 4)

How about that! It’s been a month since book 3 came out, give or take a few days. It’s going nicely by my standards — about 85 copies sold. I think I mentioned this already, but about 1/3 of the people who bought book 1 have gone on to buy book 2, so I’m curious to see what the ratio (conversion rate? that sounds weird) is for this one. If it’s also 1/3, we’re almost done. Heh.

It’s likely to be more, I think, but that’s not based on science or anything. More a vague notion that if you went on to book 2, this is probably Your Kind of Thing, and so you may be more likely to keep going.

Either way, it’s fine. Book 3 is doing its thing. If you’ve read it, I hope you liked it; if you haven’t, I hope you give it a try. If you want to. I’m not the boss of you.

What have I been doing for the last month? Well, a) stressing about stuff in real life (it’s okay, plans are in the works); b) playing video games far, far too much; c) repainting some rooms in our house; d) writing down some haphazard brainstorming for book 4.

Gamewise, I got through the entirety of Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, which I enjoyed quite a bit. Dare I say… more than the original? I’m gonna say it. I was not a completist, because eff the bandit quests mostly, but I recruited all but one of the townsfolk and got to the point where money no longer meant anything. So a lot.

Then started Ooblets, a game that I think I’ve had in my bookmarks, “keep an eye out for this” style, for five hundred and fifty years. But now it’s out on Switch! So I’m playing it!

“Stardew Valley meets Pokemon” is basically built in a lab to appeal to people with my gaming taste, and it seems almost too on the nose that the titles/UI use the same font as Steven Universe. The character/NPC design and monster design is simplified and cute and weird. I like the not-too-complex card battling mechanic, because I am not a deck-building game person normally. The toddler-speak style of the UI language — item names, confirmation boxes, etc. — annoys me, but not enough to drive me out of the game. I kind of stopped seeing it after a while, especially with the NPCs that use it a lot. I’m at… what I think is the next to last town?, stuck, on the verge of looking up some tips, but still enjoying it overall.

And all the bugs so far have been funny, so I’m not remotely mad about it. Once I showed up on a map looking like my character was 100 feet tall. And this might not even be a bug, but my character regularly loses control of their torso and whipsaws around from the waist up while running in a way that still makes me laugh, dozens of hours into the game.

Probably not going to be a completist for this one either, but I will probably sink a fair amount of time into it by the end.

The brainstorming for Book 4 still hasn’t coalesced into an outline. Because I’m starting to feel scared of starting, I’m jumping in by writing some scenes just to see how it goes. This is not a good idea; do not do this. This is how I started book 1. It took what, like, eight years to write or something. But here we are, and it feels good to try.

See, this is why people go to school, I guess

The Healers' Purpose (Book 3), The Healers' Untitled (Book 4)

Finishing the last (fingers crossed) edits on Book 3 and brainstorming for Book 4 (i.e. a direct sequel to book 3, not Strangers). And by “brainstorming” I mean noting all the loose ends / unfinished business in book 3, and looking at where all the characters are, what their goals are, and how their goals might clash and intersect.

Except I mentioned this in passing in a “how was your week” thread on a writing forum, and the group reacted like I’m attempting to walk backwards up Mount Everest while juggling chainsaws. Are you… are you not supposed to figure out character motivations? Like… how do you not… figure out character motivations?

I went to school for science, okay. I know things about outdated research technology and botany and sometimes, when I can remember them, names of bones and shit. They did not tell us how to write a novel outline in science college. That would have been completely counterproductive, you see. I learned how to write a research paper, with an abstract and charts and whatnot. That does not come in handy these days.

I truly and completely don’t know what I’m doing wrong. It sounds like most people were losing their heads over the fact that I had something like 20 characters in book 3. I’m pretty sure I had 20 named characters in book one. That doesn’t seem so extreme? Two narrators plus their families / love interests / inner circles is like 10 characters right there, and then there are side characters, antagonists, etc. I could name 20 people I know IRL easily, and I’m a dang hermit? I feel like I’m losing my mind. I need to set this down for a bit.

Probably not helping my mood is the fact that I followed up Chicory with a replay of Night in the Woods, a game I rabidly love and relate to, but that taps into a weird, depression-adjacent headspace. Which is one of the reasons I love it! But, you know. That plus being in an off mood can be an odd combination.

(I grew up in a town about two notches more urban than Possum Springs, in the same region it was based on. We had a big strip mall and a medium-sized hospital, and one heavy industry had managed to hold on through my childhood while a lot of nearby towns had lost theirs. But, well, a lot of things in the setting and the story feel very real, in a way that I just don’t see that often.)

(We lived there till I was midway through college, then moved a bit closer to the city. I went back to visit family who still lived there, but didn’t rove around much otherwise. Now I don’t have any reason to. But I still have dreams about riding bikes through it. Go figure.)

(A cursory Google search suggests that the plant is still open in the year of your lord 2022, somehow??? Wow. Wow. )

Anyway. Go Smelters.

[Edit: On the plus side, the “sign up for update emails” widget is now fixed. I … don’t know how long it was broken. Huh.]