The Next Book

Plan, Reasons and Working Title Reveal

If you haven’t already please consider picking up a copy of my book “Reasons Found In Promises” which is available for purchase on Amazon. Click the Kindle icon in the below link:

Or you can purchase the paperback directly here:

It helps support me as a writer and is also absolutely appreciated!

Also, reminder to everyone that if anyone has questions, wants to chat, share ideas, or just say hi, Substack has a chat option:

About the Plan and Its Causes

As I outlined in my previous post, my plan is to do a new standalone first before continuing on the with the Cryptfolk Romances.

My current back log looks something like this:

1. New Standalone

2. Second Book To The Cryptfolk Romances

3. Imperfect Rewrite Duology

4. Third Book To the Cryptfolk Romances

This all subject to change at the whims of my fancy obviously, but it is my for plan for the foreseeable future. This means that there will be breaks between books 2 and 3 for Cryptfolk Romances…

Which is in general bad marketing advice. Typically, you want to build momentum of series and release them close together. Ideally within 3-6 months of each other. However, after some deliberation, I decided to forgo this for a few reasons.

The first and foremost being that I’m simply extremely excited to tell this new story.

The second biggest one is that marketing “Reasons Found In Promises” has been extremely difficult due to a few creative decisions made in the book. First being the third person limited “their” POV between Zoey and Ronan.

Third person in general is a niche in Romance, but a mix between limited and omniscient is basically a style from older fantasy and mystery books. The biggest known user of that style is actually a personal icon of mine: Agatha Christie.

I love her books, her prose, her story telling, and its honestly a mystery (ha) why I lean more towards Romance as a genre rather than murder mysteries. But I do think its hard to miss her influence is ALL my works, though it is especially prominent in “Reasons Found In Promises.”

Today though, it is hugely unpopular.

Add on to that the lack of hitting any real tropes and being over all a slow story grounded in psychology, bureaucracy and legality and despite my absolute love for the characters, the world, and even my writing decisions in it, its a hard one for many to be sold on.

The thing is, as much as reach and my writing being accessible and liked by others matters to me… its always to a point. I write because I love it and it gives me something very uniquely mine. As such, I do not intend to change these artistic decisions in the subsequent entries in the Cryptfolk Romances — at least not in the main line trilogy.

Because of that, I made the decision to pull out another one of my long-brewing ideas that I not only have been dying to write but also one that the POV and writing style for isn’t going to be as inherently niche.

That being said: I’m still quite certain the hallmarks of my writing will remain. The bread crumbs, slow build of moments that show progression rather than discuss it, the woven symbolism and abundance of moral ambiguity. I can’t help my self.

About This New Story

I am roughly 15k words into it, but there will be quite a few rewrites as I started it before bouncing to do “SoulTrapped” so its likely many of those will be moved or scrapped.

It will be a Dual First Person Perspective between Sally, an overworked and overtired coffee barista with student loans and a beat up sedan for a car and Arkhan. A Jinshi-coded alien Prince who comes down with the sole purpose of finding his bashai: or in human words, his soulmate.

Yes, we are going back to the roots of “Soulbound” here a little.

But not even close to in the same fashion.

The idea of “bashai” in this universe, is that our new alien visitors evolved from early humans after those left the planet long ago, and have developed their ability to feel the energy around them to the point that their souls began to resonate with others. Eventually making it so each Ashahai (the current working name for this alien race) gains features that will be most attractive to their bashai. Which doesn’t always mean they will look like the race of that being either.

Arkhan specifically is a mix between lizard, cat, moth, and just enough human. I will likely be sharing a sketch of him at some point.

The mythology, aesthetics and history are heavily influenced by ancient Egypt. Which I have always loved. Even back in Saint Petersburg when I went to the Hermitage the Egyptian section was always one of my favorites. As such a lot of the words, language, and magic systems will have that aesthetic.

The story itself was loosely inspired by this reddit thread: Which talks about aliens who came over thinking their systems are tyrannical

Except instead, the Ashahai did not come as conquerors. They came on a pilgrimage that they consider sacred, only to find the conditions here despicable, and the controversy surrounding their goals and standards becomes a core point of tension. Not only between then and the leaders of Earth: But Sally and Arkhan too.

The Working Title:

Resonance Files

What to do you think? Corny? Simple? Just right?

I will be sharing more as the story evolves, including character bios and even an official mood board. Since this time I already have a lot of the set up, there will be a much more revealed before the official release! So, stay tuned!

Short Term

Right now I’m focusing on writing “Resonance Files” , promoting “Reasons Found In Promises” and building my author brand. This includes more articles here, perhaps further expansion into long for you tube content, and more.

In fact! I recently bought my domain and started an author website: www.artiranthfields.com

So that’s super exciting :)

See you all next week when I intend to do a post a bit about my writing process and inspirations. Not so much the big picture stuff that I’ve talked about in past articles, but the details and nitty-gritty of it all.