Unsweetened Darjeeling

We’re halfway through the launch celebration for Dronefall Four, Nightstare! This had been a great week. I hope you all are feeling as energized as I am right now.

Well, you guys sent me some good questions, so let’s jump right in, shall we?

What was your first glimmer of inspiration for the Dronefall series?

There are several inspirations I can remember, but to be honest, I don’t know which came first. I became interested in drones and fascinated by the idea of mass drone surveillance in college. I was using it as a topic for a debate in speech class. The debate wasn’t that great. I don’t do well with tight time-limits. I guess that’s why the Dronefall series is so long.

What excites you the most about sharing Nightstare with the world?

This book’s been long in coming, and it contains events that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. It pretty much hits the midpoint plot-twist for the whole series, and things get increasingly crazier from here. I also feel like Nightstare packs more emotional and thematic punch than the previous books, so I can’t wait to see how readers react.

Who’s your favorite character in Nightstare?

I love my main cast, of course. Halcyon is becoming an increasingly interesting lead, Reveille is my favorite sidekick ever, Zoltan is great, Dorian is…Dorian, and Shep is way cooler and more important than I ever expected him to be.

But, in Nightstare particularly, a character that takes a surprising place in my heart is Reverend St. Cloud. I think few people are going to suspect how huge his role is going to be from the first book, where he really just seems like another of many confusing obstacles. But moves the plot in amazing ways as we get along in the story, and he’s also a very complex person with a lot going on. Just wait and see.

Who’s you’re least favorite character in Nightstare?

Elder Boaz. He’s a jerk.

Which Dronefall book was hardest to write?

Each book has it’s own challenges, but I think the hardest was book two, Lightwaste. Not only did it have the built-in anxieties that always come with the second book in a series, it also has a very different plot than the others. There’s a lot of confusion and back-and-forth that Halcyon has to face more or less alone, and a lot of information to introduce. I also pulled no punches with the cultural criticism in the second book, so there was a lot of time spent dealing with some very real-world ugliness, so it was difficult in that way, too.

Have any of your reasons why you’re writing Dronefall changed since starting the series?

When I started writing Dronefall, I think I was more motivated by frustration and a need to have my say than I am now. I was in college, which really opened my eyes to the state of things and the direction society is taking, and that really lit a fire under me to counter the lies that are being told out there. Of course, there’s still some of that, that’s called being a dystopian writer, but I think I’ve really connected to some deeper themes in the story, now. These days, I really just want to inspire other Christians and help them see a future where Christ is both relevant and winning.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned?

I’ve learned loads of technical things writing this series, but I think the biggest lesson I’ve gotten out of this so far is to never stop pouring yourself into what we feel inspired to do. It literally doesn’t matter if anyone ever reads it. If it feeds your soul and gives you a sense of purpose, that in itself is worth it.

What’s the theme scripture verse?

There are a lot of themes I think about when I think about this series. It’s hard to boil a six-book series down to one. But I think when you watch Halcyon Slavic going through this big weird labyrinth of a story, you see her asking something over and over: “Why me?” and not in a self-pitying way. She doesn’t know why she is where she is, or way the things that are happening to her are happening to her.

I’ve never picked a specific scripture for this. But I know it occurs a lot with people throughout the Bible, as well as with us today. Things can seem very random, and it’s hard to see how our story fits into the big story. And yet, it does, and our part is no mistake.

How do you hope your readers feel at the end of the Dronefall series?

This isn’t going to be one of those dystopian stories that just kind of collapses into rubble at the end. That doesn’t mean everything is going to be all wrapped up and tied with a bow, but I have no intention of being a downer after getting people invested for six whole books. Actually, I want my readers to be excited at the end of Dronefall. I want them to be looking up and believing in a future—their future—where there is still meaning, joy, and healing. I want people to have open eyes and look for the deeper purpose under what happens in this world, knowing they don’t have to panic or feel forgotten in the tides of time and chaos, because God is writing the story, and we all have a place in it.

Thanks again for the questions, guys! See you tomorrow with a special surprise.

Yesterday, I set about making a few little changes to the cover for Nightstare—for the second time. I’d wrestled with it before. I thought I should brighten up a few things, make a word-change on the BCC, and shrink the logline down a bit, along with another little change on a spine element.

I got up and went to the kitchen for a second in the middle of my work and when I came back the computer screen was black and unresponsive. I asked my brother, who’s more familiar with the pc than I am, what was going on. He said it does that sometimes. The moral of the story is: always hit save before going to look for a quick snack in the next room.

So, later, I returned to redo what I had done and resume my struggle with the stupid thing that had been going on right before the computer passed out. (That was why I suddenly had to get a snack. It happens when I’m frustrated.) I eventually figured out what my problem was. I’m not saying it made much sense, but I figured it out. So, finally I saved my PDF and took it to my laptop to upload.

I hotspotted my laptop via my phone and as I was powering up, my laptop informed me that it had encountered an “unexpected” issue, and would have to restart. It does that sometimes. When it was quite finished with that, I finally got on KDP and uploaded the new cover.

All of which is to say, I hit “publish your paperback book” on Nightstare last night.

As I was trying to plan this post, I realized I’m not even sure what I learned while writing Nightstare. That was a long time ago! So, it just became a rant about unreliable technology instead of the post I said was coming at the end of yesterday’s post. But at least I’ve got a post, right?

Some people think it takes a very organized on top of it type to be an indie author. I can see why. It’s a lot of responsibilities to keep in line. Maybe you do have to be a certain type—to be a good indie author. But I suppose, as long as I keep producing books, and having fun doing it, that checks my boxes.

So anyway, I hope you enjoyed today’s non-post. I’ll see you tomorrow for a Q+A, which should go better than this.

P.S. If you have any questions you would like to see me answer in tomorrow’s post, feel free to comment them here. I’ll also put up a question box on my Instagram story.

Welcome to episode seven hundred forty-three of A. L. Buehrer doing everything but what she said she was going to do.

Well, as you might have noticed, it is now April and you still don’t have Dronefall Four, Nightstare. Turns out, Things Are Taking Longer Than I Expected™ and April has become the official launch month for Nightstare. Which is actually lucky for me, because the poetry collection isn’t materializing fast enough to make an appearance this month. So, at least I have something coming out in the next thirty days to keep you interested. Turns out, writing poetry every day (especially when you haven’t really written poetry in years) kind of takes a lot out of you. Read: I became very frustrated, overextended my creativity, ran it all straight into the frozen, gravelly ground and burnt out. Don’t do that, people. Very bad for your health.

So, I spent the end of March holding my horses. Actually, first I had to go find my horses and confirm that they weren’t actually kelpies. In the non-metaphorical universe, this consisted of chilling out, getting some rest, rethinking my goals, and remaking my plans. Funny thing about me is I actually really enjoy changing my plans, if I get to do it on my own terms. So, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks, or so. Things are looking better now.

I’m now easing back into producing things again. I’ve been doing a lot of drawing, and getting my plot around for my next project. I’ll possibly start work on Dronefall Five today, which I’m looking forward to.

Here is the revised outlook for you:

·         Dronefall Four, Nightstare will be coming out this month in ebook and paperback. In the meantime, the first three books are still on sale for 99c for Kindle. Please help yourself.

·         The second poetry bookhas been postponed until I actually have what it takes to do it justice. I’m thinking you’ll get it sometime this summer. It’s still coming.

·         In honor of poetry month I will be releasing Songs from the Small Hours as an ebook for the first time. So keep an eye open for that, if you prefer it to paperback, which is available here.

·         The Top Secret project is still on schedule for May. I’m very excited about it, so please stay tuned!

So there. Not so bad, is it? It really doesn’t look like too much of a letdown, now that I see it written out. I’m starting to get excited to work again. Burnout passes, everybody. But sometimes you have to take really intentional breaks to recover. I’m not very good about taking breaks on purpose, but that’s an important skill to master.

 It can take a while, but eventually, you’ll start loving what you do and doing what you love again.

Well, man, have I got the next three months cut out for me.

Yesterday I finally finished my standalone WIP, The Boy Who Called the Foxes. That little fact is a lot bigger than it sounds. Guys, since I was thirteen, I’ve written about twelve serious novels. The Boy Who Called the Foxes is my thirteenth, and it was the first manuscript I seriously wondered if I would actually finish. There were a lot of reasons for this, I suppose. One of them was just the strangeness of devoting time to a completely unrelated story smack in the middle of working on the Dronefall series. But there were a lot of interesting psychological reasons The Boy Who Called the Foxes felt like it was hanging by a thread. I’ll devote a whole post to that around the release date this coming fall.

So, that book is now drafted, and I am moving on to focus on other projects. First and foremost is…

DRONEFALL FOUR, NIGHTSTARE

Now, hopefully the long-awaited book four will actually come out this month. That’s going to be pushing it a little, but that’s the plan. I’ve just sent the manuscript to my formatter, who has a schedule of her own to contend with, and then, of course, there’s all the uploading and proofing business that tends to throw multiple monkey wrenches into my timeline, but that’s all that stands between Nightstare and you guys right now.

So, that will be my main focus this month. I’ll be pushing the Dronefall series again for a while, and hoping I can make some new readers happy along the way, as well as giving my faithful friends who already love the series what they’ve been waiting for. And let me tell you, Nightstare was very exciting to write. We’re kind of hitting the big midpoint plot-twist of the series now, so a lot happens in this book.

While I’m powering through the chaotic fray of self-promotion, I’ve also got like…three other major projects I’ll be working feverishly on. One is starting Dronefall Five, of course. The other is set for release in April. That would be…

MY SECOND POETRY BOOK

I released my first poetry book, Songs from the Small Hours in 2018. That was forever ago, guys. I’ve been wanting to give you another collection of art and poetry for a long time, and this April, it’s happening. You would think over the course of three years I would have built up a good pile of poems, and all I’d have to do now was collect them in a file and do my art, right? Well, as it turns out, I’ve hardly written any poetry at all since Songs from the Small Hours. So what am I doing? I’m writing poetry every day until I’ve got enough for a book. I’ve literally never written this much poetry in such a short period of time, ever. In my life.

It’s actually really hard, but I haven’t written a dud yet, and I’m excited to see how this stretches me as a poet. Writing poetry, most of the time, is way slower than writing prose. And I’m discovering I’m way harder on myself about rhythm, and rhyme, and musicality, and subtext than I used to be. So, this is pretty interesting. Not to mention a little exhausting. But I want it ready by April. (Poetry month.)

I have yet another big release coming in May, if all goes well. I can’t tell you too much about it yet, since it is…

A TOP SECRET PROJECT

I have an ace up my sleeve I haven’t pulled out yet. I’m not going to tell you any specifics about it, but I’m very enthusiastic. It’s going to be pretty labor-intensive, of course, and I’ll be working with media that’s pretty new to me, but all the foundations are there. The project itself is very experimental, but if anything goes even remotely well, it’s a forerunner of things to come.

Was that mysterious enough? Should I have said “for nothing can stop these things” a couple of times in there? (If you understood that reference, you are an above-average die-hard A. L. Buehrer fan. Or stalker. Congratulations.)

…..

Anyway. So, I hope you now know enough to sympathize if I do anything truly delirious in the upcoming months. I’m going to be working ridiculously hard. And having a great time, I’m sure. Overall, I think I can promise you an exciting comeback here, shortly. I don’t often do this, maybe I should more often, but I’m going to say, if you want to keep on top of all this, you really should subscribe to Stardrift Nights. It will improve your life.

Thanks for reading to the end of this rather vague post. I hope it gave you a few things to look forward to in this soggy, sorry world. (Uh-oh, that was kind of weird. I’m already too tired.)

As a Christian dystopian author, I’m not as shocked by current events as a lot of people might be. I’ll admit, it’s all proceeding rather fast, but everything does that, these days. I know where this is going. I like to think I recognize where we are. And I like to think I have a place in it all—me and my art and writing.

Some of you might remember I did a giveaway on Instagram last year. I gave away a little paper booklet called “Strange Times” that included art on the subject of the coronavirus. Little booklets like “Strange Times”, which can be reproduced with a basic photocopy machine, are called “zines”, technically. They represent one of the purest forms of self-publishing in existence.

There’s a whole culture around the publication on distribution of zines. They are notoriously counter-cultural. That can be a good thing or a bad thing as far as what they promote, but in a world where truth is rapidly becoming counter-cultural…it gets me thinking. It gets me thinking about my art, my little flashes of insight…and my photocopier.

Guys, voices like mine are disappearing. Voices you might want to hear are being silenced, and they’re going to continues to be silenced as things progress. I’m cautious on the internet, but anybody who’s gotten as far as book 2 in the Dronefall series knows I’m not as apathetic as I pretend to be. These subversive home-printed zines would give me a channel the internet never will to communicate plainly and boldly. There’s a reason these things are utilized by the fringe—they’re kinda hard to censor.

Don’t think I have any intention of creating zines just as a vehicle for raging against mainstream culture. That would go against my creative philosophy. I want to create something fascinating and nuanced and beautiful. I want to create art that points art-lovers to God. I just want to do it in a way that makes me feel free. It’s getting harder and harder to do that.

I want to create zines with poems in them, little collections of intricate sketches, photos, collages, multimedia…I want to explore comical subjects, nonsense, inspirational stuff in the vein of my Instagram posts. The possibilities are endless. That’s what I like about this whole idea.

Okay, so why am I telling you this? Because I want to share my zines with you. How? That’s kind of up to you. The nature of the medium would make it easy to send them by email. The design I use is one single-sided sheet. You could easily print and fold them yourself. But you know it would be way more fun to get them—printed and packaged and possibly with extras—by mail.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance I know who you are. Let’s face it, I’m not that famous. A lot of you are probably coming over from Goodreads or Instagram. You probably have some method for contacting me, whether it’s through a PM or by email. I want to get in touch with you. I want to share my work with you.

Are you interested? I’m not selling these things. I just love creating them and think it would be amazing to send them out to my friends via mail or email. Please shoot me a message. If you don’t have any other way, just leave a comment on this post telling me you’re interested and we’ll work something out. This is all in beta right now. I’m very flexible. We need to see how it works and go from there.

Because something’s up, and we’re going to need each other.