E.P. Clark's Blog

Hello Everyone!

I hope you're staying cool if you're in the path of the heat dome that's stretching out over the US. Amusingly, I am currently rereading Dune in preparation for writing an article on it; the scorching weather seems only appropriate, although it's a little more humid here.

I'm writing not to complain about the weather, however, but to let you know that we're entering the last few days of my Kickstarter campaign for an illustrated edition of The Midnight Land. The campaign has done well and is currently over 200% funded, but I'd love for it to finish strongly!

Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

Reward tiers start at $1 for a brand-new, Kickstarter-exclusive short story, and go on up to the hardback boxed set with color illustrations. I'm currently offering a flash reward--the next pledge to come in unlocks the ebook of The Breathing Sea, the next story in the series, for all backers! And if we hit 300% funded I'll be offering a live reading and audiobook of the short story.

You can check out the Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

It will be running until Friday. And remember that the illustrated edition and the prequel short story are only available on Kickstarter!

Stay cool, and happy reading :)

Hello there!

Exciting news! The Kickstarter is live! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

This is for a special illustrated, boxed set edition of The Midnight Land. It has tiers starting at $1 for a brand-new, Kickstarter-exclusive short story, and going on up to both the hardback and paperback boxed sets. It also includes the release of the audiobook.

Why, you might ask, do a Kickstarter for a 10-year-old duology? Well, for the new color illustrations and maps, for the audiobook, and for the prequel short story. The short story and the color illustrations will only be available through Kickstarter, and the audiobook is available here first and comes with a PDF of the color illustrations. Plus, Madison (my artist) and I will be holding a live video call with everyone who backs in the first 48 hours. So if you'd like to chat live with me and Madison, come back the Kickstarter (even at the $1 level) and join us this weekend for the call!

On the flip side, Kickstarters are good for artists! We keep more of the money and get to connect with people interested in supporting weird and wacky ventures that don't fit into the commercial mainstream. So it's a win-win for backers and artists.

Here's the link once again, and I hope to see you on that video call :) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

E.P. Clark

Hi All!

I hope you’re having a good August. After a Tatooine-like start to the summer here in NC, we got hit by a wave of storms, including a hurricane, which has transformed our desert into a slime-mold-covered swamp. I half-expect to see Yoda emerge from the swampy underbrush in my back yard. Some of my plants are flourishing and others appear to have died. What can I say: it’s an exciting time to be an inexperienced amateur gardener.

On the other hand, in between fighting the mosquitoes and making vain attempts at reviving my long-suffering camellias, I’ve been savoring the pleasure of re-reading a favorite series. Actually, re-hearing to it, since I’m listening to the audiobooks. The series is The Heritage of Shannara, a four-book sequel of sorts to the original Shannara series (I have to admit I got some of my idiosyncratic series creation habits from the Shannara books). Have you read it? Do you have a Shannara book or series you particularly recommend? Terry Brooks is one of my all-time favorite authors, and every time I revisit his older works, I find more to appreciate. The Elfstones of Shannara blew me away when I listened to it earlier this summer, and The Heritage of Shannara continues to be a riveting read/listen, 30+ years after it was originally released. If you have any particular favorite Terry Brooks books, please let me know!

As for my own books, a breathless late summer seems like the perfect time to share a little more backstory about The Dreaming Land, the third mini-series within the overall Zemnian series. I’ve been doing deep dives into the psyches of my heroines this summer (check it out here, here, here, and here), and now it’s the turn of Valya, my horse warrior princess.

There’s soooo much I could say about Valya, but I’ll keep it short (sort of). If you’ve read The Dreaming Land, you know that it’s narrated in the first person, unlike most of my other books. Switching narration styles like that is weird, I know, but that’s how Valya came to me. Although on a superficial level she’s very different from me, on other levels she’s the heroine most similar to me, and I experienced her more from the inside than the outside, if that makes sense.

Like me, Valya was born in the summer and is associated with summer (although I’m starting to lose my taste for summer, I have to admit). The Dreaming Land starts shortly before the summer solstice and ends around the autumnal equinox. While Slava from The Midnight Land is associated with the regeneration and rebirth of winter and Dasha from The Breathing Sea and The Singing Shore with the transformation of spring and autumn, Valya is linked to the heat of high summer and fecundity of early fall.

While Valya seems like the most confident and forthright of my heroines on the outside, on the inside she is perhaps the most confused. From a Jungian perspective, she is probably a dominant Introverted Intuitive, just like my other heroines, but she presents as someone with dominant Extraverted Sensing. In other words, she fights with swords rather than words and magic. Part of her heroine’s journey is to set down her sword and take up the magic that is her birthright; i.e., to stop relying on her inferior function and learn to use her dominant function. This is the opposite from the typical path of individuation and self-development, but Valya never can do things the normal way.

Turning to the Enneagram, Valya can come across as an 8, the Challenger, and she certainly has a number of 8-like traits. However, I suspect that she is actually a 1. When you take a bird’s-eye view of her behavior, whether she’s interrogating a prisoner, seducing a prince, or digging graves, she’s generally motivated by her rage and what she thinks is right, not by her lust and what she thinks is strong. As a 1, her greatest danger is falling into destructive self-righteous rage, which she almost does on several occasions. She is also committed to cleansing her land of the corruption the antagonists are defiling it with, a very 1 type of concern.

(As a side note, I tried to think of what kind of action would be the most outrage-provoking thing to do and then had my antagonists do that thing. Valya’s rage at them is justified).

It takes an encounter with a 9 to jerk Valya—literally—off the dangerous path towards committing evil in the name of righteousness. When she finds herself caught up in a more and more aggressive interrogation of suspected slave-traders, it is the 9 Vanya, who has seemed so mild-mannered, even passive, so far, who literally grabs her and drags her away before she can commit an irrevocably bad act.

Valya then tries to turn her conscience over to Vanya for safekeeping, but Vanya essentially tells her that she needs to keep her own conscience. Valya is doubtful, but in the end she chooses to let go of her rage in order to achieve her greater aims. When she gives up her reliance on her inferior function and embraces her dominant function, and turns away from the dark side of the 1 by listening to the wisdom of the 9, she is able to integrate the warring sides of her psyche as well as the warring factions of her native land.

When I finished The Dreaming Land I declared I was done with the entire Zemnian series. Hahahaha! I’ve already added another trilogy to it (The Singing Shore), and I’m currently making notes for a potential second trilogy involving Valya. I know, I know, I know. It’s in the very early planning stages, but if you’re a fan of Valya and you’d like to see more books featuring her, please let me know! And, of course, please do share your favorite Shannara books with me.

Happy reading!

Hi All!

After a few days where North Carolina appeared to have transformed into the desert planet of Arrakis, we’ve finally gotten some rain and some cooler weather. Will it be too late for my camellias? I guess we’ll find out.

Last time I talked about my character Dasha’s MBTI type and a few of the Jungian features of The Singing Shore. This time I’m going to talk about her Enneagram type and how it plays out in the book. But first, a reminder that you can get The Singing Shore I: Sea and Song in the Character Focused Fantasy giveaway on Bookfunnel! https://books.bookfunnel.com/characte...

Okay, on with the analysis of my character…actually, I’m going to start with a confession about myself. You see, I’ve been interested in the study of personality and personality types for a long time (it actually featured in my dissertation, as I’ve mentioned). Naturally, this has involved a lot of self-study and self-reflection. It’s been much more heavily weighted towards the MBTI than towards the Enneagram, but I’ve had periods of interest in the Enneagram on and off for the past few years.

So I was reasonably sure I was an Enneagram Type 1 (spoiler alert: just like several of my characters). But the types can have “wings,” meaning they have traits of the types next to them on the Enneagram circle (if you’re already bored, I apologize. Go grab some free fantasy instead https://books.bookfunnel.com/characte...).

Type 1’s neighbors on the circle are Type 2 (obviously) and Type 9 (less obviously). I’ve always struggled to understand or empathize with the descriptions of Type 9s or even people who say they’re Type 9s. Clearly I have no Type 9 traits.

Except, except, except! As I was reading about the Enneagram and working on these posts, I realized that not only are some of my characters 1s with 9 wings, but I myself probably am too!!!! In other words, I was actively denying and even looking down on what may in fact be a significant part of my personality, or even my psychic totality (lots more exclamation points!!!!!).

I’ll stop with the confession there, and apologies if you found that tedious. But it just goes to show what reading and writing can do for self-discovery…If you’ve ever undergone a similar experience and care to share, by all means, let me know. I love chatting about this kind of stuff.

Anyway, enough about me; let’s talk about Dasha. Last time I discussed how Dasha is an INFJ according to the MBTI. This time I can reveal that she is most likely an Enneagram 1 (shocker). But unlike her mother (and, I guess, me?), she’s probably a 1 with a 2 wing rather than a 9 wing, meaning she’s warmer, more extraverted, and more people- and action-oriented than a 1w9.

At heart, though, she’s still a 1, meaning her core desire is to be good, pure, and righteous, and her core fear is to be corrupt, wrong, or evil. She is by nature highly critical of everything and everyone around her, especially herself, and has a strong need to make the world a better place.

The latter is in fact a motif throughout all the Dasha books: she was not only born for the specific purpose of making the world a better place, but she repeatedly says that she wants the world to be a better place because women are in it (remember, she’s in a matriarchal society where the default word for “human” is “woman.” Also, I liked the alliteration of “world” and “women”).

However, making the world a better place is easier said than done. When you actually roll your sleeves up and get down to it, other people keep getting in the way. Dasha has to deal with her cousin/adoptive sister Vladya’s firm convictions that she knows best how to make the world a better place. In the conflict between Dasha and Vladya, we see a clash between two 1s, and the danger a 1 can fall into of being overly certain and controlling. Dasha and Vladya both have to learn how to recognize what their principles are, stand up for what they believe is the right thing to do, and have the courage of their convictions, but without falling into either crippling self-criticism or overweening pride. Dasha suffers from the first vice, while Vladya suffers from the second.

As part of her sin of excessive self-criticism, Dasha spends a lot of the trilogy criticizing and hating her magical gifts. She is supposed to be a seer, but for much of the story her visions come and go at random, refusing to tell her what she needs to know, and confusing her when they do appear. She constantly berates herself for not having better control of her magic, and for not having the gift she wishes she had: that of healing. She feels fundamentally flawed, broken, and worthless because she isn’t who she thinks she should be and can’t live up to her ideal of herself.

She can only access her gifts—both of visions and, in the end, of healing—through interacting with others who are different from her in fundamental ways. Her steppe guards are largely Enneagram 7s of various stripes, with their focus on freedom and pleasure. Exposure to them allows Dasha to see the world through different eyes—and also tempts her to do things that might destroy her and everyone around her (sometimes we have standards and follow rules for a reason). She must learn how to integrate that part of herself without letting it endanger her or others.

Dasha’s final acceptance of her magical gifts comes not only from interactions with Vladya (her evil twin, from a certain perspective) and her steppe guards (the freedom-seeking, pleasure-loving part of herself she denies), but with Tuulikki, the sorceress-bard. Tuulikki possesses the artistic creativity—quite literally, as she creates both spells and physical objects—and willingness to walk on the dark side of the psyche that are hallmarks of the Enneagram 4. To be honest, I’m not sure if Tuulikki herself is actually an Enneagram 4, but she is full of both creativity and despair, so I’m going to say that for our purposes, she represents that type. To develop, Type 1s like Dasha need to integrate aspects of the Type 4, particularly artistry and creativity. Only by working together are Dasha and Tuulikki able complete their mission and save their people.

As usual, there’s so much more I could say, but I’ll finish here. I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into Dasha’s psyche, and do check out the Character Focused Fantasy giveaway! https://books.bookfunnel.com/characte...

E.P.

Hi All!

While it’s certainly been a lot hotter in other parts of the world, it’s been plenty warm here in North Carolina. And dry, which is much more unusual. Normally we do a fine line in afternoon thunderstorms all summer, but June was pretty much dry as a bone here. My gardens are, well…I’m trying to look on the bright side, which is that my echinacea are thriving. Guess I’ll be planting a lot more of those in the future.

This also seems like a great time to make an escape to the far North. So I’m thrilled to say that The Singing Shore I: Sea and Song is currently available to get completely FREE in the Character-Driven Fantasy giveaway on Bookfunnel: https://books.bookfunnel.com/characte...

Last month I talked about the personality type of my character Slava from The Midnight Land. Dasha, the heroine of The Breathing Sea and The Singing Shore, is in many ways very similar to Slava (unsurprisingly, for reasons that I won’t mention for fear of spoilers). There are, however, some key differences between them, even though they share the same basic personality types.

From the Jungian/MBTI perspective, Dasha, like Slava, is an INFJ, with dominant Introverted Intuition (Ni) and inferior Extraverted Sensing (Se). Like Slava, she has to integrate these opposing parts of her psyche by facing up to her Se weaknesses. Only by exploring Se—that is, the concrete world of physical existence in the present—can she become psychically whole and functional.

It should be emphasized that most of us will never become experts at our inferior function, whatever it is. I, as an INFJ myself, am probably always going to struggle to deal with the material world, just as my opposite, an ESTP, is probably never going to be as fast and fluent as I am at anything involving psychology, language, or the general world of symbols and the spirit. However, I can and do get tremendous benefit by engaging in the physical world (through gardening, for example!), while an ESTP could get a lot of pleasure and personal growth out of reading and writing.

In Dasha’s case, she has to deal with all the Se issues that come up with a journey. Of course! This is epic fantasy, after all. Does epic fantasy without a journey even exist? (No, seriously, I want to know: is there a canonical epic fantasy story or series without a journey at its heart? If you can think of one, let me know! Or if you just want to compare epic fantasy journeys, let me know about those as well!).

So in The Singing Shore Dasha has to deal with storms, seasickness, hunger and thirst, etc., etc.—all the fun that comes with travel. Her visions—that is, her Ni, her dominant function—meanwhile, are AWOL most of the time, and when they do make an appearance, they confuse her more than help. Dasha is therefore forced to use her other functions to get by.

The other characters serve as representatives of the other functions and buried or denied parts of her psyche. Most obviously, the steppe warriors who come with her are all the personification of Se, and explicitly offer to initiate her into the world of fighting and sex (more about that later). More troubling, in some ways, is her companion/adopted sister Vladya, who represents Thinking/Logic.

While Thinking (meaning the use of logic and objective criteria to understand the world and make decisions about it) is not the inferior function for an INFJ like Dasha, it is pretty low down in the “function stack” and is often submerged in the nightmare world of the unconscious. Throughout the story, Dasha struggles to respond to Vladya’s certainty, her belief that she knows better than anyone else what to do, and her disregard for ethical boundaries and other people’s feelings. (Thinking is often not as smart as it thinks it is). In the end, well…I don’t want to spoil it for you.

Going back to the material world, Dasha is faced with two different aspects of the Sensing function: Alik, her steppe warrior guard/potential lover, and the wolf who stalks them. Throughout the trilogy, Alik and the wolf are mortal enemies, but they are also similar: they both desire Dasha, if in somewhat different (but not completely different) ways, and they both use physical violence as their go-to method of problem-solving. They also both end up crossing back and forth between the physical and the spiritual…but I’m slipping into spoiler territory again.

Dasha’s struggles to deal with both Alik and the wolf, plus a lot of other problems (she’s got a LOT of problems in this story) parallel her struggles with her magic. Although Dasha was conceived specifically to be a magical bridge between the world of women and the world of the gods (basically a literal representation of what Jung called the Transcendent Function), when the story starts she can’t access either the visions that are her birthright through her mother’s mother’s line, or the steppe healing that is her birthright from her mother’s father. She cannot, that is, bring together Ni and Se to accomplish anything in either the real or symbolic worlds. In order to access her visions and her healing ability, she must reconcile with both Alik and the wolf, and integrate them into her psyche.

Throughout the story, she does have an example of someone who has integrated Ni and Se, at least to a greater degree than Dasha has. The Seumi (Finnish) sorceress Tuulikki practices her magic through music that she performs using a kantele (Finnish stringed instrument) she has fashioned herself. Tuulikki thus shows that it is possible to access Se in a controlled manner that enables Ni to be deployed—at least until…you know what, that’s another spoiler.

As usual, I could say so much more about this, but since I just hit the 1,000-word mark, I’d better wrap this up. If you’d like to chat about Jungian motifs in epic fantasy, or epic fantasy with or without journeys, I would be so down for that, so just hit “Reply” and let me know what you think! And if you’d like to get The Singing Shore I or 50 other fantasy books for free, check out the Character-Driven Fantasy giveaway here: https://books.bookfunnel.com/characte...

I’ll be back later this month to talk about Dasha’s Enneagram type, but meanwhile, happy reading!

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to 2023! I hope you are having a peaceful and hopeful start to the new year. I myself survived the giant Deep Freeze of Christmas 2022 with minimal damage.

Anyway, I wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know about a couple of promos my books are currently in!

First of all, there's a Goodreads Giveaway going on right now for the ebook version of The Singing Shore II: Sky and Stone. You can enter here: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh... and please feel free to share! It will be running until January 30.

Second of all, the audiobook of The Singing Shore I: Sea and Song is currently discounted to $1.99 on Apple (https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/...) and $0.99 on B&N (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...), Chirp(https://www.chirpbooks.com/audiobooks...), Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/audiobo...), and Spotify! (https://open.spotify.com/show/5Y4omS9...) Once again, please feel free to forward this email or share this deal with anyone you think might be interested.

That's about it for now. I'm hard at work on the audiobook of The Singing Shore III: Spirit and Flame, so hopefully there will be some updates about that coming soon. In the meantime, happy New Year, and happy reading!

E.P.

Hi All, and Happy Holidays!

Well, it's nippy here in NC, and the big cold snap of next week hasn't even started yet. I am trying to psych myself up for a white Christmas, but frankly snow and ice wreak havoc in this part of the world. Still, if it happens, it will at least be picturesque and seasonally appropriate.

I wanted to drop you a quick line to let you know that A) There are still a few days left to enter the Goodreads Giveaway for The Singing Shore I: Sea and Song (https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...), and B) Smashwords is holding a massive end-of-year sale event! (https://www.smashwords.com/shelves/pr...)

If you're wondering what Smashwords is, it's an ebook distributor that has its own storefront. They just merged with Draft2Digital, the distributor I've been using, and so now my books have all been added to the Smashwords storefront. To make things even more exciting, all my books are currently part of the sale event! You can check out my personal page here (https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...) and the main storefront here (https://www.smashwords.com/shelves/pr...).

Enjoy, and as always, happy reading!
E.P.

Hi All!

Long time no see, metaphorically speaking. After the release of The Singing Shore II: Sky and Stone I know I kind of dropped off the radar a little bit, for which I apologize. I got caught up in second-half-of-the-semester stuff for the day job and also working on a book for the other pen name.

But now I thought I'd drop you a quick note and let you know that I'm currently running a Goodreads giveaway for The Singing Shore I: Sea and Song. It will be a short note because I just cut my index finger in a freak accident involving my Venetian blinds and am now having trouble typing. So if you're wondering if that kind of thing only happens to heroines in romcoms, I can assure you that no, it happens to real people out in the real world, too.

Annnnyywayyyyyy, I'm giving away 100 Kindle copies of The Singing Shore I via Goodreads. Unfortunately, I think it's only open to US residents, but if you are are a US resident and would like to enter, you can do so here: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...

I'm hoping to have some updates on progress with The Singing Shore III: Spirit and Flame soon. In the meantime, enjoy the holiday season, everyone! Or at least, try not to let it run over you like a freight train.

Here's that link to the giveaway again: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...

Happy reading!

Hello Everyone!

Happy December! Happy holiday season! Here in NC we're currently experiencing a warm spell, with temperatures up into the 70s. Crazy but true. And we've got a big forest fire raging at a state park outside of town. So things are a little un-Christmasy around her.

But, but but but! Despite warm weather, forest fires, and other such unseasonable things, I've decided to make the omnibus edition of The Midnight Land free for the holiday season! It seemed only right to make my most wintry book free for winter.

Also, I'd like to give a huge shout-out of thanks to those of you who've already left reviews on the omnibus edition. If you haven't yet but feel moved to do so, it would be much appreciated! Getting the necessary number of reviews for promo opportunities on omnibuses and boxed sets can be a challenge, so I really appreciate each and every one of you who do so. The universal link to to the book is here https://books2read.com/TMLOmnibus if you'd like to pick up a free copy and/or leave a review.

And if one free book isn't enough, here's more! I'm participating this month in the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Women Authors book giveaway: https://books.bookfunnel.com/sffwomen...

That's it for now! I'll be back later with more updates on the upcoming release of The Singing Shore, but in the meantime, have a wonderful month and happy holidays.

Happy reading!

E.P. Clark

Hello Everyone!

Happy November! Things are brisk and blustery here in NC at the moment. We even had our first frost yesterday morning.

I've also been super busy with all kinds of things around The Singing Shore. As you know if you've been following me for a while, I started it last year during NaNoWriMo. It was my first time doing NaNoWriMo, and it was wonderful! Transcendent!

This year, though, what with my teaching schedule and the fact that I'm still editing The Singing Shore, I kept trying to convince myself that I couldn't do NaNoWriMo. I just couldn't. I really, really couldn't.

That lasted until the afternoon of November 2nd, when I decided to would make my current round of revisions of The Singing Shore my NaNoWriMo project. So I set up my profile, boldly declared myself a NaNoWriMo Rebel, and away I went! I've been reading a section of the novel out loud every day (an integral part of my editing process), and putting down the word count of the sections read for my status update. You can follow me here if you'd like to see my progress: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/e-... (In case you're wondering, the entire trilogy is about 370k words).

AND, if that weren't enough, I've also updated and re-released my novella Wolf Island in preparation for the release of TSS! I wrote Wolf Island more than a decade ago, and then took the main characters from it and used them as important secondary characters in TSS. Of course, things have changed in the intervening decade, so I had to go and tweak Wolf Island a bit to make everything line up. So even if you've already read it, you might want to check out the new, updated version. You can get it here: https://BookHip.com/MLZMSLL


And, if you're looking for even more free books, Wolf Island and several dozen other stories are currently available in the Free Epic and High Fantasy book giveaway on Bookfunnel: https://books.bookfunnel.com/allthehi...

That's about all for now! I will be back later this month with more updates. In the meantime, happy reading.

E.P.