by Paulette Jaxton

I started writing my next project this morning. I was going to wait until I had done some more world building before beginning to write Priestess of the Flame, but I just missed writing every day too much and I couldn’t help myself. It is a novel based on my short story Divine Fire and will follow the life of Celeste D’Anjou from her childhood discovery that she can control and manipulate fire, through her years of training to become a priestess of the Divine Flame, then the downfall of that religion and the subsequent persecution of all who believe in the magic of fire. The writing of it will be a long journey (The Empress Sword took me two long years to write), but I’ll be sure to let you all know how it’s going.
 
In other news I received the mapping software from ProFantasy and it is amazing. It will take me a long time to figure out everything I can do with it, but for now I have a basic map of The Empress Sword’s kingdom of Caledon that I can use for rewrites and I’m working on city maps for the three main towns in the story. Priestess of the Flame will be set in a fantasy variation of France, so I’m also trying to figure out how to import real-world maps into the program.
 
I’m still waiting on some feedback from the alpha readers, but I’m chomping at the bit to begin rewrites on The Empress Sword. They’ve already given me some wonderful ideas for making the book even more exciting and I’m looking forward to letting you all hear the podcast version hopefully this fall. Stay tuned as I learn just how hard rewrites really are!