New Year’s Progress Update - 01/01/26
Happy New Year! Now seems like a good time to drop a progress update on The Cryomancer series, to look back at how 2025 went, and to let you know what is to come in 2026.
The big milestone of 2025 was the release of my second book, Heart for the Damned. As expected, it didn’t quite make a splash when entering the ocean that is the Amazon marketplace, but as with the first book, it’s good to have it out there for people to discover in the future. I was mostly very happy with how the book turned out, and there’s nothing about the characters or story that I would change. The big letdown was that a few too many errors slipped through into the published book (about 5, iirc), and while they’re fixed now and only a small handful of people will ever see them, I’m still disappointed they weren’t caught before. One more proofreading pass by me could have helped, but the real solution would be to have a proofreader. Unfortunately, that’s an expense I can’t quite justify at this time, so for my next book, I’ll just have to do better myself.
Speaking of my next book, I’m halfway through! It will be a similar length to the first two books in The Cryomancer series, and as of writing this, Chapter 7 is planned and ready to be turned into wonderful words. I’m very confident in the direction the story is going, and I think it will feel like the next mature step for the characters we’ve seen so far.
However, my third book is not all I’ve been writing! Starting last October, I began an exciting new writing project. It’s to be a web series set in the world of the Cryomancer, sometime before Echoes Beyond the Forest. I haven’t written the blurb yet, so this will sound super dry, but the series will follow a mercenary of the Sorcerers Guild who carries a sword that's possessed by a demon. The mercenary is also cursed and can’t perform magic without the help of the demon, so together they form a reluctant team as they go on adventures throughout Aggeris to pay off a tremendous debt. What gets me really excited for this series, though, is that it will be a comedy-fantasy series. I’m 7 chapters in at this point (chapters are much shorter than those in The Cryomancer), and it's been a blast actively trying to make myself laugh as I explore the world previously seen through Arthur’s eyes. I haven’t decided on an exact release date, but I’m looking at May 1st, and it's to be published on Royal Road. Expect more news on this series in the next few months!
But why am I writing another story instead of just finishing The Cryomancer, I pretend to hear you ask? Two main reasons: Firstly, my next book was getting a little dark and serious, and I wanted to write something that had more freedom in the direction that it could head as well as be more fun and uplifting. This web series has so far satisfied that creative itch. Secondly, The Cryomancer doesn’t look to be able to find a wider audience on its own. My social media attempts have failed. I don’t think the covers do the books any favours (but I’m stubbornly sticking with them for now), and yeah, I’m basically writing book 3 for a very small group of readers with no hope of growth. The web series is an opportunity to gain more visibility for me as an author, and in turn, will get more eyes towards the Cryomancer. Hopefully, my plan works, but if it doesn’t, I’ll still have a book series I’m proud to have written, and I’m committed to writing enough chapters in my web series that it will make a (hilarious) standalone spinoff novel in the future.
I can’t wait to reveal the web series soon: title, cover, blurb, and even the first chapter or two! Until then, take care and thank you for reading.
Jack R Waite.
