B. H. Mallorie

Hello! I'm B. H. Mallorie. When I'm not lost in photographs, you'll find me writing.

[bhmallorie]

Hello! You can call me BH or Mallorie. 

You can find my books here: https://linktr.ee/bhmallorie

My upcoming projects: 

* Binding Values (the third and final book in the Blolandish Heritage Series)

* Hope’s War: Part 2 (Against a God) follows Katherine Howard as she travels Blolanda in search of agency in a life where she feels aimless.

[bhmallorie]

Binding Values is nearing 65,000 words. I'm plugging away at it.

I have also received the ARC book I mentioned last week, so I'm excited to announce here that I'm currently reading The Nameless of Ginah Valley by Krista Ino (it comes out Aug. 7th).

[bhmallorie]

Did I get much writing done last week? No...

I am thinking about dusting off Against a God, though. I might publish it the way David's story was published (on Tapas). This is not a promise, simply an update on what I'm considering.

I finished reading The Dragon's Dagger, but I don't have the third book (neither does my library), so I will have to finish that series at another time. In the meantime, I am waiting to receive an ARC. This will be my first time ARC reading, so I am looking forward to it!

[bhmallorie]

I've let myself get bogged down with the less interesting parts of being an author, so there hasn't been much progress on Binding Values. Similarly, I haven't read much.

That said, Binding Values is at 62,000 words. The timeline aspects of the story have been ironing themselves out so far, but it was/is easy to lose track of the characters' time in the more slice of life sections, which is where I am currently editing.

I've also been considering what tropes are present in Heritage of Indulgence, and I realized that John is probably an example of a gentle male lead, at least gentle within his fantasy context. Like most other trope realizations I've had, this is something I should have noticed sooner....

On a different note, I did recently glance through The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, and I found his description of writing "escapism" as "transforming experience into another form" (from letter 73, June 10th 1944, to Christopher Tolkien) interesting.

[bhmallorie]

There isn't a lot of news on the Binding Values editing front (I am about half-way through the manuscript right now), but I can give a little more information about the story.

The main characters are Miles (Erian's older brother) and Nessa (a young woman born on Neulan). This book has shaped up to be a tragic romance, and I think it's more tragic than Fabricated Destiny, so prepare the tissues accordingly.

[doodleandcry]

⚠️CH 134 SPOILERS⚠️

he’s getting so good at this guys!

[bhmallorie]

Binding Values is at 60,000 words. Based on how my editing is going, my current estimate is that this book will be about 70,000 words by the time I give it to my developmental editor.

In reading news, I posted last year that I was going to use a wheel to pick my books instead of mood reading. In practice this has humorously turned into me choosing whether or not to follow the wheel based on my mood...

My current read is The Dragon's Dagger (I just finished The Woods Out Back).

[dyrpyn]

Writing is so fun and freeing when you don't have a gremlin whispering in your ear that it has to be perfect

[bhmallorie]

Ivy: Don't you hate it when, even after a long life together, he still won't admit he loves you?

Haley and Nessa: y'all are getting long lives together?

[bhmallorie]

Editing has begun on Binding Values! The final word count of the first draft was 56,000 words. I expect it to get longer by the time I'm done with the next draft.

One of the quirks of my first drafts is there are a lot of scenes that are really just the dialogue, so what I'm working on currently is fleshing out those scenes and being intentional about splitting up chapters.

The third draft will focus more on double checking everything works on the timeline.

[aerequets]

I'd be sooo mad if I was his employer 😹😹

[bhmallorie]

I've completed the first draft of appendix chapter 1 (of 3). It will likely be the longest of the appendix chapters, so next week I should have a fully completed draft of Binding Values!

I have my fingers crossed that the next few drafts of this book will go a bit faster.

[bhmallorie]

Welcome to the first edition of my newsletter!

First off, Binding Values (book 3 in the Blolandish Heritage Series) is still in the first draft stage. I am gearing up to write the appendix chapters though, so draft one is almost complete! For reference, I typically have 3-4 drafts before I pass a manuscript to my developmental editor.

I can't give a word count expectation right now because the draft is all over the place, but I am confident it will be longer than Fabricated Destiny and shorter than Heritage of Indulgence.

Why is this draft all over the place? I tried a new way of writing to see if it would help speed up my process. It wasn't a fit for me. It actually slowed my process down -.-;

And for those who are curious, my current read is Bloodguard by Cecy Robson. It makes me want to write the coliseum scene in Hope's War Part 4, but that would get me way off track...

Lastly, moving forward, I plan to post updates like this weekly, so for news related to my writing check my blog every Tuesday evening.

[bhmallorie]

Me: Is Erian and Haley's story actually romantic if they really just pavloved themselves into liking each other?

My developmental editor: Isn't that what all romance is?

Me:

[bhmallorie]

Me when one of my books got into the top 1000 of a category on Amazon:

[bhmallorie]

My favorite type of character dynamic to write is two people who might have a wildly different relationship or even be leading different lives if they'd had a deep heart-to-heart

[bhmallorie]

Having finished The Strength of the Few, I have elected, moving forward, to assume everyone is lying or wrong about everything all of the time except for Eidhin.