Hey there, I'm Mark, the author of this book.
Thanks for reading my book and sticking through it. I know the beginning of it is kinda rough, and so are many of the chapters. But there's a good couple of reasons for that. For one, when I started this book I was basically just starting in writing. All I had written before were short stories during english class in like 10th grade and such. Then I got to make a d&d campaign for me and my friends. It was then that ideas started to click in and a world to be made.
While I've been working on the book for the past 2 years, this work goes back some 3-4 years. After the campaign was over, I had plans of writing this book, I just didn't know what it would be about and how it would look like. While the earliest works resemble some parts of this book, drastic changes have been made by me.
For one, the world I had made for the dnd campaign no longer matched that of the Lightborn. Those were 2 separate works, this one kept evolving into something beyond the scope of the original. You can probably tell that by also reading this book, that ideas have changed along these 2 years, and something more concrete, more 'original' has been laid out.
Of course, I won't say this is an original work. Plenty of tropes play into my book and I'm a sucker for Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, the Dune series and so on. To point out some of the stuff I took heavy inspiration from: the elves from Lord of the Rings, the way the universe was made in the Silmarillion and Paul from Dune. Maybe you noticed those things, maybe they will become obvious once I point them out.
Now for the second part of the 'drastic changes'. As I stated above, I took heavy inspiration from those books in some regards, but I also tried really hard to lay down my own path, and that takes trial and error. For one, the concept of the elves was turned in a way upside down.
While in the Silmarillion (spoiler) we are told how the world is 'meant' for the elves, the Firstborn, and how the gods have to sort of prepare it, or else Morgoth may lay his hands on them, here the Lightborn are tossed into the world and have to figure things on their own. While the Creator, or Lamines, helps the Lightborn, it is a lot less direct. The way the Lightborn gain control over nature is also different than the elves in that they literally have to fight for it.
And those are some examples on how I tried to differentiate myself from the works I was inspired by. But of course, as I said, it takes trial and error. And that trial and error part is over, I know what I want and how to write what I want, now it requires a bit of time and editing.
What you read so far is only the first draft of what I wrote. There were some slight edits here and there, but I didn't actually go over each chapter to edit them and make them properly. That was done on purpose.
As I said, stuff changes in time, and 2 years is a bit of time. So the ideas I had back then vs now, are much different. I already edited some of the first chapters to better match what I seek, but the chapters still require a bunch of work to be done to them, some may get rewritten, and quite possibly added to them. I definitely want to 'explore' more of the world, so this book may get cut at the 27th chapter and be made into 2 different books.
That's something that has been on my mind since chapter 30 or so I would say. I didn't fully realize how much larger my world had gotten, so after a few chapters I kept thinking 'This feels like another book by now.' Seeing how the word count also kept climbing higher and higher (I was expecting this book to be 100k words) also solidified that thought.
So, 2 books about Kilon's story would feel right.
But that will be something I'll work on after I've edited the book as it is. I believe it will take me around 1-3 months to make the book as proper as I want, to then release it on Amazon where it can be bought physically. While I don't expect anyone who reads this to buy it, I will say that it will be at the lowest price possible so it's an easy option if you want a physical copy. The book will also come into 2 editions. The first one will be the edited version of this one, while the second will contain drawings at the beginning of each chapter and a proper cover for the book (drawn by yours truly). The second edition is what I aspire towards, and it will cost a bit more given the drawings, but I'm sure it will be worth it if you decide to buy it.
But if not, the book will always be available on sites like royalroad for free. The amazon version is just in case you want a physical copy and maybe with something nice alongside it.
With that being said, what's next? Well, for one, I will not write another book on the Lightborns for at least 6 months. While fantasy is my bread and butter, I also love horror and scifi, so I plan to write a bunch of that. I will probably go less 'aggressive' at it. This book is a long one by any measure, and while I expected it to be, I didn't realize what a task that is until I finished it.
And I have bigger plans for the Lightborns, as the very first paragraph of the book suggests. There are still a lot of stories I know I want to tell, for one how humans came to be, for second how much crazier can it get. We already have Kilon able to manipulate a plethora of things, the other Lightborn too, so they truly seem like the masters of this world, but I have to wonder what happens when other creations of the Sparks show up on Erta. How will that affect things.
Those questions I have can only be answered in time, as I'm threading on new waters with the ending that I gave. Yes, I knew how it was going to end, but I haven't fully thought of the implications. And that's what we'll look into next time.
As I said though, this was only the first draft. Many changes will be made inside the book for the next few months, so if you really liked my book and can't wait till I drop a new chapter from a new one, then rereading this one might soothe things over a little.
For now, hope you had a bunch of emotions while reading this, I sure had. Happiness, anger, frustration, satisfaction, it's weird how those blend together. And in the end, I can say it was worth it. I'm proud of what I made.
-Mark10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ938y5XcWpf
