The Silver Talon, an epic fantasy by A.J. Cunder

Book II, Volume I draft complete!

December 16, 2013
Hello readers and fans of The Silver Talon! I did promise to keep everyone up to date as Book II develops, and so I write this post with some exciting news: I have finished writing the rough draft of Volume I of Book II. I have some working titles in mind, so I don't want to give anything away just yet. I will say, though, that this volume tells Orthel's tale as he attempts to cross Farahdin to get to the sea where he hopes to find a way to reach Alderdor, the ancestral home of the elves. There is a specific purpose to his mission, a task in which he must not fail if Arius and the elves are to defeat the new evil stirring in the realm. His odyssey is not easy: he gains some new friends along the way as well as some new beliefs that promise to lift his spirit but may strip him of his magic and leave him vulnerable. Treachery abounds at every turn, and Orthel must be wary lest he fall into a trap from which there can be no escape...

Now I just have a few more volumes to go, and Book II will be complete!

Stay tuned...

AJ 
 

Status Update for Book II, the sequel to THE SILVER TALON

July 2, 2012
Hello to my friends, fans, and readers! This post is to give everyone an update on where I stand as I continue to write the sequel for The Silver Talon. The layout of the second book will be slightly different than the first. Rather than focus solely on a single character/group of characters and have his/their story move the plot forward, there will be several different characters who each have their own story line. Whereas in the first book, the story was primarily centered around Arius and ...
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Revising a Manuscript

November 12, 2011
Every author out there will understand when I say that there is no such thing as a "Final Draft" of a book. I mean this in the sense that no matter how many times we go back to the manuscript, re-read, edit, or revise it, there will always be some small change that we decide needs to be made to make the story even better. This could range from changing around the order of sentences in a paragraph, adjusting punctuation, or adding a word here or there to enhance a description.

However, this cou...

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Character Biographies

August 16, 2011
The other day, I was looking around the internet about different ways to advertise a novel. I came across a forum that suggested different avenues an author might take to be proactive in marketing a book, and found an interesting suggestion: making biographies for characters in a story. 

Thinking about this, I realized that as a reader myself, I would greatly enjoy being able to "research" a bio of some of my favorite characters. In my opinion, this gives a character a little more spice, eithe...
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Giving Back

July 31, 2011
As an author, I find that my primary goal is to give back. In writing a story, the end result will hopefully be an exciting, inspiring, or otherwise enjoyable and entertaining piece for whoever reads it. The greatest feeling for me as an author is knowing that someone has read my book and truly enjoyed it. This means that I've done my job! As an avid fantasy reader myself, I know how great a feeling it is to be so completely absorbed by a book that your surroundings become the characters, the...
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Character Names

July 9, 2011
As I continue writing the second book for the Chronicles of the Renasu Guild series, I came across something interesting: as I create random names for new characters in the story, I decided to Google the names to see if they showed up anywhere else on the web. Sure enough, almost every name I created for the characters in my story already exists somewhere in the world! These names, keep in mind, were often the creations of random letter groupings that were spawned from my pressing the keyboar...
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You CAN Do This!

June 25, 2011
For every diabetic out there, whether you suffer from Type I, II, Adult Onset, or are in danger of becoming a diabetic, know that you CAN live your life to its fullest, without letting diabetes hold you back.

When I was 18 months old, I was diagnosed with Type I diabetes, also known as Juvenile Diabetes. Growing up, I'd have to endure finger pricks, insulin shots, self-control during birthday parties when the sweets were tantalizingly displayed for every kid to grab, and all the other limitati...

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