James C Gilliam

1 June 2026

*Cover art concept. The actual cover will be similar but with blue leather.

The final draft has been completed, and with it, one of the hardest parts of the revision process. While I am not ashamed to say that The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien and his unwritten sequel The New Shadow heavily inspired the themes of the story, having to replace the Quenya Elvish was one of the hardest parts. While several characters still use Tolkien’s Elvish for their names (ie. Main character Elesandar “Elec” Yauleldar, becoming Elesandar “Elec” Miraelavar), I’ve had to work for several weeks to come up with a very crude and rudimentary Elvish-sounding naming language: Aeliryn. Granted, there were only a few lines of Elvish actually used, most of which were in the last chapters of the novel; I had to develop over 190 pretty sounding words to substitute the actually developed Elvish language with ‘reskinned’ English. And if I am going through with the plan for Book 6, the readers will become fluent in this version of Elvish, which means possibly reaching out for professional help in crafting the language better.

Big news. I have to make sure that nothing comes up between here and there, but The Sword, the Song, and the Mage will be available for purchase starting the last week of July. During this time, I’ll be doing my launch tour at the Libraries of Camp Zama, Atsugi, Yokosuka, and Yokota Military Bases in Japan to add a couple of copies into circulation at each location. Free autographed copies of the novel will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, albeit very limited in number, as this is currently still a hobby and is funded as such. To make up for this, I will be making the ebook version available for free for the week of the launch and the week after.

I am making the jump to an official Website and with it a better, more navigable interface. Along with this, I will be releasing the chapters of the novel on the website each month starting after launch. Hopefully, with the tour, the books in circulation, and actually freely available on the site, I can generate the buzz I need to sell the series in its entirety.

It’s been a long road this far, and it’s only just the beginning. I am eagerly forcing myself away from diving into the first draft of book 2 (I have almost completed Act 1 already), and I still need to play through adventures 5-9 in order to finish out the outlines and ensure the series comes to a satisfying end. I look forward to sharing this and many other stories with all of you, and I hope to make this hobby into something I can retire into.

Stay tuned for future posts where I give a shout-out to two more author-creators who helped in the writing process:

Jed Herne and John Fox.

Until then…