This month has been… slow. No sales, no page reads, dead silence on the Salt and Ice front. I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I’m also not surprised. However, it has made the decision to pull my book out of Kindle Unlimited that much easier. I never liked the idea of exclusivity, as I think I mentioned in my last update, but having 0 page reads makes it an obvious choice (even if there’s a possibility that this is due to glitching in their reporting which, if you’ve been on threads at all, you’ll have no doubt heard about).

If you want to read Salt and Ice as part of your Kindle Unlimited, you have until the 24th April to do so. After which, the ebook will be available wide in as many stores as I can get it in.

Salt and Ice

So what about my new series, Legacy of Ash and Smoke?

Well, that also feels like it’s going slowly. I’ve spent the last month working on the developmental edits of my skeleton draft of book 1 and am about half way through the same for book 2.

Now, I’m going to take a risk here and be completely open and honest. I am currently using AI as my developmental editor. However, unlike a proper human editor, I take its responses with a grain of salt, and I don’t have it actually suggest any fixes. That’s for me to do. But what it does do well is see issues that I’m too close to it to see. I am hoping to also get a human editor for at least the first book in this series, but to get the best bang for my buck, I want to exhaust all free (or nearly free) options available to me first. Then the human editor can come in with that human-specific touch.

I got the idea of this from the YouTuber The Nerdy Novelist. Full disclosure: his videos are all about how to use AI to write for you. I find them interesting because I find the technology interesting. I do not and never will use AI to write my stories for me. That’s what I love to do, so outsourcing it defeats the purpose of writing for me. But he evaluates all kinds of LLM’s and AI tools that are specifically for writers in an unbiased manner that I enjoy.

If this interests you, I’ll add the exact prompt I used to the end of this update. Feel free to use it or tweak it however you like. I wouldn’t recommend using it for an entire book’s prose, as AI becomes more and more inaccurate the more it has to work with. I was really pushing it with 20,000 words as it is; a full 100,000 word novel will definitely be beyond its capability to handle.

What this prompt did was highlight several areas where there are logical holes or instances in my plot that are too convenient or coincidental. So I’ve been going through my skeleton drafts with a list of all the areas where I agree that it needs to be tightened or detailed more or just outright changed, and making those changes.

For book 1, it blew my skeleton draft of 20,000 words out to 30,000. That’s how many changes I made and extra details I added. This is a good thing. 30k words for an “outline” might seem like a lot, but it’s writing that I can fold out and use when I expand into proper prose. To give an example of what I mean, here’s a paragraph from a scene in book 1:

Everett thanks her and says he doesn’t know how King Orion would have known but he was always a very wise man. Nate resists the urge to roll his eyes. Garrett said that Theron was the one who directed them here and that, before the resonator cut out, he said he would meet us here. Rylie is relieved that he’s safe even if it means she’ll get another lecture for fiddling with Empire tech. She says she’ll run them through the features of the Crawler when he gets here then, and in the meantime they’re welcome to crash at her place.

As you can see, it’s not proper prose. Dialogue is something that comes naturally to me and is often one of the first things that is most clearly defined. That’s why it’s usually included in this fashion, and there are generally no descriptions (unless there’s something that I know what it looks like at this early stage, which is unusual). But from this paragraph, you can easily see how it would extend out to prose, something like this (which I’m just writing here for this article, and will most definitely be different in the final version):

“Thank you,” Everett said, inclining his head towards Rylie. “I don’t know how King Orion would have known all that, but he has always been a wise man.”
Nate grit his teeth and looked to the side, forcing himself not to roll his eyes as he would have were it just the three of them. His father? Wise? More like deluded.
“It was Theron who directed us here, before the resonators cut out anyway. He said he would meet us here,” Garrett said.
Rylie let out a sigh, a hand resting over her heart. “Thank goodness he’s safe. When I heard about what went down at the capital, I was worried. I mean, it’s his job and all, but still. If he’s coming here though, no doubt I’m in for a lecture for fiddling with Empire tech. But look who’s gonna need it now? Everyone, that’s who!”
Garrett is smirking and Everett and Nate exchange a look behind his back. Empire technology may be the way forward now that their magic had fizzled out, but they couldn’t see the Empire relaxing its control over its trade.
“Anyway,” Rylie continued, “I’ll run over the features of the Crawler when he gets here, save me the hasstle of repeating myself. In the meantime, you’re all welcome to crash at my place, small though it is.”

So you see, one paragraph has become six, with proper formatting and added detail as I go.

But that’s a problem future me has to deal with. Right now, current me is trying to figure out how to fix the plot holes found in book 2, and then plot out the series’s saggy middle, that being book 3.

April will be a combination of finishing the edits of book 2, hopefully finishing the skeleton draft of book 3, and finding as many places as possible to move the ebook of Salt and Ice to be sold at.

If you know of any indie friendly bookstores that might be interested in an Australian contemporary drama, please let me know in the comments!

Here’s my AI prompt if you’re interested. I ran this through Open Router (which is a pay as you go version rather than a monthly subscription) and used Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview. Both the complete input and the resulting output cost me less than US$1, which is why I consider this a basically free option to run before approaching human editors.

You will be auditing an early-stage zero draft for logical consistency and plot plausibility. The zero draft contains a beat by beat outline for the first book in a planned 5 book series, but is deliberately lacking in description and proper grammar and there may be some spelling errors. I will also include the series outline which is a brief description of what each book will contain, and the story bible which has information about the characters, locations, technology, and magic.
Here is the overarching series:
<overarching_series>
Insert the plot of the whole series here.
</overarching_series>
Here is the story bible:
<story_bible>
Insert the story bible here.
</story_bible>
Here is the zero draft to audit:
<zero_draft>
Insert the zero draft or outline here
</zero_draft>
<instructions>
Your task is to identify logical inconsistencies, implausible plot elements, character-world mismatches, and worldbuilding conflicts that would undermine the story’s internal coherence.
Perform the following five audit checks:
1. Premise Logic Check:
- Does the core premise hold together internally?
- Are the central conflict and stakes consistent with the stated world rules?
- Does the basic “what if” or setup make logical sense?
2. Character-World Fit:
- Do the characters’ roles, goals, and capabilities make sense given the worldbuilding?
- Does any character’s existence contradict stated world rules?
- Do character relationships and motivations align with the premise and pitch?
- Are character power levels, social positions, or abilities plausible in this world?
3. Worldbuilding Coherence:
- Do the world elements support and enable the premise?
- Are there conflicting world rules stated in different sections?
- Do geography, technology level, social structure, and magic/tech rules work together logically?
- Are there internal contradictions in how the world operates?
4. Plot Setup Plausibility:
- Given the pitch, are there obvious logistical impossibilities?
- Are there character motivation gaps that would prevent the story from starting?
- Does the antagonist’s power/position make sense relative to the protagonist’s starting point?
- Is the inciting incident plausible given the world and characters?
5. Early-Stage Convenience Flags:
- Does the premise rely on unlikely coincidences without justification?
- Are there characters who exist purely to solve plot problems with no other narrative purpose?
- Does the protagonist have suspiciously perfect allies or resources that feel contrived?
- Are there “because the plot needs it” elements with no in-world logic?
For each issue you identify, use this format:
[Category] Issue: [Brief description of the problem]
LOGIC BREAK: [Explain exactly what breaks the internal logic]
References: [Specific premise/pitch elements, characters, or worldbuilding details involved]
Here is an example of a well-formatted issue:
Premise Issue: Protagonist is a street thief who “must save the kingdom.”
LOGIC BREAK: No clear path from thief skills to kingdom-saving capability. Why would kingdom authorities trust or empower a criminal? How does pickpocketing translate to stopping existential threats?
References: Protagonist background, main plot premise
Before writing your final audit, use a scratchpad to systematically work through each section of the zero draft:
<scratchpad>
- First, identify the core premise and main pitch
- List all characters and their stated roles/capabilities
- List all worldbuilding rules and elements
- Check each audit category systematically
- Note any contradictions, implausibilities, or logic gaps
- For each issue, think through what specifically breaks
</scratchpad>
Structure your final audit report with these five sections:
Section 1: Premise Logic Assessment
Section 2: Character-World Mismatches
Section 3: Worldbuilding Conflicts
Section 4: Setup Plausibility Issues
Section 5: Early Convenience Flags
If a section has no issues, state “No significant issues identified in this category.”
Your final output should contain only the six-section audit report, not the scratchpad. Each issue should be clearly formatted with the structure shown in the example above.
</instructions>