Back posting about my writing and research

Calusa Indians, Aztecs, Conquistadors, and trying to get published

I took several months off from posting here to finish up my last year of teaching and to take a course in court transcript proofreading. I hope that will become a source of consistent part-time income and also give me much more time to work on my writing.

Shame of Kings is my historical fiction novel about Florida’s Calusa Tribe, the Aztecs, and the Spanish Conquistadors. In future posts, I’ll write about the status of the book, how I’m editing it, my efforts to get a literary agent to represent me and the book, and details from my research on the Calusas, Aztecs, and Conquistadors.

Right now, the book is at 95,382 words. After having several beta readers review it, I changed, and hopefully improved, my ending, and added a second part to the book, bringing the story up to the modern day. I’m thinking about changing the beginning now to make it exciting and start with action and conflict in the first few pages.

I’ll let you know how this goes and will posts excerpts here for you to see what I’m doing. Please comment on anything about the book and my efforts to get an agent. I hope this newsletter will be an interesting and possibly useful space for other authors.

So that’s it for now. I’m retired from teaching and will have plenty of time to work on my books and to post here on Substack. I’ve also created another Substack newsletter that I call “AI is For Sheep.” I’m using it to write about my concerns about AI safety and reliability and how I feel it is especially harmful to children who don’t need anything else thinking for them. I’m also using “AI is For Sheep” to promote and celebrate artists and other creators who are creating without the use of Artificial Intelligence. I hope you will check it out and consider subscribing there too.

Have a great weekend,

Will Granger