Performative Preorders

Palena Moria grew up at the end of the world

Hey! Are you ready to read?

After spending a bit too long on broken ideas, rewrites, questionable marketing strategies, and more, Significatorius is actually, really almost here!

In fact, the preorder page for the kindle version is live right now!

Last week, I received my ISBNs for the book and decided to finally get the ball rolling. That meant setting up the final formatting to get the ebook and the physical book in proper working order.

As a part of this push to publishing, I also realized I need to ramp up some of my promotion.

As luck would have it, that started with a bang!

A musician friend I made on Tiktok, Liza Finn, recorded one of the songs I wrote for Significatorius.

Don’t Cry

Music is a big part of my new story.

Less the specifics of how a song is made and more the emotions from how a performance affects us all.

Ritual and religion, politics and pragmatics, the notes on the page may shift in form but their power remains the same.

Although these themes expand into the whole of the plot, I originally aimed for a bit of a cheesy classically romantic feel. That soon became so much more.

A few hundred pages later and I managed to juggle all those acts and arcs into something resembling cohesion.

Much more fleshed out than Besnowed, this time I built a proper plot with key moments and touchstones to let readers know where we’re going.

With a few hidden twists, of course!

The core remains much as I first described. There are four major events that make up the Vindem harvest holiday and we follow Palena as she experiences every one.

• Benedictio Fructuum (Blessing of the Harvest)

• Via Alba (White Path)

• Carrus Exornatus (Parade of Chariots)

• Actus Centralis (Grand Performance)

You’ll notice the prevalence of archaic vocabulary from the start as well. In fact, every chapter has a Latin name followed by a lesser name beneath it offered as a translation.

It is my intention to draw attention to the performative role language itself plays in our lives.

The emotional layer of communication that surpasses any semantic arguments and asks for submission. Loyalty to a cause that has no clear definition.

The human condition.

We are poor players who strut and fret across the stage and then are heard no more. Walking shadows in this play with no auditions and only happenstance positions.

And then even our lauded reverence is clouded by murky waters.

Or as I sometimes like to tease mes amis français :

C’est quoi le français si ce n’est que du latin mal parlé !

What is French if not nothing more than poorly spoken Latin!

That is to say, we are no closer to the truth now than we have ever been. The old continent chasing the same ghosts as the Romans and the Greeks — just with worse grammar!

From before antiquity and into our probable future, people will trick themselves into believing we are oh so different from those who came before us.

For Palena and everyone else from Greater Patagonia, the ancient language of Latin is a unifying factor in how the continent and the faction overcame their differences to win a global war.

An appeal to tradition in a place where that tradition was originally an invasive species.

Although now I’m having too much fun hiding the themes of Significatorius in convoluted prose.

I do hope you can find some intrigue in this attempt at a teaser though!

Antarctic Collective

Significatorius stands as its own title and complete story, but in regards to how it connects to my other books, there’s one that’s bold faced and obvious.

If you read Besnowed, you may recognize a familiar face in someone called Agum Gernan, Swefen and Lumi’s old college friend who lived behind the tall stone walls of Veranum City as well.

A part of Agum’s mystery was how he went from being somewhat of a degenerate to a pious priest between the jumps in time.

Well, Significatorius answers some of that. Showing how that odyssey started when quarantine measures shut down Antarctica for five years.

Outside of broader lore, there are very few direct connections to Besnowed, save that one major character.

However, I will say that I may have attempted to weave a wide net. Myths and legends have never been limited by such contrived barriers like time and space, after all.

I’ll leave that there for now, but I will be curious to know what others think of the implications.

Skyful Flowers

Back to Besnowed, I recently made a quick video with a few lines featuring fireworks. It seemed appropriate with the 4th of July and its hallmark celebrations.

And I’ve actually been thinking quite a bit about the evolution of my style since I first publicly released the book.

Originally, Besnowed was a reaction to years of rejections to my query letters. I wanted to write something a little different from my usual style in an attempt to attract an audience.

I failed.

Success came not from the shift in style, but from the confidence of talking about my writing at all. I’ve since rewritten and explored my earlier work, releasing a few and hiding others.

Significatorius is that mode of thinking coming full circle in many ways. I started out with a somewhat commercial mindset, but that evolved into adapting market expectations to who I am as a writer.

Hopefully, that speaks to some people more than just myself. Unhinged authenticity bending market expectations and not the other way around.

If that made you smile rather than squint your eyes in confusion, welcome aboard.

You are my kind of reader!

And if Palena’s world intrigues you, be sure to place a preorder while you still can!

🧣 Significatorius — Love at the end of the world, music under adverse stars.

Otherwise, until next time,

—JMB