Hello readers and writers! My name is Marc R Micciola and I am a self-published author from Brampton, Ontario, Canada. I always enjoyed stories, soaking them in through any format possible. My favourite way to tell my own stories is through writing, and it took me a while to fully embrace that. Writing isn’t exactly the most practical career, especially fiction writing, so I was discouraged from becoming an author most of my life. My mental health hasn’t always been the greatest either, so I had to deal with anxieties and depressive thoughts too. Thankfully, I finally got into a place where I said “Screw it” and decided to really work on writing a book. It was during a time in my life where I was really working on myself, and I truly believe this book got me to where I am today. My two dogs, Rielly and Ace, keep me grounded and happy while my best friend Mackenzie keeps me motivated and positive. Oh! Silly me. I just realized I haven’t even mentioned the name of my debut novel! My very first book is named Ascension, and is the first book in a series named The Age of Shadow Saga.

Ascension is my baby. I’ve had ideas for books before, even managed to write out a bit of them too, but Ascension is my first full fledged novel that I have written and published. The story that I plan to stretch out over three books is very character driven, and it’s one of the reasons why I love it so much. The world Ascension takes place in is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but the characters are what makes the book shine. All these characters have grown and changed over the near four years of creating this story and the world surrounding it. Hell, I’m still working on the world! I’ve invested so much time and work into the worldbuilding of The Age of Shadow Saga that I could do countless books based on stories taking place hundreds and even thousands of years before Ascension. I tried to give the reader a glimpse of just how dense the history of this world is by describing relationships between nations and name dropping important moments in history. The entire story of Ascension is told in first person, via the point of view of five characters. Those character’s names are Iver, Einar, Otti, Elouera, and Sigurd. I’ve done my best to make each character unique in how they see the world and how they respond to certain events throughout the story. One thing I know I did well was having every character at the end of the novel be somewhere different than where they were when we are first introduced to them; emotionally, physically, and mentally.

I got my love for character chapters from George RR Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire. The love and appreciation for writing in a first person point of view came from Mark Lawrence’s series The Broken Empire. I had learned to tell stories in third person, but as the years went on I began to truly fall in love with first person and the intimacy it brought to stories. Being inside a character’s head allowed me to really connect with them, experiencing the story in a more intimate way. This is why I went with first person for Ascension. I did a lot of research when it came to worldbuilding, but I also did some research for my characters. I wanted my characters to react to certain events in a genuine way, and I wanted to know what effect those events would have on their psyche. The search I went on actually helped me learn some things about myself too, so it was very worthwhile work. I really think that great characters make a great story, so I worked really hard to develop even secondary and tertiary characters that seemed as real as possible. When I write, I aim for a grounded experience without losing out of the wonder of a fantasy world. I think I did a really good job at bringing that goal to life with Ascension, and I can’t wait for you to let me know what you think. Enjoy your next read, enjoy the next story you write and always be true to who you are!

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