Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, revisions, sequels, series, writing on October 18, 2015| 1 Comment »
I hadn’t been making much progress in WAR OF MAGIC.
I can’t even tell you why. There wasn’t a good reason I couldn’t make progress on the scene I was trying to rewrite. I just couldn’t find my way into the newer version. Until yesterday.
Whew. Now that scene’s done and the next one, too, and I’m well on my way to having this revised beginning in good enough shape to let me move forward again.
Sometimes these things happen. But they’re extremely frustrating.
Posted in writing, tagged Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, Multiple Projects, revisions, sequels, series, writing, Young Adult on October 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »
As I posted (sort of) on Wednesday Thursday, I’m working my way back into WAR OF MAGIC, the fourth (and final) book in my DUAL MAGICS series.
Having decided on a title, I guess I can go ahead and finish the cover now.
I’m redoing the first couple of chapters because I just didn’t feel they were doing what I wanted or needed for the beginning of this book. This dissatisfaction may have been part of what was keeping me from making progress before. This is where taking a short break can really help.
It doesn’t help much with the other issue, though. Which is that I really think I’m going to have to kill off at least some of my characters at the climax of this one. It’d feel like cheating to get to this huge war and have everyone survive unscathed. But . . . I really don’t want to. Writing is hard, sometimes.
Meanwhile, I’m still tossing around the idea of putting together a boxed set of my three stand-alone young adult novels: FIRE AND EARTH, THE BARD’S GIFT, and DAUGHTER OF THE DISGRACED KING. But I’m still stuck on a cover image for these three disparate stories. So, I thought maybe coming up with a title would help. Right now, I’ve got:
BY SWORD, TALE, OR MAGIC:
Three Girls Who Changed Their Worlds
(Referring to the different weapons used by the heroines of these stories.) Not sure about that yet, though.
Posted in Real Life, writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, Real Life, revisions, sequels, series, writing on October 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Wow, I just realized that I completely forgot to post yesterday.
Real life just came up and hit me in the face yesterday. Taken care of now, more or less.
My only excuse for today is that it’s Thursday and it never occurred to me because I post on Wednesdays and Sundays.
So, to make this just a little writing related, I’m working my way back into WAR OF MAGIC, the fourth–and last–book of my DUAL MAGICS series. The brief hiatus was just what I needed I think. Both to recharge and to get a little distance.
I’m reworking the first few chapters right now because the beginning . . . just wasn’t working. This will be better. Then I can move forward.
Posted in writing, tagged Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, first pages, Multiple Projects, sequels, series, writing on September 27, 2015| Leave a Comment »
I’ve made good progress on the very rough draft of BECOME, the first book of my next epic fantasy series. But I’m starting to get the itch to go back to WAR OF MAGIC, the final book of the DUAL MAGICS series.
This is exactly what I was hoping for when I took a short break to work on something else. Getting my enthusiasm for a project I’ve been working on for so long back up to the level I need to make the climax work.
I may work on the two in tandem for a while. I’ve done that before and the protagonists and stories are enough different that I think the risk of calling Vatar by Gaian’s name, or vice versa, is probably small. But I expect the momentum to carry me forward on WAR OF MAGIC before long.
Here’s a very early look at the first page of Become. This is part of the prologue. Gaian’s very first appearance shown from the point of view of one of his antagonists:
Queen Carala hung on tight to the railing at the top of the staircase for balance and scowled at the spectacle below her, clearly visible through the great doors, which had been flung wide for the occasion. A procession of priestesses, led by the High Priestess herself, climbed sedately up the broad steps of the Palace and were met by Carala’s husband of less than a year, Leradan, the Year King.
If she weren’t so heavily pregnant, she’d be down there herself. Not to welcome the priestesses, but to monitor whatever foolish promises Leradan made to them. Not that she’d have been able to sway him. Goddess knew she’d talked herself hoarse last night trying. But no one could change that man’s mind once he’d made it up. And he’d decided to let himself be thoroughly gulled about this.
Carala sighed. Much as she wanted to be there, it took two of her husband’s strongest guardsmen to see her safely down the steep staircase at this point. She’d just have to rely on her half-sister, Lady Damina, to let her know what ridiculous oaths the High Priestess extracted from Leradan.
Below, the High Priestess accepted a small, blanket-wrapped bundle from one of the other priestesses and passed it to Leradan. The infant squalled at the transfer and Leradan, blast the man, put the baby on his shoulder and rocked, completely oblivious to the effect on his dignity. Not that the demonstration that he would be a good father wasn’t reassuring. Carala placed a hand on her own swollen belly. But there was a time and place for everything. And the great hall, with the doors wide open to the whole kingdom, was not the place.
Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, inspiration, Multiple Projects, sequels, series, writing on September 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »
For some reason, it always seems to happen this way. (I think it’s just that this is the oil that gets my subconscious story factory running.)
I’m working on part of a rough draft of the next series before I go back (soon) and write the final book in the current series. So, of course, now is the time I start getting ideas for new stories. Stories that I cannot possibly write this year and probably not next.
I just jot the ideas down and file them away in my story ideas folder. Which isn’t exactly empty to begin with. Well, I’m not likely to run out of things to write for a while.
Posted in writing, tagged conflict, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, series, writing on September 13, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Let me be clear. I despise cliff hangers. And not just the ones that leave a main character literally hanging off some metaphorical cliff. I also hate the ones that have only a temporary resolution of the story problem–or none at all–and basically force you to pick up the next book to find out what happens.
I’ve worked really hard in all of the DUAL MAGICS books to have a complete story in each one–some problem that starts early in the book and gets some kind of resolution at the end. Of course, middle books in series also need to have a build-up of unresolved problems that will come to fruition in the last book, which complicates the resolution. But each book does have some conflict that defines that part of the series, too.
While I’ve been taking a brief respite from DUAL MAGICS, I’ve been working on a very rough draft of the first book of what will be my next epic fantasy series. (By the way, the break is working. My subconscious has started throwing up ideas about the way things should go as I build to the series climax. I’ll be able to go back to it with more enthusiasm–and more inspiration–soon.) I think this new series will be a trilogy, possibly a duology.
But here’s the problem: right now at least, I can’t see any way that this first book can end that isn’t a cliff hanger. Oh, not that I won’t have, sort of, resolved the conflict I set up at the beginning. But it won’t be a satisfying kind of resolution. And it can’t be, not for this series.
And that presents a problem for me. I don’t want to do to my readers the sort of thing that annoys me as a reader. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m getting a start on this now. I may need to write this series all the way to the end, at least in rough draft, first. That way, I could shorten the time between releases so maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
For right now, it’s still just get the story down, though.
Posted in writing, tagged Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, inspiration, Multiple Projects, sequels, series, world building, writing on August 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Well after bashing my head against the keyboard repeatedly, I’ve decided that the problem with getting back into Book 4 (probably to be titled WAR MAGIC) is that I just need to give myself a break. I need to let my creative battery recharge.
Because, let’s face it, if I’m not enthusiastic about what I’m writing, that’s going to show. It’s not that I don’t love the characters, world, and story of the DUAL MAGICS series. It’s that I’ve been living with it 24/7 for at least two years. And the story has been running around in my head for much longer than that. (This is the third version. The first book had been written in full twice, once very badly, once in a misguided attempt to make it YA. And the second had been written all the way through once, again, very badly. It took two complete rewrites of THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and one of THE VOICE OF PROPHECY before I felt they were ready for the world to see them.)
Even during breaks–like while a manuscript was cooling before revisions or while it was out with my beta readers–I’ve mostly been working on either the tie-in short stories or the next book in the series. Or just giving another editing to pass to something I’d written earlier and formatting it for Amazon, like DAUGHTER OF THE DISGRACED KING, which was actually written just before I started on the rewrite of THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.
Sometimes, you can recharge by taking a vacation. That’s probably something I need to do. It’s a great way to get inspiration, among other things. But it’s not going to be this year. Or probably next.
But there are other ways to recharge the creative batteries. Fortunately, one of them is to allow your mind to play with other toys. So, even though I don’t have a first draft, yet, Book 4 does have a cover. (Well, except for the title, etc., anyway.)
Another way I’m going to recharge is by playing in another sandbox for a little while. So I’ve given myself permission to spend a little time in the world of my next epic fantasy series. Not for long. But it’s amazing how much more writing I can get done on something new. I need to bring that “new” energy back to the final book of the DUAL MAGICS series. Maybe this is the way to do that.
This new series doesn’t have a name yet. I’m playing with THE GODDESS’S OWN, but we’ll see. It’s either a trilogy or a duology. The first book is currently titled BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING. We’ll see about that, too. It’s sort of a Hercules story, turned completely–or almost completely–upside down. (Hint: The hero’s not the son of the sky god (like Hercules’s father, Zeus), but of the mother-earth goddess.)
So, Book 4 is coming. But I think it will actually come faster–and better–for just a little break to let my imagination play with other toys.
Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, Learning, Multiple Projects, revisions, sequels, series, writing on August 26, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Okay, so this week I’ve mostly been trying to get back into the first draft of the fourth book in the DUAL MAGICS series, likely to be titled WAR OF MAGIC or possibly WAR MAGIC. Maybe WARRIOR OF MAGIC. (But maybe not any of those if I get a better idea. Titles are hard.)
I posted before about the necessary shift in mind set from editing to writing a first draft. The first draft is just to get the story down. I’m not supposed to worry about whether I’ve got the right word or even whether a sentence is awkward. Or whether I’ve put in enough description or too little. Or whether, at the start of the fourth book, readers have enough of a re-introduction to the characters and setting. And a million other things that I worry very much about when I’m revising or editing. Which, of course, is what I was most recently doing–revising and editing the final draft of BEYOND THE PROPHECY.
I’ve had more trouble than usual getting started again with this story–and it’s because I made a mistake.
When I stopped work on this first draft to do the final revision and polishing edit on BEYOND THE PROPHECY, I didn’t stop when I had a good vision of what would happen in the next chapter, as I should have. No, I stopped at a place where I had to make a time jump (over some boring bits) and I had only a vague idea of what came immediately next. That was a very bad idea. It made it doubly hard to start building some momentum.
I have to keep reminding myself that this draft doesn’t have to be good–or even complete–so long as it gets the story down so I can fix it.
I have–finally–gotten one chapter down. (Though even then, I had to just put a note in saying “More here” and move past a spot that had me stopped for a day.)
Now, I’m going to start getting away from the planning and more into that war promised in the (probable) title. Hopefully, that should let me build up some momentum.
Posted in writing, tagged Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, Learning, marketing, writing, Young Adult on August 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »
While I’m trying to transition my brain back into first-draft mode, I updated the cover of FIRE AND EARTH. Admit it, the old cover was kind of boring:
The new version is more dramatic:
It’s one of the great things about e-publishing that it’s so easy to change a cover.
Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, Learning, marketing, Multiple Projects, sequels, series, writing on August 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »
BEYOND THE PROPHECY is all set.
Final draft uploaded for pre-order. Print files formatted and the proof ordered. (The print version will go live as soon as I’ve checked the proof and made any adjustments necessary.) I also have to get busy setting up some promotions and maybe trying to get a few early reviews.
So, now it’s time to transition back from revisions and edits to the first draft of Book 4 (likely to be titled either WAR OF MAGIC or MAGIC’S WARRIOR). This will be the last book of the DUAL MAGICS series.
This transition always takes a few days because it’s a complete shift in thinking. I have to stop worrying whether that’s the precisely right word. Even stop worrying about getting the details right. The first draft is to get the story down. Nothing else.
It always takes me a few days to make that shift. Right now, I’m reading through what I’ve already written (while BEYOND THE PROPHECY was with my beta readers). That’s necessary, but the temptation to edit and revise is still strong.
Meredith Mansfield, Author 