Posts Tagged ‘fantasy’

Winter Wolves Finished

Posted: February 19, 2011 in fantasy, winter wolves, writing update
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Early this morning I got to the end of the rewrite and polishing of Winter Wolves and typed ‘The End.’

Its been a long while since I started it but now it has reached its conclusion. Well, more or less. There is still work to be done; proof reading, cover design and above all formatting for both Smashwords and Amazon. Hopefully that will not take too long and people can have a rad of it.

Already working on what to do next. I have the half finished novel He Stands Between, as well as two novellas, Hammer of the Skies and Dawn of Wolves that need finishing, plus another currently secret project. Maybe I’ll just flip a coin to see which gets priority.

And at some stage I need to work on updating parts of the website.

Progress Report

Posted: February 16, 2011 in winter wolves, writing update
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I’m making good progress on the editing of Winter Wolves, having done thirteen of the twenty one chapter so far.

That is the easy part.

After finishing the rewriting I did some brainstorming, trying to nut out a few problems I was having with the plot as it sat. The brainstorming worked well, as I figured out a way to fix the problems not only to my satisfaction, but to tie it in with a short story I’ve written as well. The major issue with the new ideas is that it is going to take some major rewriting in the second half of the book – maybe even whole chapters will need to be done. That all lies ahead still.

But at the current rate I am still looking at the end of the month to have it done and up available for download around the place.

Winter Wolves: Starting the Final Edit/Polish

Posted: February 10, 2011 in fantasy, winter wolves, writing update
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I’ve finished writing Winter Wolves. Its been a long time in the coming, but it is done finally.

Now comes the next phase – the editing and polishing. It is going to need it. Some concepts and ideas changed during the writing and so I’m going to have to go back through it and fix any inconstancies that may have caused, as well as fleshing out various spots that need some more detail. The largest amount of work needs to happen in the last one third, while the first one third is almost ready to go.

The aim is to have it up and out by the end of the month. Sooner if I can manage it.

January Report

Posted: February 2, 2011 in fantasy, Tears of the Mountain, The Oncoming Storm, winter wolves, writing update
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January has come and gone – yes already. One twelfth of the year has already flown by.

Writing wise it was a decent month. Notable points are;

130K words written – mostly rewriting old drafts but still that is progress.
70K done on rewrite of Winter Wolves novel.
10.5K done of rewrite of Dawn of Wolves novella.
Tears of the Mountain published on Smashwords/Amazon.
Halfway into the rewrite of He Stands Between.
Various notes and ideas done for other stories.

Hope I can keep up the pace for February.
Aims for February are finishing off Winter Wolves and hopefully Dawn of the Wolves, plus a short story or two. And trying to market Tears of the Mountain better.

Progress and Plans

Posted: January 14, 2011 in Tears of the Mountain, winter wolves, writing update
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The year has begun and we are already a couple of weeks in so I thought it time to take stock of what has happened and what I have got planned.

Firstly I have managed to write everyday of the year so far, and not insubstantial amounts. If I am rather liberal with my definition of ‘written’ then I have written 58,000 words in 13 days. The best day was yesterday, with 9,500 words done. Of course a large chunk, read most, of those words are rewriting old drafts into newer drafts. It is much easier and faster doing it that way, but of course the rough drafts need doing first.

Some of those words are on rough drafts, of which some have already received some rewriting, which seems a rather fruitful way of doing it. Scribble up the rough draft in the morning and in the evening get stuck into a rewrite of it.

All of that has been spread over a number of projects I’m busy working on to try and finish off, ranging from novels to short stories. The quick they are done, the better.

In addition to all that, I have finished the editing and polishing for Tears of the Mountain (or at least that is the theory – I have probably missed half the errors in it.) To celebrate I have put it up on Smashwords, and plan to make it available at more places (such as Amazon), as well as pushing it around the traps – but more on that later.

So that is what has been happening. Now for what I have planned.

I do at some stage need to give the old website an overhaul, updating the statuses of various projects, stories, collections and the like to reflect changes that have happened.

Short term plans are to complete the last part of the initial book of Cara’s Choice – the rough draft is getting close to being finished – and also to finish a rewrite and update of an old novel, Winter Wolves. Winter Wolves was sitting on around 60K of its rough draft when I left it but finishing Tears of the Mountain inspired me to return to it, given it takes place in the same setting and features one of the same characters. Since I wrote it there have been a number of changes to the setting that need incorporating, as well as it needing a complete overhaul of the ending; it didn’t work at the time and works even less due to various changes. But in a day and a half I’ve done 13,000 words of the rewrite of it.

Longer term is a goal to increase output, that being a short story every two weeks, a novel/novella every two months. An audacious target I know, but if I keep up my current output then it is entirely achievable.

I even had the short list of what those projects will be;

Winter Wolves (gunpowder fantasy novel)
He Stands Between (epic fantasy novel)
Hammer of the Skies (steampunk novella)
Cara’s Choice: The Awakening (urban fantasy novella)
Primal Tales III (fantasy short story)
Nhaqosa V (fantasy short story)
Cahuac and the Fisherman (fantasy short story)

Between all that I should be busy for a while.

Meet Professor Halir, The Unexpected Character

Posted: January 3, 2011 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, Sharael, Tears of the Mountain, winter wolves, World Building, writing update
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Professor Halir Ashford. Historian, Explorer and Adventurer. One of the favourite characters I’ve written so far. And a character who really shouldn’t have existed beyond a minor mention. It happens from time to time; characters take on a life of their own and demand a bigger say in things.

His story starts back with a novel I was planning (but never got around to starting). I needed someone to introduce the main character (Heric ‘Harry’ Ban, likewise a character that came about unexpectedly) to the adventure, and so I came up with Halir. he had been a friend of Harry’s father back during a war and was now a professor and historian. The novel was abandoned and the character would have been forgotten except for another novel I started sometime later, Winter Wolves.

Winter Wolves was my first serious effort at plotting and then writing a novel, and was designed to be a showcase for the setting and for Harry Ban. I even managed to complete a round draft. There was a need for a character who would draw Harry into events, and for that I went back to Halir and brought him along.

Though I finished the rough draft, I never got around to fleshing it out, instead, as is my want, I moved onto other projects and suddenly Halir took over somewhat. He got himself two lengthy short stories, Gifts and Sacrifices, and The Tomb of the Tagosa Kings, and then he got himself a full novel in which to star – Tears of the Mountain – which is the first novel I’ve completely properly.

It won’t be the last that Professor Halir is seen either.

Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards

Posted: January 1, 2011 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, Tears of the Mountain, The Oncoming Storm, winter wolves, writing update
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I’m not going to look back at my resolutions for last year – I know that most of them never got done, which is why I normally don’t bother.

It is a good time, however, to look back over 2010 and to look forward to 2011.

2010 was a year of missed opportunities, both writing and otherwise.  While I did actually complete my first proper, full length novel, my writing output was way down on what it should have been and that single novel should have been more.  Moreover, it is still sitting there gathering dust and hasn’t been used yet, something that needs to be rectified.

2011 needs to see an improvement.  I’m not going to make any resolutions – because they will just be broken – but I want to see a lot more writing done, both novels and short stories.  I’ve got all these ideas floating around not being used.

I’m going to go over the Pure Escapism page and stories and clean it up, make it look more professional.  That includes new and improved covers.  I have a few that I’ve worked on and that I need to upgrade the rest to that level.

I’d like to try and add at least one new short story to the collection a month – more of the time permits – and of course to try and exchange the reader base. Cleaning up and polishing the pages here and at Smashwords, plus starting to join up on various forums should help with that a bit.

The big one is of course the novels. I’ve got one complete and two half complete. They need to get completed, polished and made ready as soon as I can. And then I have to make a big decision.

Do I try for an agent and publisher, a long and laborious process that has no guarantees of any success?

Or do I try and go independent? There is no success guaranteed there either but there will at least be something to show for it, which is more than would happen if I ended up with no agent. It would require a whole new skillset – that of self marketting – but there have been a number of successes to show it is not impossible.

A Smashwords Success Story to Aspire Too

Posted: December 23, 2010 in General
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I’ve got a few stories up on Smashwords – nothing major, just my collection of short stories. It is a valuable tool that one day I need to make more of. And now I have the inspiration to do so.

On the Smashwords blog there is a post about one of their authors, Brian S Pratt, whose books have taken off. He is on track to make $100,000 next year from sales. That is the kind of success I dreamed of making when starting out. Actually, I’d be happy with just a quarter of that.

The difference between him and me is output. He has 17 books out there, mostly large epic fantasy, the genre I in part dabble in. I currently have a bunch of short stories.

What I really need to do is sit down and write, write some more and then continue writing and get some novels and novellas finished and put up. Only then could I possibly consider success anywhere near that scale.

The full interview can be read here.

Return of a Familiar Friend

Posted: December 18, 2010 in fantasy, The Oncoming Storm, writing update
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I was poking around some old half written stories and drafts and game across one I started some time back – and found it was 47K in length. That is a fair chunk of novel just sitting there getting no use so I thought I would return to it and finish it, as I have plans for it.

The story itself is currently called He Stands Between, the first book of a epic fantasy series called The Oncoming Storm. As with any epic fantasy it has the full array of tropes; a host of characters, daring deeds and heroic last stands, noble heroes and dastardly villains, world shaking events and everything else that epic fantasy holds dear. There are still a few details to work out, such as the name of one of the main characters. He has been through a couple and I am still not entirely satisfied.

The rewrite is coming along great, almost to 10K words from only just over 2 days. I am slowly ramping up as I haven’t had a good stretch of writing for a while. Hopefully I can match the output when I first started writing the draft, back last year. The first 40K came in just 7 days.

By the end of the year, which is only 13 days away, I’d like to well on the way to finishing. I am still considering my options with what to do with it once done, but one main one is a thought to go indie with it.

A New Nhaqosa Story: Wisdom from the Ashes

Posted: December 3, 2010 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, writing update
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The next chapter in The Chronicles of the White Bull is now on the site, entitled Wisdom from The Ashes.

It follows on from the events of Echoes of Dark Reflections and Nhaqosa is not in a good state physically or mentally from the encounter in the dark crystalline tower. His band is starting to fray without his leadership, and worse are the dreams that haunt him both day and night.

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