Just finished doing the rewrite of The Gift (though I need to come up with a bit better name for it). Took five days and totals 15,000 words.
Next step is to do the editing and polishing. That may take almost as long, depending on time available.
Posts Tagged ‘Pure Escapism’
The Gift Rewrite Complete
Posted: July 25, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, Pure Escapism, Short story, writing, writing update
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Surging Forward
Posted: July 24, 2009 in writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, Pure Escapism, Short story, writing, writing update
When I sat down at the end of yesterday and did a word count I was quite staggered by it – 5500 words in total. I was not expecting as much, not after the stop-start nature that much of the day and compounded by having to have an hour long lie down in the middle of the day to try and shake off a nagging headache.
It was only after dinner that I really got into the swing of things, with a solid two and a half to three hour block of writing that was happily lacking any distractions. Got most of that word count done in that period. Only makes me wonder what I could have achieved if the whole day was like that.
That pushed the word total to date for The Gift to 10,000 and I’ve only used up about 2/3rds of the rough draft. I’m not going to have as much time today as yesterday, but hopefully by the weekend the rewrite will be done and next week comes the polishing and editing.
I’m rather happy with the speed it is coming along at though, and the story itself, even though I know I have to fix up a bit of an info dump that occurs at one place
Coming Up Next
Posted: July 23, 2009 in Pure Escapism, Tears of the Mountain, writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, Pure Escapism, Short story, Tears of the Mountain, writing, writing update
Now that the latest two stories have been finished and added to the site, time to catalogue what is next on the To Do list.
On the website side of things, I need to keep slowly adding to the Worlds of Mist and Shadows page, expanding on it, and to also finish off writing the background notes on all of the short stories. So far about half of them are done.
The older stories need another minor re-edit and a slight modification to their layout, but that isn’t a priority as of now.
Story wise, the main aim is for the moment to finish the rewrite of The Gift and to make it ready to post. So far I have done almost 4750 words of the rewrite and that from just 1900 words of the rough draft. Given the rough draft was 7300 words long, I should easily reach between the 15,000 and 20,000 word mark I was aiming for for this story. It is probably going to take a few days to do that much output – unless I get lucky and manage to string together a couple of those 5K word days.
Beyond that I need to return to the plotting of Tears of the Moon and get working on the proper draft of that, as well as working on some more short stories. There are five more of them partially mapped out or started, including part three of Cara’s Choice and follow up stories for the android Ray, the Minotaur Nhaqosa and the Braega/Tudhala setting.
Lots to do, which is good.
Welcome To the Mist and Shadows
Posted: July 22, 2009 in GeneralTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, Pure Escapism, Short story, writing
WELCOME TO MY WORLD
This website is part writing journal, part blog and part repository of stories both of adventure and fantastical in nature.
As a writing journal it tracks projects I am working on, their progress, ideas, updates and all other things writing related.
As a blog it features things of interest to me; sometimes they will tie in with my writing, other times not.
As a repository of my stories, it provides links to my stories of a variety of types, ranging from flash fiction to novels, though mostly short stories and novelettes for now. It also contains a wide variety of genres within the sf/f field – sci fi, steampunk, gunpowder fantasy, heroic fantasy, sword and sorcery fantasy, epic fantasy, urban fantasy and more. They can be found in the Pure Escapism part of the website.
What is in the name you ask? It ties in with the main setting of my writings and, while hints and references may have cropped up in some of the stories, the true meaning behind it is a mystery for another day.
Enjoy your visit and please feel free to browse and comment.
Future Portents Completed
Posted: July 21, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, Pure Escapism, Short story, World Building, writing, writing update
A second short story has had its editing complete today and been posted on the site.
Future Portents is a stand along story, set in the core world of the Mist and Shadows setting, Sharael. It is a bit of a different story, set at the dawn of the bronze age, when stone was beginning to give way to copper and then to bronze. It fits, chronologically, in between the time of the stories The Cahuac Cycle and those of The Maedari Book of Deeds.
The origins of it took place many years ago, but that initial story no longer worked for this setting, at least the second half of it, which required a total rewrite.
That second half may not make a lot of sense in parts;yet. It is in a way foreshadowing events yet to come and which will be revealed in other stories as I go along.
The Merchant’s Legacy Completed
Posted: July 21, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, minotaur, minotaurs, Pure Escapism, Short story, writing, writing update
I have finished off the editing for the latest short story in the Pure Escapism collection; The Merchant’s Legacy.
This is a follow up to the short story The Pit, though picks up the action some time afterwards and follows Nhaqosa, the giant white Minotaur and escaped gladiator, as he seeks the long roads to his home. The lands that he and his followers tread though are in the grip of drought and lawlessness, beset by bandits and monsters and seldom does he find a welcome. A chance encounter with the merchant Kythias may change all that…
It is the longest of the stories to date, coming in at around 11,000 words in length. I’m quite happy with the way it turned out, and the character of Nhaqosa. He is a fierce warrior when he needs to be, yet has a gentle side to him and at times can be a touch philosophical. I look forward to writing more stories with him in it in the future.
Rewrite Done
Posted: July 20, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, Pure Escapism, Short story, writing, writing update
Just finished the rewrite of The Merchant’s Legacy. Turned a 7400 word rough draft into 10700 words. Quite happy with the way it turned out.
Next trick is the extensive editing needed for it, and the other recently completed short story, Future Portents, and then I can make the available to read, hopefully in a few days.
And then comes a long list of other things that need doing. But one thing at a time
Rewrite Update
Posted: July 17, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, Pure Escapism, Short story, writing, writing update
Over the past three days I have had a rather productive spurt, clocking up almost 10,000 words. 5000 of those were yesterday. Haven’t managed to be so productive in, well, quite some time.
All of yesterday and art of the day before were spent on doing the rewrite of Future Portents and in the process I turned a 3700 word rough draft into 5700 words.
It will require editing (and more editing still – no matter how many times I seem to go over things with a fine tooth comb spelling and grammar errors always seen to get by me) and will require some rewording in spots. The end will need a bit more of a go over as well; I like how it is, but feel I could word it better.
Not sure when it will be going up yet to read. Hopefully not too long. Parts, particularly the end, may not immediately make much sense yet, as it is a bit of foreshadowing of things to come in later stories/events.
Next on the list to rewrite is The Merchant’s Legacy. The rough draft of that is 7400 words, so it may take a few days to do the rewrite.
News From Smashwords
Posted: July 16, 2009 in writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, Pure Escapism, Short story, smashwords, writing, writing update
As I have mentioned before, I’ve been putting the Pure Escapism short stories up on Smashwords as well as being able to download them directly from here.
Recently Smashwords have added a top 100 category, showing the 100 most downloaded stories on the site. Of those 100, 84 are free – hardly surprising really. Nothing of mine is in there yet, but with time perhaps..
There was also another category – top 25 most viewed authors. I was more than a little surprised to spot that, at the time of this posting, I had made the list at #21 for the last 30 days. It was a bizarre feeling to see it there. Admittedly it may be because I split the volumes up into their individual stories and so to read them all you need to download them four times instead of one.
Nevertheless, it does mean that people are downloading them. And hopefully enjoying them as well.
The Coming Together Of Ideas
Posted: July 16, 2009 in writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, Pure Escapism, Short story, writing, writing update
So there I was working away on The Merchant’s Legacy short story, and right at the end I added to a conversation between Nhaqosa and Kythias, a character who is destined to appear in In Fire, the novel plotted for that world.
And then a curious thing happened. The comments, meant simply as a couple of throw away lines to help explain Nhaqosa’s character, tied in perfectly to help explain why Kythias does what he does in In Fire. I’m not actually going to say what that is, because it is meant to be a mystery and a surprise.
When i saw how perfectly the ideas dovetailed together when I hadn’t even planned it, I sat back and just went ‘wow – this works.’ It was a good feeling.
Mist and Shadows 