Posts Tagged ‘writing update’

Writing Projects Update

Posted: July 11, 2009 in Pure Escapism, Tears of the Mountain, writing update
Tags: , , , , , ,
2

Thought I should do a post updating the various projects, where they currently stand and where they are hopefully headed.

The novel with the working title of Tears of the Mountain has been commenced, with 9K written of the first rough draft. Currently the rough draft is on a short pause as a proper plot and outline are worked on.

The prequel pilot novella, nominally called The Gift has been started, only around 4K done on it so far, but the story plot has been figured out. Aiming for 15-20K in length, it is intended to get a feel for the world, sort of like a pilot to a TV show does.

Pure Escapism is still coming along – need to finish off one draft and then edit it and a second draft to finish off the third volume. Hopefully this month, but certainly for next month.

For the contents of it, I have ideas for a number more short stories for a couple more volumes still. After that, while there will be plenty of one off stories, they will be fleshed out with ongoing series of stories which will, in theory, explore a number of different themes.

Cara’s Choice is going to be the only serial of them, an ongoing story told in episodes as they are released. It is an urban fantasy – nothing too out of the ordinary about it, except vampires will never ever be the good guys.

Of the core world of writing there are two main series, both from the earlier parts of history, but there will be other stories spread around in other time periods as well. I’ve had fun writing the myths of Aracan Hobgoblins in The Cahauc Cycle and so they will keep coming, and in time I may delve into myths of other cultures. The other series is planned to be The Book of Deeds, which relates the deeds of great Maedari Kings and Heroes during the bronze age of the world.

The series that I am calling The Primal Tales revolves around Braega and the lizardman Tudhala. There is plans for another character to join up soon. These stories aim to be wild and primal in nature, revolving around ruins, primeval creatures and the like. For these I have drawn inspiration in part from the Conan stories by Robert E Howard.

The other main series is those dealing with Nhaqosa the minotaur, which go by the name A Wanderer’s Tale. These are trending towards a more dark nature, and the world he finds himself in is more brutal and gritty in nature.

I have also been pondering on whether to write more about the sarcastic android Ray and his luckless master Brian in a sci-fi series, trying for a more humourous group of stories. May be fun to try something a bit more radical than the norm for me.

That is the plan at least – next step is to get it working.

How To Start A Novel

Posted: July 6, 2009 in Tears of the Mountain, writing update
Tags: , , , ,
0

I must admit that I have no problems beginning novels – I have ideas spilling out all the time – but where I do fall down is ending them. While I am for ever starting new ones, the fact I finished a rough draft earlier in the year was something of an oddity.

Holly Lisle wrote an article called How to Start a Novel and in it is discussed what is really my main mistake – lack of planning.

I think I will have to pause momentarily with Tears of the Mountain (after having made it 9K in already) and go through and plan it properly, make sure that it is all there in front of me – world, characters, conflict, theme, the works.

I am not without things to do in the meantime – working on more stuff for Pure Escapism, the ‘prequel’ pilot for Tears of the Mountain and various other tasks that need doing.

Another Idea

Posted: July 4, 2009 in Tears of the Mountain, writing update
Tags: , , , , ,
0

The rough draft for Tears of the Mountain has suddenly hit 9K words, the draft barreling along at a fair clip of knots, and yet not much has happened. No indication yet as to how long this will turn out to be.

Strangely, while doing this, another idea came to mind. No, I’m not stopping work on the draft, but it does sort of tie in.

What I’m thinking of is to do a longer short story, some 15-20K in length, that is something of a prequel to Tears of the Mountain. The main though behind doing this was to introduce a few of the characters and also to give an overall indication to the feel of the world which is a little different than for most fantasy worlds. Plan would be to have it to share and show around when talking about the novel and the world, so people can see what it is all about.

Sought of like a pilot for a TV program, the purpose thereof to generate some interest.

At least that is the idea.

A Good Start Made

Posted: July 3, 2009 in Tears of the Mountain, writing update
Tags: , , , ,
0

The rough draft of Tears of the Mountain is coming along at a fair pace – already passed 6000 words and I haven’t quite finished the couple of pages of rough synopsis that it has come from.

It has been bubbling along quite nicely and I was surprised at how much has been done already when I did a word count.

The part written was meant to only be an introduction, get a feel for the setting and story, but it has expanded more than I expected – and it will only do so more when I get around to doing the rewrite.

In its current form it is fairly basic – descriptions, conversations, plot. On past performance, when I do do the rewrite and fleshing out those 6K will be out to 10K or more.

Time to get back to writing now though – have more of the rough draft that needs writing.

Week In Review: Week Twenty Five & Twenty Six 2009

Posted: July 2, 2009 in Pure Escapism, Tears of the Mountain, writing update
Tags: , ,
0

It would appear that I did not do one for last week, so here are two for the price of one.

Twenty six weeks down, twenty six to go. Had hoped to show more progress thus far, but slow and steady as the old saying goes.

Over the last two weeks I have finished off the second volume of Pure Escapism, started the third and also Tears of the Mountain, the working title of the novel I’ve started. I’m already 4200 words in to the rough draft of it after only a few days and I haven’t even really started. Pure Escapism Volume Three totals over 10K words also so far and I have yet to complete the main story, or start editing and fleshing out.

By next week those totals will hopefully be significantly increased.

The New Project

Posted: July 1, 2009 in Tears of the Mountain, writing update
Tags: , , , , ,
0

After a long period of threatening, I have finally started work on writing the novel. Yep, it is now the WIP and will remain so until it is done, with Pure Escapism relegated behind it.

I started writing it two days ago and have already passed 3000 words on the rough draft, which was a bit more than I expected. I’d written up shortly before that a couple of pages in a notebook detailing just the first small part of the story. I haven’t even finished expanding on that in the rough draft and those 3000 words came from just 150 words in the synopsis. And that will only get longer once it goes from draft to expanded form.

I’m am currently giving it the working title Tears of the Mountain, but that is probably going to change later on.

As for the story itself, it takes place about 20 years prior to the events in Tomb of the Tagosa Kings from the first volume of Pure Escapism, and features a younger Halir. It has action, adventure, lost cities, ancient ruins, hidden treasures, intrigue, politics and much more.

July/Midyear Plans

Posted: July 1, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing update
Tags: , ,
0

We are now exactly half of the way through the year and it is time to take stock, recharge and plan ahead.

For July there are a couple of aims.

One is to finish off the third volume of Pure Escapism. That, however, is a secondary goal.

The primary goal for the month is to get working on the rough draft of the novel.

There are a few other minor things I’d like to see done – such as fix up the website – but they are only if time allows.

For the rest of the year, number one goal is of course finishing off the novel, hopefully finding a home for it. In addition I hope to put out at least two more volumes of Pure Escapism in that time.

June Challenge Report

Posted: July 1, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing update
Tags: , ,
0

June has come and gone and with it the challenge I had set myself.

It was to aim for doing 2K a day in word count, but to do at least 1K minimum. End result came to 40,000 words for the month.

Not as much as I would have hoped for, but if you look at it over a year keeping that pace up, it comes to almost half a million words. Which is a lot.

During that period I did finish off the second volume of Pure Escapism, and make a good start on the third. More importantly I did finally make a start on the novel in the last couple of days.

Of course, now I know what I’m doing, next month will be better. Naturally.

I Knew I Shouldn’t Have Done It

Posted: June 28, 2009 in writing update
Tags: , ,
0

I went to the movies yesterday. I had been tossing up whether to go or not – it had been a while since I last went and I should have really been writing. But in the end I went.

I ended up seeing Transformers 2. The first one had been decent, but not great, and I was hoping the second would be as well. Parts were – the parts with giant robots thrashing it out. The rest, well, it was filled with far too much juvenile humour, stupid plot and useless characters. But enough about that.

As I was watching I got thinking about writing. Yeah, even when I was taking time off the old brain never stops. In this time a completely new idea was sparked, in part inspired by fragments of the movie and in part from another story I’d recently come across.

What was odd is it is really a genre I’d never considered before. Or genres. The concept covers a few genres – part sci-fi, part action-thriller, part military-adventure and even part horror. The plot has been unfolding itself before me fairly rapidly.

Whether I use it or not is another question. I should probably write down the ideas that are spawning in my fevered imagination just in case…

Another One Down

Posted: June 28, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing update
Tags: , , , ,
0

Just finished off the third short story rough draft for Pure Escapism Volume Three. Only one more to go and I can start the major task of editing.

The fourth one is going to be the longest, but I hope to have its draft completed by the end of the month, just a couple of days away. So far it has panned out that in each volume there is one major story that takes up about half the book and three others that fill in the rest. Not sure how that happened, but I think I’ll stick with it.

Older Entries
Newer Entries