Yes, I realize this is later in the month, too... But oh well! Never mind that... I suppose it was too much to plan on having the update ready by the same time every month, never mind the beginning of said month. Moving right along!
Writing
The Amazon Triangle
Huzzah! I have
finished the first draft of The Amazon Triangle! And I can confirm,
it does take me about two years to write the first draft of a
novel--the first one was "The Last Inkweaver", but at roughly 85,000
words, it's significantly shorter than "The Amazon Triangle",
which clocks in at a hefty 102,600 words--my longest original work to
date!
Though I have to say, if I had been
focusing on just the one project, I might have finished it sooner--it
was the last Big Climactic Fight Scene that stymied me for so long!
But it came together with some careful finagling and basically
breaking down the scene move-by-move, deciding who went where, who
said what, how it ended up and what would happen next... and once
that was over with, the rest came together quite nicely! If you're
interested in beta-reading, you're in luck! The entire thing is on
Wattpad. Feel free to read it >HERE< and let me know what you think!
The Last Inkweaver
In the last month,
I've finished Chapter 20--and Callista & Company has only just
landed in the clutches of Ronni the bounty hunter. Yes, it's another
one that ended up with more detail than I originally anticipated--but
it was fun!
So in my new conception, Ronni is a bounty hunter who
specifically targets Wordspinners and those who believe in their
skill and abilities, because she perceives them as weak and also they
are rejected by the Crown so she sees a way she can conduct her
business of rounding up, imprisoning, and selling people, while the
authorities look the other way. Then, too, it comes out that she
knows the Wordspinner folk because she can hear the Tale of a Told
item. (If you're paying attention, you can figure out exactly how
that is so... But it isn't
explicitly stated in the text!) The difference between Ronni and the
other person who can hear all Tales is that she is using the Tales as
a weapon against her targets. Additionally, she has ensured that
anyone working for her will not succumb to a Tale by having their
ears chopped off. Not a nice person, that--but very necessary for
Callista to learn an important lesson. Things are really going to
start changing for her from here on out... On a lighter note, I had
this really clear idea of a big mansion in the middle of a
forest--but the middle had caved in, so Ronni would capitalize on
that and just dig (or have her men do it) a really deep pit straight
down the middle, down past the cellar and everything, and use that to
keep her prisoners in. They would rig an elevator sort of platform
off of the old dumbwaiter pulley system, as a means of getting the
prisoners down without providing an easy way out, and there they
would wait until Ronni got word of a wagon some traffickers promised
to send her years ago, when she started rounding up people because
she'd run out of Wordspinners.
A
Writer's Tale
I am so excited
to be on my way with planning Book 3! It's called "The Sheriff's
Showdown" (conventional, yes... I may change it later on, but it
works for now!) Laura steps out of a futuristic cyberpunk space
cruiser after a battle against an alien horde, and into the high
desert, and a random Wild Western town! The good-hearted sheriff is
hard-pressed to protect his town from the dirty misdeeds of Big Tom
and his rowdy gang of bandits--they've run every other sheriff out of
town, and the only laws they heed are their own. As far as they are
concerned, Phantom Gulch all but belongs to them. Then again, the
other sheriffs didn't have a girl like Laura randomly showing up in
town. What can a young woman with no remarkable skill in self defense
do against outlaws with guns? Not much, when the revelation that Big
Tom's latest raid might have been an inside job--and all eyes and
fingers point to her! Laura will need all of her wits about her to
clear her name, find the mole, stop a major coup, and save Phantom
Gulch--and that might lead to some surprising discoveries for her, as
well!
*SPECIAL
NANOWIRMO ANNOUNCEMENT!!!*
I
figure it's late enough in the month that I might as well announce
the upcoming shenanigans I have planned for November! I will be
participating in my seventh straight year of the National Novel
Writing Month challenge--for those who don't know, the goal is to
write 50 thousand words in 30 days. That's all it is, just a goal.
It's not a competition nor a pledge, there's no cash prizes or medals
or anything... just good, old-fashioned, well-meaning,
write-like-your-life-depends-on-it-then-obsess-over-what-you've-written-till-your-eyes-glaze-over
kind of writerly fun!
I've
opted to use this year's challenge to finally finish The
Last Inkweaver... for the second time, but this one is so
much better than the first! And
then, if it turns out (which I'm fairly certain it will... or else
we've got bigger problems on our hands) that there isn't a whole
50-thou left for me to write that, I've also got The
Sheriff's Showdown as a backup
filler.
What
does this mean for the blog? Likely there will be no more "Flashes of Inspiration" on Fridays... but I think updates on Wednesdays and
Saturdays, to let you all know how I'm doing, would not go amiss,
would it? Stay tuned for NaNo2018 Updates!
My
BOOkish Blog Hop!
 |
| Introductory Post |
Another
blog hop is nearing its close! I know I've been very lax in keeping up with
adding the links every day--but as of tomorrow they
will all be added, so there you go! In spite of that, it's been
really fun to answer the questions, getting to see and explore new
blogs, and I hope you will consider perhaps leaving a comment and
joining the various conversations before the month is over!
Reading
It's
been slow going on the reading front! I find myself not so much in
the mood for reading in the evenings, as I might have, and my recent
weekend off was more spent writing and hanging out with friends than
actually having the mental space to read!
That
being said, I did manage to finish A Sliver of Stardust by
Marissa Burt. I first discovered her duology Storybound and
Story's End while
browsing the shelves, and for the longest time, those were the only
books of hers that I knew of--I never realized she'd started another
series since then! But she has, and it's every bit as lovely as
Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library!
Burt breathes life into simple nursery rhymes, giving them a special
sort of magic to be able to bend reality when combined with the
tracing of stardust--a singular system of magic that is at once
thrilling and chilling by turns!
At any
rate, from there it's on to T is for Trespass by
Sue Grafton--Book 20 in the series! I'm almost done! After that it's
only U, V, W, X, and Y... unfortunately Ms. Grafton passed away
before she could write the final novel in her delectable series.
Rather poetic in a sense--but still heartfelt and tragic all the
same.
As far
as ebooks are concerned... Honestly, I've been on quite the buying
binge. So many books
came on a discount in the same weekend I happened to have a gift card
to spend--and some of them I was expecting to pay for, but ended up
free! At last count, I have roughly 60+ ebooks purchased and
downloaded that I haven't a prayer of
getting around to reading if I don't make a conscious, intentional
effort to do so!
Currently,
I'm almost finished with Oblivion's Forge.
I have to say, I am glad I gave it a second shot. The first time I
came to it, I'd just read Herald of Autumn which
was a kind of twisty, bizarre urban fantasy adventure... so to follow
that with yet another twisty, bizarre high fantasy was a bit too much
to handle. I switched it out with another novel, and as it happens,
that's just what it needed! I'm following the story better, getting
to know the characters--still very much on a grand, mysterious "Dark
Tower" scale. I'm really
getting that vibe from all this! And if that was worth it, then
here's hoping this one will be, too.
That
about sums it up! What are you up
to these days? Feel free to comment with an update--I'd love to hear
from YOU!
Catch
You Further Upstream!
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