Upstream Updates: October Edition!

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!