7/31/18
There's a lot on my to-do list (I feel like there's always a lot on my to-do list), but this week I've found myself focusing on two specific items. The first is, of course, the edits for If A Butterfly Don't Fly. I'm making progress, but as usual it's slow going. The editor has again requested that I rewrite large portions of the story. I understand why, but a) it's painful to do, and b) it's ridiculously time consuming. Still, I want to try to get it done quickly so I can really start digging into the second thing I've been working on this week. Dragon Spy, the seventh book in my Supernatural Consultant series, has been languishing for far too long and I've finally taken the time to get some work done on it. Chapter One is from Nickel's perspective, which is always a bit more serious, but Chapter Two has decided it wants to be from Lumie's perspective instead. There's a bit more levity when Lumie is around and causing problems. I can't say it's more fun to write Lumie instead of Nickel, but it's easier to find the right flow. This means I can finally start figuring out the second half of the blurb for Dragon Spy. It also means that I'm planning for a future book to be in Platinum and Goldie's perspectives. Admittedly, the main characters of that future book will depend on who is speaking to me at the moment, but I'm having fun planning ahead. The two additional books on my radar right now are still Ge-Mi: Part Two and Ground of Resurrection. Part Two is at the halfway point and I'm having a bit of trouble getting it over that hump and into the start of the build up for the final battle scene. I'm hoping to take some time to refocus the plot and get it moving again. Resurrection, on the other hand, is just waiting for me to have time to return to working on it. I only need to write about 5k more words and the story will be complete, which is basically the last battle and the romantic conclusion. When I finally have some free time to devote to writing, I'm hoping to get Resurrection completed.
0 Comments
4/28/18
In my last post I stated I had a great new scene planned out for Dragon Spy and I wanted to restart working on Ground of Resurrection. I literally had both manuscripts open on my computer and after I posted my blog, that scene in Dragon Spy began to take shape. I wrote a few hundred words of good stuff (Lumie is making a mess, which is a ton of fun to write) and I was excited about where it was taking me, and then oddly, I paused. I went into the depths of my computer and for some reason I dug out The Sentinel's Prophesy. Longtime readers of my blog will remember a few years back (to 2014) I had a good idea for a side story in my Oracle series that I felt would give it the extra bit of world building the series was missing. That side story is The Sentinel's Prophesy, but despite my really wanting to write it, the story never really came together. It has been sitting on my computer, untouched, for over a year now. In the past week I have added over 10k words to the story and it is now complete! After over four years of working on this story (a story that shouldn't have taken me more than a few months to write), I have finally finished it. Of course, I do still need to reread it and give it a first edit. The section I wrote a while ago and the section I just finished are a bit separated, so I need to smooth that out too. Otherwise, I'm going to leave the story to sit for about a month before I pull it out for final editing and to get it ready to submit. Hopefully, LT3 will accept it. What does this mean for the rest of the series? Well, the contract for the first book, The Oracle's Flame, was just renewed. I feel like that's a good sign that LT3 will be interested in also renewing The Oracle's Hatchling, book two, when it comes up for renewal in September. I am really hoping it will not take me another four years to write the final book in the series, The Oracle's Current, but I am very stuck on that story and am wondering if it might be better to completely scrap what I have and start over. Either way, Current will need a while yet before it starts chugging along again. Until then, I'm going to remain happy over finally getting Prophesy complete! 4/22/18
It only took me an extra three weeks, but the edits for If A Butterfly Don't Fly are finally back with LT3. They need to go back to the editor for another round, but I think (I hope) I was able to make a lot of progress this time around. We'll see how I did when I get round two in a month or so. Right now I'm going to take a deep breath and try to let the stress of overdue edits finally fall away. Of course, now that those edits are done for the moment, I'm sure the second round for Ground of Insurrection will arrive. Insurrection is starting to head quickly towards release day, and getting the edits complete is a big step towards making sure June 13th happens. I'm not expecting anything too crazy for this second round, so it'll hopefully go quickly. Don't forget, for the rest of April LT3 is having a huge birthday sale and you can pre-order Insurrection for 40% off: https://lessthanthreepress.com... With editing done for the time being, I can finally turn to writing again. There are so many stories to work on, but right now my muse has the next scene planned for Dragon Spy, book seven in my Supernatural Consultant series. Lumie decided he needed to come say hello and I have a hard time saying no to Lumie. It should be fun to write and I'm hoping that will also help me get further along with planning out this story. It's been stalled for a while because I'm not entirely certain how I want to organize it all. I also want to get back to finishing Ground of Resurrection, but I've lost the momentum I had a few months ago. Basically, whichever story grabs my attention and keeps moving forward is the one I'll be working on. 1/28/18
When I'm writing a book, a lot of the time the ideas for the sequel start popping up. I usually shelve those ideas until the current book is complete, and then pull them back out to start work on the sequel. Except, by that point those new ideas are dusty and sometimes difficult to work with because of the amount of time they've been sitting (which has sometimes been years). That was the case for Ground of Resurrection, the second book in my Wizard Wars series. It took me years to write book one, Ground of Insurrection, and all the ideas and plans for book two got warped and messed up. I've scrapped and restarted the first 1k words in Resurrection at least three times, just trying to get the pieces I shelved to work with what actually wanted to go onto paper. The story was stuck around 1k for a few months, but then I received the first round of edits for Insurrection. Somehow, reading through Insurrection reminded me of those original, shelved ideas, and reordered them until they finally started to come together in a story that makes sense. Writing Resurrection suddenly became a process of getting the words onto paper fast enough before my brain moved on to the next scene. Resurrection has just passed the 10k words mark. (I've also started shelving ideas for a potential third book in the series that will likely be called Ground of Defection.) 10k words is the halfway point for the books in this series, which are all only about 20k in total, and I know the basic layout of the rest of the story. It's just a matter of finding the time to write it all down, but I'm really hoping Resurrection will be completed soon. On another note, thanks to all your advice from my last posting I have decided to go with Dragon Spy as the title for book seven in my Supernatural Consultant series. I hope regular readers of my blog will understand that I am recycling a previously scrapped title. I have also come up with the first paragraph of the working summary for Spy, which you can read HERE. I'll be able to add the second paragraph and smooth out the first paragraph once I've fleshed out the story a bit more, but at least now you can get the basic gist of what I'm going for in this story. I haven't made a decision on what to do about the title for my coliseum story, but I'll let you all know what I eventually decide. 1/20/18
I have been working on my untitled coliseum story off and on for about a year now. It's purely fantasy with a type of dragon character I haven't utilized before. Writing it has been fun even though it hasn't been smooth sailing. I am finally approaching the climax of the story where the hero must fight the bad guy and I realized I needed to come up with a title. The problem is that the only potential titles I could think of were 'Dragon Sands' or 'Dragon Moons'. Both would fit with the story and I'm leaning towards the former, however I realized that the title is far too similar to that of my Supernatural Consultant series. Every single one of those titles are two words and start with 'Dragon'. The last thing I want is for someone to spend money on what they think is the next Supernatural Consultant book, only to be greeted with a vast desert and a cave full of dragon eggs instead. I don't know what to do. Should I use 'Dragon Sands' anyway? I could use your advice, so please let me know what you think! Speaking of Supernatural Consultant, despite not being on the short list I mentioned in my last post, book seven is the story I started working on. I've added about .5k words, which was enough to set the next scene and build some drama for what's coming next. Which brings me to my conundrum about this story as well. I originally settled on 'Dragon Trick' for the tentative title because it fit with the rough outline in my head. As the story continues to expand on paper, I'm realizing that 'Trick' is not the right fit after all. In fact, I think I might be leaning towards resurrecting 'Spy', which was scrapped as the title for book six (Dragon Lesson). Do you think if I started calling book seven 'Dragon Spy' I would confuse readers who associate that title with Dragon Lesson? 1/13/18
I have received the first round of edits for Ground of Insurrection. A glance through says they'll be very straightforward, so hopefully I'll have them completed and back to LT3 for a second round quickly. The editor said the story was "fantastic", which I was overjoyed to see. This story gave me some trouble as I was writing it, trouble that is unfortunately repeating itself as I'm trying to write the sequel, so hearing it did turn out well after all that was really wonderful. Now that the edits are moving along, LT3 can start planning release dates. I expect to learn a tentative date for Ground of Insurrection sometime after I return the edits, so I had better get to working on them now because I'm as anxious to learn the release date as I'm sure you are. I don't really have all that much else to share with you today. It's been a while since I posted anything so I wanted to say hi and to let you all know that I am trying to work on some of the stories you're anticipating. Mostly I've been planning, which doesn't sound super exhilarating, but is absolutely necessary to move my stories forward. For example, in the next Supernatural Consultant book (tentatively titled Dragon Trick, but that might change) I know the ultimate goal of the story, but I haven't quite figured out how to get the characters there yet. I can't start writing again until I figure that bit out. I've been plucking away at Ge-Mi: Part Two as well. I've said it before in regards to this story, but I'll say it again anyway: it's slow going. I'm setting up so many little things right now that will have an impact all the way to the end and I really want to get them right. That means the story is only growing by a few hundred words each time I work on it. That's better than nothing at all, but it's not a lot in terms of how much I still have to do. Aside from that, I'm patiently waiting for the next round of edits for Kelpie Blue to appear. I'm hoping they'll wait until after Ground of Insurrection is back with the editor, but as March and the imminent release date looms closer, I know they'll have to appear soon. We're also nearing the time when If A Butterfly Don't Fly should begin the editing process (especially since it was accepted for publishing at the same time as Ground of Insurrection), so I expect that story will also appear in my inbox sometime in the near future. There's so much to look forward to! 6/24/17
|
Coming Soon
Gifting a Dragon's Heart
March 19, 2024 Soul Bond
January 30, 2024 Twin Elements
October 17, 2023 Witch
April 15, 2023 AuthorMell Eight is an author writing with NSP. For more information about Mell and her writing, please visit her website: http://melleightfiction. Tags
All
|