Preparing to work on book two in the Reave Series. :)

After a bit of a hectic time (again, hectic for me), the past few days or so have been the opposite. Granted, that was my doing so I shouldn’t act like I’m surprised, but it’s always surprising for me anytime I’m not working my brain off (??) trying to get stuff done. (Figured ‘brain’ would be better suited to the point.)

I found out a few days ago that Monday (today) would be when I got a beta-read copy of book 2 in the Reave Series back. I think that only reinforced what I was talking about a couple posts back in Writing and Releasing. Working on the RS was getting ready to take precedence in my life once more, and receiving the news as to when seemed to mentally put the new series on hold.

I’m picturing skewering all those characters to trees by their clothing and saying, “Just hang out there for a little while. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Promise I’ll come back for you.” I don’t even want to get into the shouting that would ensue or all the nasty remarks I would have said back to me. Something or other about human idiocy, I’m sure. That would of course be followed by (nearly) all of them trying to get themselves down, failing because I put them there, and then more than one threat about how one or more will ‘get me back’ for this. I’m sure they’ll be trying to get themselves down during this time, and that all the struggling will periodically draw my attention back to them. That’s a good thing, as long as I can get everything else done that needs to be done.

I’ve written a little bit. By ‘little bit,’ I mean LITTLE BIT. Book 3 has been even more difficult to get out than the others. I’m crossing my fingers that it really is to do with situations and timing rather than my ability (or lack thereof) to get this story out in general. I suppose I’ll figure that out in a couple months or so.

I’ll be honest, what I’ve mostly been doing the past couple days is playing Skyrim. I hate the load screens in that game. And tell me why I can’t fast travel from inside buildings so that I don’t have to sit through multiple load screens back-to-back. It makes absolutely no sense to me. Sometimes I wonder why I’m even playing it, despite how amazing it is. Husband has had so many random glitches in his games that make it to where you can’t even finish quests after however many hours spent playing, so why take the risk? Because it’s amazing, and ridiculously addictive, I suppose.

Anyway, I’m glad to be getting book 2 to prevent me from getting sucked as hard back into that as I potentially could’ve been. Also, I’m just glad to be getting it back in general, to get it one step closer to being ready for release.

I’m really looking forward to it. I always look forward to starting another run-through of book 2, but it’s going to be interesting to get more feedback from it, to see if things are taken the way I intend them to be. So far seems to be working out that way, from what I’ve already heard. I reckon I’ll see a bit later today.

I probably won’t be on here much over the next few days while I’m going through this. I might be, but I might not. I know I haven’t been on here much in general lately, but at least I’m giving a bit of warning this time. I keep trying to tell myself that once I get more of these books off my plate and released, I’ll have more time for other things. I’m sure I won’t though. I’ll probably just find something else to work on. Who knows though? I just know I have to keep myself busy or else I go insane. I mean, even when playing Skyrim, I make lists and the like. That’s just how I am, and it works.

So yep, I’ll be really busy over the next few days, working on book 2. I know some people are really wanting to read it (and I’m really wanting it to be read), so I’ll be getting it another step closer to that happening. 🙂

Eat, Sleep, Write: Podcast Interview with Charles E. Yallowitz

Legends of Windemere

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A little over a week ago, I sat down for an interview with Adam Scull who runs Eat, Sleep, Write.  Well, it’s up now and you can click on the picture at the bottom to hear it.

It’s about world-building in fantasy, which was a great topic for my first big podcast interview.  I talk a little about my experiences in self-publishing too.  I think everyone will have some fun and I hope I didn’t stutter or race through my words too much.  You can tell I was nervous.

If anyone wants to share the link to this interview then I’d greatly appreciate it.  Enjoy.

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Playing Catch-Up: Birthday, Geographer, Skyrim, New Book

The last couple weeks have been a bit . . . hectic. I suppose that would be a word to call it, but I’m not entirely sure anyone else would agree with me. Hectic for me might be a little more appropriate. If I move out of my shed in general, that makes my life feel hectic. Silly, but that’s just how it is.

Between my last post and now, I had a birthday that put me one step closer to thirty. I still have a few more years left until that milestone, but it does feel somewhat strange to be undeniably closer to thirty than twenty. I think I said last year around this time that it was nice to finally ‘feel my age,’ but I guess the best way to say that is: “I’m finally at an age that’s closer to what I feel.” Or I’m getting there, I suppose.

Birthdays are a bitter time for me. (If anyone wants a good dose of [hilarious] bitterness, check out Bitter Ben‘s blog.) I don’t know why that is, but they just are. Maybe it’s the wrinkles I’m getting on my forehead from scrunching my face up all the time. (I guess parents are right when saying your face DOES stick that way. Mine is certainly doing as much. -_-) Every birthday is just another bit of validity as to why they’re showing up (those wrinkles). Maybe it’s just that I don’t like getting gifts. Maybe I don’t like the attention (I don’t, which is why I’m MORE THAN FINE with hardly anyone knowing when my birthday actually is).

Now, Husband knows I’m not the biggest fan of gifts. I’m also not a fan of surprises in general, as I like to have as much control over my life as possible (not really possible, but don’t burst my bubble with this). He got me a surprise before my birthday. That was two tickets for us to go see my favorite band, Geographer, again. After the initial overload of all the things I was going to have to mentally prepare myself for (PEOPLE?! I HAVE TO BE AROUND PEOPLE?!) and things I had to get sorted (I HAVE TO BE AWAKE AT A CERTAIN TIME?!), we were super excited about it. Cut to the evening of this show and there a line of storms sat, RIGHT OVER the interstate we would have to drive for a couple hours to reach our destination. Our car isn’t the best in the rain. I have anxiety attacks every time there’s a downpour here because our car is REALLY not the best in the rain.

As much as I love Geographer (which is such ridiculous amounts that you can’t even imagine), we discussed the situation and decided it wasn’t worth potentially dying over. They will tour again, and I will see them then. But I was sad. Very, very sad. I’m STILL sad.

You have NO IDEA how amazing they are live. Seriously. If they weren’t so amazing and I didn’t love them so much, I wouldn’t put myself in a crowded room of people that can all potentially bump into me. (Please excuse me while I go [mentally] vomit at the thought of being in such close proximity to that many people. Don’t ask me how you can mentally vomit. I do it all the time, but can’t explain it.)

Anyway. Sad.

If you’ve liked my Facebook page, then you might’ve seen the update on there where I was also complaining (on the night of that missed show) about how I had played Skyrim and couldn’t stop thinking about snowberries. Still having that problem, but it comes and goes. I played that again for a little while yesterday. Let me just say that I save that game a ridiculous amount of times due to all the anger and rage (*Jeremy Clarkson voice for ital. there*) I feel when dying and losing even five minutes of playing. (ALL THOSE ALCHEMY INGREDIENTS THAT I’LL HAVE TO PICK UP AGAIN!) So yeah, played it yesterday. Didn’t save for about an hour. Died. Lost all those alchemy ingredients. Turned it off.

I should write a post about WHY that game made me so angry that I couldn’t play it for such a long time. I might do that.

I know I haven’t been on here in a while (two weeks), but I did write up a few things that I may (or may not) post at some point in the future. They weren’t the typical book-type stuff. They had/have nothing to do with that at all and are essentially me just rambling off about random things. (Like Star Wars and Batman, not together.) Might post them at some point.

I’ve also been writing on the new book/series, which has (surprise, surprise) taken up most of my time. I had one night where I finished four chapters. (Longer ones.) Don’t ask me how. Most of the time was spent in the same way as before, with me having a bit of trouble (or more than) getting it out.  There was one night that I sat here trying to write, and at the halfway point of my awake time . . . I still hadn’t completed a chapter. It’s been frustrating, but despite the odds . . .

I HAVE FINISHED WRITING THE SECOND BOOK OF THIS NEW SERIES.

It both went how I intended and didn’t at the same time. Certain things (all of it) took longer than I thought they would take, which caused me to leave it off before I was sure it would be left off. I suppose that doesn’t matter. This series is kind of different from any of the others I’ve done. Every book in those other ones have been one part of a larger whole. This entire series is just . . . one long story rather than the individual pieces. At least it’s seeming to look that way.

I don’t know if I said before, but I’ve written one of my favorite characters ever in this series. Probably my second-favorite non-MC ever. That’s made it a lot more fun than I think it would’ve been if he wasn’t there. Anyway, I need to update my What’s in the works? page now that I’ve finished that one up.

On to the next, I suppose.

Hope everyone has been well! 🙂

Also, I’m going to see Godzilla this weekend and I am STOKED. O.o

Sorry this was so long. I’ve been trying to keep them shorter, but it’s been a while . . .

Writing and Releasing . . .

I wasn’t actively writing on a different series around the time I released Reave. I honestly can’t remember what I was doing when it came time for me to say, “All right, this is what I’m focusing on and there’s nothing else in the world.” I don’t even think I was editing, but I could be wrong about that when considering all I did work-wise for months and months was EDITEDITEDIT. I honestly don’t know and I’m feeling too lazy to look back through my blog and check. Yes, I am that forgetful, where I would need to go through here to figure out what I was doing at any given time. (I know when I wrote whichever books, but apart from that, everything blurs.)

You see . . . I have a one-track mind. I do one thing until I’m done with it, then I move on. If I try to do something else, I’m constantly thinking about the one thing. That distracts me from doing anything else satisfactorily. Such is life. Anyway, I’ve been trying to get better with that, and there for a while . . . I was. I was doing the time-splitting thing, where I would be on here/Twitter/etc. for half my work hours, then editing (because I wasn’t writing at that time) for the rest. But the honest truth is that it drives me insane. I don’t like to be fixating on something when I’m doing something else. That worked better with editing than it did/does with writing. I get ‘editing-brain’ a few hours in, and everything turns into a haze of WORDS, so cutting the time isn’t a bad idea there. (Obviously it worked better when editing, because I haven’t been on here often since I started writing the new series.)

I’m on the second book of that new series (which—as of now—is comprised of an undetermined number of books), and I’m a pretty decent amount through it at that. It currently rests at about 40k words. That’s approximately halfway through where I typically leave them off when writing. By the time I’m through editing, they usually end up at around 100k. It works for me. I was going to explain about my editing and why it goes the way it does, but that’s a bigger digression than I intended in this so I’m just going to leave it now and save it for a different entry.

My point is that I’m right in the thick of this story. The first book (foundation) is over, and it’s getting bigger, more exciting, etc.

Here is my issue (of sorts, but not really):

New Series will have to be put on the back-burner while I refocus on the Reave Series. I’ll be having to get book 2 ready. After it’s released, I’ll do another edit of books 3 and 4 before anything else. That’s just the way it goes. I work in straight lines.

I’m wondering if that’s been my issue with writing over the past week and a half/two weeks or so. In the back of my mind, I know I’m getting ready to have to turn onto a different road and switch gears. I think I’m already sort of distancing myself from this new one, and yes, that’s all good and whatnot (it’s what I have to do). But it makes me sad. While the writing (so far) isn’t as good as I’ll say the trilogy I wrote between the Reave Series and this one was/is . . . it’s the most fun I’ve had since. At least the most consistent fun. It’s not as stressful as the trilogy was (and still is when editing). I don’t have the knowledge that I will NEVER RELEASE IT in my head like I did with the other trilogy I started between the trilogy I did finish and this. (Sorry, that was a bit confusing.) I’m sad because it’s been a thoroughly enjoyable experience thus far (apart from when I hit a brick wall at the beginning and spent a month trying to figure out how to get around it).

I guess that doesn’t matter.

The Reave Series gets top priority for now because out of ALL THESE BOOKS Herald (again, laptop) is storing for me . . . it’s the only one that’s RTG. (Or as close to ready-to-go as it currently can be.)

Don’t ask me what I’m going to do when I have the last bit of the Reave series RTG, along with the trilogy AND this new series. Admittedly, the latter probably won’t be at that point until book 4 is out. I say that, but who really knows? That will all depend on time between releases and how much attention I get to focus on it.

I only have one more edit on the trilogy before I’m ready for beta-readers to get their hands on it. I’m not going to do that until after I finish writing this one and do the first run-through of it. I should. I know I should, but still. Not gonna.

Wow, I rambled like crazy in this.

My apologies.

The entire point is that I’m having to switch gears.

Book 2 is already in the hands of a couple beta-readers, and the instant I get the first of those back . . .

I won’t be able to touch this new one for quite a while.

BUT . . . I am SO EXCITED that I’ll be releasing it soon. I like it so much better than the first, and I’m really looking forward to seeing if everyone else does as well. 🙂

End-note: After all the confusion of explaining which series and whatnot . . . I really feel like I should make a new page on here that explains all of them (as much as I will). Like, “Hey, this is what’s in the works, this is what I’ve done, and this is what I’m doing RIGHT NOW.” Then I could consistently update it (as much as I consistently update ANYTHING), and maybe it won’t be as confusing.

Maybe that would make it worse . . .

I don’t know.

Hm. Also thinking about making a FAQ page . . .

 

Sorry. This was all over the place.