Tag Archives: amwrirting

Steeling my soul!

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It’s been a few days. I finished book one (Steel Soul, here’s a first chapter) and I’m off and running on book two. I’m currently on chapter five right now, and working my way up to the big fight. I can already tell this book is going to be twice as long as the first, which is great because the first book was pretty short for a novel.

What I love? I’m developing the game world a lot more, creating new characters, and also developing how this game works with other games on that timeline. In this futuristic world setting all of the game worlds are centered around one hub and you can move between worlds. I can’t wait to get to explore some of the others. A world in which you can eat as much delicious food as you want and never gain a pound because it’s all virtual? A world of steam punk and gears? A world of futuristic super heroes and tech? Yes, all of them and more!

But FIRST they have to survive their encounter with a not so happy hacker who might want to make their offline life a little worse.

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Values

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I wrote a post on Quora today that iIthought would be fitting here. 

Question: How do I write a character to contradict their values. 

My answer: What is the value? What value do they hold higher than that? They will make a choice.

Example, they value life and think guns are bad. But they value their life and their child’s life more. So when a masked guy breaks into their home and somehow the main character gets a gun in their hand they have a choice…. Die and hold the value that guns are evil, or use it against the bad guy.

We make choices like this all the time. Sometimes it’s as simple as “don’t hurt bugs” until the creepy spider shows up in your bathtub. Sometimes it’s something bigger. There is always the question of what is more important to them.

5min – slacking and change 

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Nothing about life is as true as this: everything changes. In a moment, in a month, or in a life time. It changes. 

I have been reminded of that a lot lately. From me jobs, car accidents, new cars, and more, I’ve had a lot of changes in my life. And just turn on the news to see the hurricane, or the latest protest, and realize that change is happening all around us. 

I think the harder thing to do is change myself. Even when I need to. Even when I want to. Realizing I need to excersize as I get older is easier than actually getting up and moving. Realizing I need to eat better is easier than putting down the candy bar. And knowing I need to write is so much easier than actually doing it. 

Change comes from doing, not just thinking. It’s a lot harder to do it, and that’s why there are so many people out there who say “I always wanted to write a book”  instead of “here’s my book.” 

And that’s my five. 

5min- Finished! 

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Back in April of 2015 I got a fantastic idea for a story by looking at a lonely piece of art. The art was looking for a book to be a cover for, and it would be a fantastic cover. Unfortunately it was a pro artist and I can’t afford his rates. But that didn’t stop me from writing the story. 

So in. May of 2016, a year later, I started outlining the series. Five books. Five complete stories, each one with a valuable part to play in making one girl, Sybel, who she needs to be to save everyone from an unknown danger. I started writing  it during NaNoWriMo 2016. 

And tonight I’ve completed the first novel in that series! 

It feels so good to be done. I wrote the first draft, went through line by line to clean up any plot holes and add descriptions to some areas, and I’m finally satisfied that it’s ready to go to the editor. 

So happy! And I  can’t wait to share it with all of you. 

And that’s my five. 

5min – Rutines 

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I’m trying to get into a new routine to make editing and writing work for me. 

Edit one chapter in the morning before work. A bit of writing on a different project after work. Another chapter of editing after writing, if I can. Even with one or two chapters edited a day I should get this first book finished and edited by the end of the week, which is when I need to get it to my editor. 

This project has been a lot more challenging than the first trilogy. Partly because I’m building an entire world from scratch, including how the mythos of creation and the magic system works. There are no elves, no dwarves, no other races in this series except humans, dragons, and ifrits. The magic is still elemental based, but works more like alchemy than  it did in my other series. 

It’s been fun to design a whole new world. I can’t wait to share it! 

And that’s my five. 

5 Min-Day 12- Goals

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​Goals for the rest of July- Finish the second draft of Dragon’s Flame and get it to my editor. And do a synopsis/plot for book three in the series.

Goals for August- Finish the first draft of Dragons book 2 (no name yet) and start on book three.

So much writing, so little time, at least that’s how it feels.

The other thing I need to do is look more into tiny houses. That’s right, tiny houses. My boyfriend and I would like to do both of our businesses full time instead of me working for someone else and having only an hour or two a day for writing. He has a nice income from his leather working already with commissions and donations/subs on twitch. Now it’s time for me to get to a point where I don’t need to have another job. The best way to do that is lower our monthly expenses.

At $1300 a month, plus all the utilities and everything, I’m pretty sure our apartment takes up the most time and money. Cleaning, and cleaning some more, and trying to throw away half our things. Ya, it’s time consuming.

But, if we get rid of all but what we really need (or love) and move into a small trailer or tiny home then we can pay less than a grand for everything. And if we make our tiny home then we can configure it to suit our needs, instead of someone else making it for us.

God I hate carpet. There will be no carpet in my next home, or any other from now on!

Cabinets, little drawers, and a couple of big closets for clothes, and there we are. Not much to it. 

And that’s my five minutes. 

5 Min – Day 3 – Time

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​Good morning.

Today is day three in my reach to carve out five minutes every morning to start with writing.

Lately I’ve been looking at my morning routine, and what I do to wake up and get active and realized that there is a serious problem with it.

Get up. Go to the living room. Watch a little YouTube. Maybe turn on the computer for a bit and play a game, or check up on emails and contacts, then go to work. That is a completely passive morning where I am taking in information from various places, some entertainment, some news or social issues, but not putting out anything for myself.

I realized that these morning pages are instead forcing me to start my day by focusing on something I love; writing. Now that’s a great thing. I can start every morning by putting in five minutes to write about what’s going on in my life, or the world, and instead of constantly consuming to start my day I am producing value for myself, and hopefully for those who read it.

What else is happening? Prime day on Amazon was yesterday. That meant a bunch of stuff was on sale, and I didn’t buy any of it. BUT! I did participate, in a way. I put Witch’s Sacrifice, the first book in the witch’s trilogy, up on sale for 99 cents for the rest of the month. I’m actually doing a few pushes to get more people to see the Witch’s Trilogy because my hope is that when Dragon’s Flame finally comes out those readers will be interested in it, too.

Five minutes are up. See you tomorrow.

The Half Blood Sorceress

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The Witch’s Trilogy is finished, and I’m off to the next project. It took me a little while to decide which project to work on, but I finally nailed it down.

I thought it best to stick with the fantasy genre for now  but I wasn’t ready to go back to the world of Peyllen just yet. Instead I found a plot I’d written at NorWesCon last year and realized this was a perfect time to write it. At first I was concerned that it was a single book instead of a trilogy… Then I started plotting it. What started as a “simple” story, a one off plot, grew into a five book arc.

The more I work on the plot for this series the more I fall in love with the setting and characters. This world is completely different from Peyllen, with only two races: humans and dragons. Cities and small towns are spread out around a vast continent, and there are places walled off from the rest of the world by dragon-kin. Vast oceans to cross. And forgotten cities sinking into swamp lands inhabited by ancient forgotten creatures.

It’s a vast, beautiful world that I can’t wait to introduce you to.

And the amazing part? Just how quickly the plot has flowed out. 4k a day. The only time I’ve written that much before was back during the toughest parts of NaNoWriMo. The five books plotted out show the amazing journey of Sybel, the half blood sorceress, as she gets closer and closer to the raging ice dragon at the far ends of the world. There will also be a companion book about her friend Lucia, the servetor, and possibly a second companion book about the ice dragon, himself.

What’s a half blood sorceress? And what’s a servetor? I’ll be sharing those juicy bits as the story unfolds because… I think I’m ready to start writing! I’ve got plots, and foreshadowing, and different characters sketched out… Now it’s time to breathe some life into them.

I’m so excited!

A quick update

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Good morning all you lovely people out there. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining. And I am just happy as a clam.

I thought I would give everyone just a little update.

I’m waiting for the final edits on Witch’s Stand. It should be out this weekend though.

I finished Witch’s Sight last night so I’ll be doing some editing on it and it should be out in a couple weeks. I will probably send it to my newsletter tonight as a sneak preview.

I also have some other short stories done. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with them. Release as an anthology? Shelve them? Print them and make them into wreaths? A couple of them are long enough to be stand alone short story books, but they still need edits and covers.

Otherwise, I’m just deciding on the next project to do. Urban fantasy, or regular fantasy? Dragons or gods? Then there is the scifi young adult book… So many books, so little time.

Thoughts?

I did it!

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I finished the third, and final novel in the Witch’s Trilogy: Witch’s Stand.

It feels so great to be done with the first part,  the writing. Now I have to re-read the second half and make sure all the pieces fit together before I can send it off to the editor. (I’ve already done this for the first half.)

Now I’m trying to figure out what to write next. I have lots of half finished pieces, or plots that are just waiting for my attention. I also have the Bradbury Challenge that I am doing with Maya and Gerald. I will be taking a short break from writing novels, I think, so that I can finish up the editing on Witch’s Stand and get it out as soon as possible. During that time I have a few short stories to finish, and a couple to polish so I can get them published as well.

Once the novel is off to the editor I have two series to write. One, a continuation of my urban fantasy, Eternal Tapestry. Two, a paranormal mystery series with lots of secrets, weird things balding, and someone out to get them. It should be a lot of fun to write. No idea which I’ll go with first.

It’s a full docket of writing and publishing, but I am so excited! I wrote two books in a year! I didn’t think I could do that. In fact if you include the first one I will have written a novel every six months, plus some short stories. That’s not as insane as other authors I know, but it’s a lot faster than I’ve ever done before.

This gives me encouragement. I’m learning to write faster, and I think better. Time will tell.

I will also be at NorWesCon this month, so if you are going please send me a tweet. I would love to meet you!