Tag Archives: amwritingfantasy

Changes

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witch1This week I finished writing “Mermaid’s Curse”, sent it off to an editor, and started a contest for a cover on 99designs.

That’s a lot of things. And all of it’s pretty awesome. The covers are beautiful, and I’m going to get two of them. One fore the first book and one for the second.

I started a poll yesterday about the name, but ultimately I decided that Trish was right and I had to let go of my magnificent title and make it something more appropriate. Even with the change the cover still works, so that is okay. Because THE COVER IS BEAUTIFUL!

So.. The new titles for the trilogy:

Witch’s Sacrifice, Witch’s Curse, and Witch’s Stand. witch2

If you click on the link above you’ll see that the two artists I’ve chosen have already started adding the new titles. I’m debating about the blurb, but otherwise it’s great. I’m ecstatic with the cover work.

The first chapter of … Witch’s Sacrifice. … is still available here.

Honestly I just can’t wait to have this in my hand. It’s going to be beautiful. Both of them. And then when I get the third I’ll have a complete set. It will be so amazing!

This is more then a year of work coming to fruition. It is so worth it!

Whatever you love, whatever you want to do or be, don’t give up! It’s so worth it. Even if it’s just for myself, even if no one ever reads this, it’s going to feel so good to have it completed on my shelf. (Of course it will feel way better if people actually read it and want to continue reading the rest of them.)

Editing

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I dmerm curse cover2on’t do line edits on my work anymore. I pay someone else to do them. It’s better that way. Mainly because I always miss lots of things. The two words that sound the same but are spelled differently. The occasional word that is spelled right, but isn’t the right word. The wrong hyphenations. All things I have issues with.

I do try to fix them, and even have a little cheat sheet of past corrections that I can go through and search for. I also search for over used words, like “very” and “flooded”. Too much flowery language kills. Not enough bores.

What I do for my text is go back through and reread everything a couple of times and try to pick out sentences that just don’t sound right. Maybe the meaning is fumbled, or the wrong word was chosen. Maybe a sentence was placed in the wrong order.

The longer the project the more work I have to do like this. It’s annoyingly time consuming. With short stories I barely have to do any because the story is all right there and I’ve been reading over it constantly to write it so everything kind of just works. With a novel I’m only ready short bits of it at a time to help me write more in the section I need to complete, so sometimes I end up with inconsistencies, and whole paragraphs and pages out of order.

The chapter I am currently working on for Mermaid’s Curse has been in the works for a while. I started writing it at the end of January, then I got sick in February and wrote nothing, so this week I am finishing it. I’ve almost completed it and now I am going back through it and rearranging, adjusting, taking out, and in general… fixing it.

Now, this one chapter is over 6000 words already. It switches back and forth between Marizza, the main character, and Artiro. There is a lot of fighting, spell casting, curses, and creatures to keep track of. Of course I got some things wrong. I am going through tonight, since I have only two small sections left to write, and finding those words that are just inconsistent with the rest of the chapter. Pulling them out. And throwing them away. Still… the chapter is over 6000 words even after pulling out a few hundred of them because they just didn’t work. And I still have those two sections to write.

This novel … it’s a novel. A full length honest novel with a society, magic system, fully developed characters, mystery and more. And I’m so proud of it. I’m also SO HAPPY that it’s almost done and I will never have to read it again! (At least not until I start putting those finishing touches on book 2 and I need a refresher.)

A note about the cover… That’s a working cover and it will not be the finished one. I like it, but it isn’t quite… enough. Ya know?

Anyway, here is to hoping that next month I will be adding a vlog here where I am holding an honest to spaghetti monster BOOK in my hands.

What’s going on?

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Hello all you lovely people out there in the internet land. It’s so nice to see you again.

Things are finally starting to feel normal again. I’m back in writing/editing mode, completing that final chapter of Mermaid’s Curse, and getting that ready for an edit. I’ve also been writing a little here and there on a couple other things. Unfortunately I probably won’t be finishing any of them soon since I will be moving onto the second book in the Mermaid’s Curse trilogy next, but it does give me the needed breather from the trilogy so that I don’t get bogged down and start hating the book.

Rule number one if you’re me… don’t spend every waking moment on the same project till you hate looking at it. Break off, get a breather, enjoy a nice margarita while reading something fun (for me that has been “The 20 Sided Sorceress“) and just… Enjoy life for a moment. Then get back to the grind stone!

Also! The Ring and Small Bites 1 are free right now. AND! if you read them and sign up for my email here I will give you The Camera and Small Bites 2 for free! That’s four books… FREE! I don’t send a lot of email news letters, but hopefully you’ll enjoy them when you get them.

So… one more chapter to go, and I am already a third of the way through it… So, back to writing I go!

1SB1sm2SB2smthe ringcamera2

NaNoWriMo

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I wrote about my strategy to pay attention to my bodies desires and write for a bit, get up and move around, then write some more. It was a fantastic plan, and I’ve been doing it regularly. The trouble is that things get in the way sometimes. I still have to write, of course, but those things make following my bodies natural rhythms difficult.

SLEEP

I haven’t been getting much. Plain and simple, I just am not right now. Part of this is that my boyfriend moved in, and our work schedules do not synced up very well. I tend to like writing at night after the house has settle down, usually from 10pm to 1am. He wakes up at 5:30am. This throws my sleep scheduled off a lot since I have difficulty going back to sleep afterward.

It’s okay for a while, but I’ve been finding myself taking naps after work lately just to make it through the night. The nice part is that his schedule will change soon and hopefully I’ll be getting more sleep.

Worse? Both of us have been working massive amounts of overtime at our respective jobs. This has left me less down time to just relax and have time to myself, especially since the one day a week I have off is devoted to dentist appointments, shopping, and other necessities of living. I’m tired. I’m writing anyway.

Family Obligations

A while ago I wrote about my daughter coming home and having to go pick her up from the bus. This was a huge sap on my writing schedule and I have been struggling to catch up ever since. I’ve written 2000 words on a lot of those days since then, but with the lack of sleep, and a few other things going on I just haven’t caught up. I’m currently 4k behind and it’s looking like I’m going to stay hovering at 3-4k behind till the very last day.

BUT!

dataagainNaNoWriMo, for me, is a learning experience each year. This year I’ve learned that writing 1500 words a day isn’t difficult, and I’m hoping to stay at that level even after NaNoWriMo is over. What really is amazing to me is that over the last twenty two days I’ve had four days of less then 1000 words. FOUR DAYS! That’s kind of amazing for me. And on those days I still wrote almost 500 words most days. That is extremely different for me and incredible in and of itself.

Before this month my average for writing was 3-500 words. That’s it. Some days less, some days more, but never enough to make me feel like writing could be a full time career. A writer needs to do one thing above all others: write. If you aren’t writing then how can you make a living writing? Does a swimmer swim? Does a musician play an instrument? If they aren’t doing that thing then how do they make the money?

So the fact that my writing has increased steadily, and that I now feel comfortable, almost elated to have so many words a day, is fantastic. I know that when I switch over to doing edits that word count is going to drop, but hopefully I can work on a project in the evenings and edit in the mornings. I’m not quite sure about that one yet, but I’ll have a perfect opportunity to find out after NaNoWriMo, and book three of my trilogy is complete.

Meet my Character – Okira

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I had so much fun participating in the “Meet my Character Bloghop”. Maya Goode invited me, and I just couldn’t resist. It was a great opporunity to really define who Okira is.

1) What is the name of your character?
Okira is the offspring of a merman, and a witch. A magical, and very rare crossbreed.

2) When and where is the story set?
The story is set in the islands of The Sea of Tears on the world of Peyllen. It is a rich fantasy world where the inhabitants were birthed from the various elements, and their magic and make up reflect those elements. The Sea of Tears has been cut off from the rest of the world by a cult who control a kraken, and the kraken sees to it that no ship may enter or exit the Sea of Tears without the acolytes permission.

3) What should we know about him/her?
Okira is doubly cursed. Because of her heritage she can not enter the sea without the kraken feeling her magical essence and killing her. She was also cursed soon after her birth to die the moment she finds love.

4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?
The acolytes have hunted witches to the brink of extinction, and once they learn of Okira they seek her out to use her latent magical essence in a ritual that will change the entire Sea of Tears.

5) What is the personal goal of the character?
Okira wants to return to the sea, her mermaid blood calls out for her to do so, but she can only do so if the kraken is dead.

6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?
Mermaid’s Curse. You can find blurbs from the book here, here, here and here.

7) When can we expect the book to be published?
I am working on the final chapters, and once finished will send it out to be edited and get a good cover. Once that is done it will be published. It should be by the end of October.

My Bio
I live in the cloudy state of Washington near Seattle with my three children, and a cat. Manager of a little store by day, writer by night, I’ve published 20+ short stories and three novellas. Mermaid’s Curse will be the first full length novel. I do all of my own cover art, but have learned that you (almost) always need a good editor. I started publishing in earnest in April of 2013.

To find me, my work, and a newsletter where you can sign up for a free book go to crissymoss.com
I can also be found here: http://about.me/crissymoss

I was Tagged by:

Maya Goode 1Maya Goode is a short story author, novelist, and poet. Raised by an amazing mercurial woman who shared neither blood nor race, she lives on the edge of identities and writes deeply honest stories about the human journey. She is an alumna of Dominican University of California and resides somewhere between mountains and the ocean. Her first novel, Remigium Rising, will be published in Spring 2015. You can visit her at www.mayagoode.com

Twitter http://www.twitter.com/quotidianlight

Google Plus https://plus.google.com/+quotidianlight
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/quotidianlight

~Meet Next Week’s Author – Scott Richards~ 

20140618_202924Scott is a California-based author where he is forced to live with all of the characters in his head. Despite what you may hear shrieked into the night air, he is a sad, crazy little man.

He is maintained by those familiar few for the rare nugget he spouts on occasion. These mad ramblings are recorded, then dictated back to old shoe-cobbling elves that have retired, but still like to “keep themselves busy” as stipulated per their Retired Original Union Group Home (R.O.U.G.H.) contract agreements.

Show your support for this noble cause.

Think of the children.

-Scott Richards
Author of the Darlicci’s Shroud series
Website: http://www.theshroudbetween.com
Newsletter: http://bit.ly/WSdktb