Tag Archives: Writing

Switching Mindsets

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I just found out today that I won’t be starting my new job for another three weeks. There was a little complication because I moved here from a small county that is very slow to process things, so the new job is waiting for the background check to come back from said county and say “no, she was never arrested here.” Well, I’ve never been arrested so I’m not worried about that, it’s just going to take a little longer.

So I have three weeks home…waiting. And Gregg, the helpful person that he is, said “No, you have three weeks to write. Prove to yourself you can do this full time.”

You know how some things look good on paper, but then  you actually attempt them and things don’t quite look the same as you thought they would? That’s what I went through today. But the thing that looks different isn’t something I had considered before.

First of all, Gregg is absolutely right. I have three weeks to write my heart out and prove to myself that I can do the writing part of being an author. Finishing things, and getting the ready to edit. In three weeks with nothing but writing to do I should be able to double my words. Right? And I know, it doesn’t actually work like that, but if I never try I’ll never improve.

Second, I have the story. I have the plot. I have the characters. That’s not a problem, and I’ve written more on this story than I have on previous ones, so there is president here.

Third, my phone is broken. With no job, and no phone to distract me I should have more time… SHOULD.

And oddly it isn’t the idea of writing, finishing story lines, or producing books that has me worried. I know I can do that, and I’m fairly confident I can do it faster if I just put my nose to the grindstone and do it.

No, what worries me is the pay. Since my divorce I’ve been the person who paid the bills. Rent, electric, water, etc. All the bills are in my name, and I am responsible for them. In the last couple of years Gregg moved in, and he’s helped considerably by paying for groceries, getting gas, tires, and giving me money for rent. But I pay the majority of the bills in the house. We both also set aside savings toward our eventual house, but the bills are mine.

I have preferred it this way. A large hardship in my marriage was related to finances, I had no control over it then. He made the money while I was a stay home mom, so I had no say over anything. Part of my worries that if I let myself get into a situation where a man is paying my bills again I will lose control and end up broke… again. Never mind that this is false logic since Gregg is incredibly smart with money, and we both have nest eggs in case something ever happened. Logic has nothing to do with it. My brain has been programmed to worry about giving up control like that, and yet here I am.

I’m sure I’ll eventually make money from the books I write. I already make a little. I just don’t know how long it will be before I make enough to sustain a household, so the idea of giving up a steady job with good pay and benefits just doesn’t make me comfortable.

It’s a mindset shift. If I ever want to make it as an author and stop working for someone else then I have to buy into the idea that it’s possible. That I don’t need a corporation to pay my bills. Which is crazy since I’ve been saying for years that people who can’t find a job should make a job. Saying it and jumping off into the deep end to do it is two different things though.

I’ll be going back to my regularly scheduled pay checks. I’m not ready to give them up yet. But maybe Gregg is right, and this is my opportunity to give it a go, even if it’s just for three weeks.

Strong Female Characters

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I saw another post asking which stories could use strong female characters, and my answer probably wasn’t what they were looking for: None of them.

Now, before you get up in arms please hear me out, because I do have a reason behind it.

There are already a lot of wonderful books out there with strong female characters as the lead character. A short list:
Aurian by Maggie Furey
Rhapsody: Child of Blood by Elizabeth Haydon
The Hallows Series by Kim Harrison
Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs
The Twenty Sided Sorceress by Annie Bellet
The Little Flame Series by Melissa Lummis
The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige
Magnificent Devices by Shelley Adina
White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland
Several books in the Xanth Series by Piers Anthony
Anything by Anne McCaffery
Elvenbane by Andre Norton
Several books in the Wool Series by Hugh Howey
The Shambling Guides by Mur Lafferty
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Hit Girls by Garrett Robinson
Anything from the Buffy the Vampire universe.
Harper Collelly series by Charaine Harris.

And these are just the books that I know of because I’ve personally read them (or watched the movie in the case of Hunger Games). There are over 6,000 books in this list with strong female lead characters, many of which have been on best seller lists, or made into movies. And this isn’t even counting all the strong, wonderful women that play secondary roles in books like Kitiara from Dragonlance Chronicles, Catti-brie from the Dritzzt series, or Hermione from Harry Potter. That’s not even getting into comic books. And I’m sure there are thousands more that aren’t even in that list.

All of the stories in my list are sci-fi and fantasy. That’s because I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy. But I also know a lot of strong female characters from paranormal romance. I also know of characters from other books, games, and films in many other genres that are strong female characters.

Am I saying we don’t need any more? Of course not, that would be like saying we don’t need more books. I really enjoy reading about strong women doing extraordinary things, and even wrote my own series of books with that in mind so I hope my favorite authors continue writing theirs. I also enjoy reading about mages that slowly go mad, or women who are hell cats and need to be tamed. There are all kinds of books out there, with all kinds of characters, because people come with different attitudes, desires, ideas, and personalities. But I would also encourage more authors to include strong female characters…IF they are a benefit to the story.

Not every story has a woman in it. What if you wrote a story about a man in a men’s shower room? Or a group of men going on a camping trip together? Or a father and son sharing a moment? Or a group of dwarves out to save their mountain? Not every story is going to have a strong female character in it. Not every story is going to have a woman in it. In fact when they added a strong female into The Hobbit some of the fans were less than thrilled with the addition.

A story isn’t always about sex, gender, political correctness, or whatever. Sometimes it’s just a story about a leaf blowing in the wind, or the history of salt, or vampire bunnies. And if a story doesn’t have a female character that doesn’t automatically make it anti-women. Hell, there could be a character in the story that is utterly sexist and the story still might not be about women.

My thought for those looking for strong female characters: Expand your reading list, because there are THOUSANDS of books out there with strong female characters, you just have to be open to finding them. And just so you know, MEN need strong male character role models, too. And both sexes need the ridiculously heroic characters, or the weak ones, or the the psychopathic murderous kings/queens to show them what not to be. It does not take away from your enjoyment of books/films/games/etc because the other sex also has what you are looking for.

And if you think any gender, or genderless, or gender fluid individual needs more characters like them out there: GO WRITE IT! That’s the beauty of the indy world. Anyone can make anything that they think should exist.

Norwescon!

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IMAG1903Back from Norwescon and it was AMAZING!

GreggIMAG1901 wore his armor again, with a couple of extra pieces that he did, and new findings to make everything a bit more polished. He, of course, won again. In fact he won BEST OF SHOW for workmanship. That means the judges thought his costume was put together better than ANYONE at the masquerade. It was amazing. He basically leveled up and was told that now he has to compete as a master because he’s just that good.

This made me want to wear a costume and compete in the masquerade next year. So ya… I’ve been designing something awesome that I want to make for next years conventions. (We already have tickets for next years con.)

So, w
hat did I get out of this years con? SO MANY GOOD THINGS! First, I sat in on several live action demonstrations of fighting. They demonstrated some aikido, sword fighting, shield, roman legionnaires, and many more. They even took requests from people in the audience on what to demonstrate, and answered lots of questions. I took some video and I hope to share that on youtube later this week.

I also sat in on a number of panels about writing, specifically, the failures various authors have had, and the issues they had to overcome. They even talked about getting tables at conventions and selling your books. I also asked “what if you have anxiety” to which most of the people at the table said “stay on the internet…” I can’t blame them for having that thought. Anxiety and other social disorders are really hard to overcome, and most people who have them probably don’t try and push themselves to overcome them. Thankfully one of the panelists, Ryan Macklin, said he also has anxiety issues, so much so that he takes medication for them, and he manages by having that safe space behind his table and when he gets overwhelmed he goes to a quiet corner to just get away from everything and find a a quiet moment for himself. That was really great of him to speak up and share that with me.

I IMAG1922am not going to lie, having the other authors up there and their first reaction, “stay online,”IMAG1941 was disheartening, especially since I really like two of them (them as people, and their books.) I don’t know if having a table at a con would be a good thing, or just be a crushing blow to what little ego I have. But telling me not to even try…hurt. I know it’s going to suck, I know I’m going to have anxiety attacks. Hell, I have them just going to the convention itself some times. But I have so much fun, learn so much, and meet so many new people at the cons. Why wouldn’t I want to just TRY to sell my books there.

It won’t be easy, in fact I know it’s going to suck ass for a while, but I still feel like it will be good for me, and I will learn a lot about myself, and my books.

So, second thing I learned… Annie Bellet was at a few of the panels I went to and I have mentioned her 20 sided sorceress books on several occasions. They are really good, and I think anyone who loves urban fantasy should read them. Dresden type book with more gaming for the win!

But, anyway, she mentioned in one of the panels that almost all of the big urban fantasy writers write in first person POV. I thought about it: Patricia Briggs, Diana Rowland, Kim Harrison, Jim Butcher, and Annie Bellet… All the urban fantasy writers that I love to read,  All of them in first person POV. WHY ISN’T MY URBAN FANTASY IN 1st PERSON POV? Seriously, I love writing in first person, and I should have done it, but I didn’t. So, I will be updating my “Eternal Tapestry” series about goddesses in the modern age to be first person POV.

She also had a lot of things to say about “writing to market” that actually clicked with me. She didn’t talk about picking a genre you think will sell and write in that. She talked about finding the things you love in a series you love, and the things you love in the genre, and writing that because that’s what you love. It made more sense then anything else anyone had said.
Witch's Standkobowskobo

I also got a fantastic idea for my next short story, and I GOT COVERS!

“Witch’s Stand” should be out in a few weeks. I will get the edits back, then be able to send it out once I go through them.

Witch’s Sight is a prequel that I am currently writing. I’m not sure when it will be available, but I did get some great ideas to make it even better this weekend.

I’m really happy with how they turned out. The artist, J Caleb, really came through for me, and kept the feel of the other two books in mind while doing it. Thank you J!

I will post some pictures, and maybe some video, from Norwescon soon. And have a wonderful week, everyone.

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!

Clouds are on the horizon!

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Hello, it’s been a while.

The Bradbury Challenge started eight weeks ago, and I’ve learned a lot about myself in the last month and a half. I mean, that’s what this challenge is about, right? Learning about yourself.

I learned that i make a lot of excuses. Not contentiously, mind you. I don’t sit down and say “I’d rather do this than write.” It’s more subtle than that. I get to the computer and think “I’ll just play this game for a few minutes then get to writing.” Then an hour later I’m still playing a game and no writing has taken place. Or I think I will just check Reddit, or twitter, or whatever.

I’ve learned that social media is something I need to limit from now on. Half an hour for everything, and that’s it. And Reddit is not my friend. Reddit is a trap of meme’s, news stories, and interesting anecdotes that will suck me in and keep me there for a long time if I’m not careful.

I’ve learned that I need to stop making excuses about the small things so that when the larger things happen I don’t feel so guilty. It’s okay to take a sick day, but it feels so bad if you’re behind on work and you’re just adding one more excuse to the top of a growing pile.

I’ve learned that I need to take self imposed deadlines a lot more seriously. I’m not sure how to do this yet, but that’s part of what this challenge is about. And no, I can’t say “I’ll do better next week.” I have to do better THIS week, because each week I put it off just makes things that much worse.

So for the past eight weeks of the challenge I finished four stories. I just finished the final draft one the fourth one this morning. That’s an average of two weeks per story. Not horrible, but not great either.

“Cloud,” the story you’re getting today, was conceived on the road to RadCon. Gregg and I were passing through the mountains and talking about the desolate area. We were in the middle of no where with nothing for miles, and the mountains up ahead. A lot of my story ideas come from discussions I have with Gregg.

For next week I’ll be finishing “The Deep,” which is my story in regards to the story prompt I gave a few weeks ago about finding something unusual in the ocean.

I also know that while the stories I send you are completed first drafts, they aren’t finished. I generally like my short stories to be at least 3000 words before I publish them. This isn’t always possible since some stories just have a naturally shorter length, but often I find that I have to go back in and add description, or little details that will make the story flow better. That’s the case with this one as well. The bones are there, and it’s a good basic story, but there is a little bit of brushing up to make it GOOD that needs to happen before I can publish it. This one, I feel, also might need a new name.

But for now…

**********

Cloud
Lisa shifted in the passenger seat, the rough upholstery grating against her arms as she tried, in vein, to get comfortable. Beside her Zach snorted. Her brother never had an issue sleeping, no matter where they were. Hotel rooms, camping on rocky ground, or sleeping in the camped front seat of a Honda Civic, Zach dozed off within seconds of closing his eyes. Lisa hated him for it, and envied it, especially right then.

They had been traveling for nearly a week, gathering photos and articles about various little towns in the Midwest for their blog. In a few months they’d be right back out on the road heading to the east coast. But for now they were headed home to their computers and equipment, a warm cup of coffee, and her own bed where she could finally fall asleep.

She dreamed of her bed with the five fluffy pillows and three thick comforters laid out on top of it as she hitched her jacket back up on her shoulders. She was only vaguely aware of the rolling hills sliding past them just outside the window. They would be in the mountains soon, with snow and towering trees all around them. The rolling of the car across hilly roads should have lulled her to sleep, instead it just annoyed her.

She concentrated on the lull of the car, rocking back and forth. The soft sound of tires over black top. The sway as the road curved gently to the left, then back right, following along the stream below them.

Sleep drifted closer…then was ripped away by a bright light blazing through her eye lids, followed by the sudden jerk of the car to the right as it careened into the shoulder and came to a sudden stop.

She shot up in her seat, mind snapping to full alertness as Zach fought to gain control of the car. A shock wave washed over them, a grumble that grew in the air, pressing down on them with a tremendous force as trees and rocks sailed across the road in front of them.

“What the hell is going on?” Lisa cried.

“I don’t know,” Zach said, struggling to pull the car to a stop.

“I saw light? Was it a car?”

 

To read the rest of “Cloud” subscribe to my newsletter. You will also get a free copy of “Witch’s Sacrifice”. 

Excuses

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Today Gregg came home and I was playing Minecraft. I love Minecraft, I find it relaxing. I usually listen to podcasts while I’m playing, or catch up on the news.

But then he asked how my writing was going. I was honest, as I always am (even when it hurts) with him. I had been writing earlier and I’d get back to it soon.

Then he hit me with the hard question, after stressing that he wasn’t trying to be judgmental or anything, he was just honestly curious…And I mostly believe him, but the question cut through me a little deeper than any other question he’s asked me.

I’m just curious if you make more excuses to write, or not to write.

Ouch. There I was, playing a game when I knew I should be finishing up that novel I’ve been trying to complete, and he was cutting to the quick of it, yet again. It hurt, but he was entirely right. I had been making excuses just like I usually do, and letting myself get away with it.

Excuses are insidious things. I use to think of them as the things I did to get out of an assignment, like washing dishes, or cleaning the lint trap. ANYTHING to get out of doing something I dreaded. But I love writing, right? So I wouldn’t be making excuses to get out of that. WRONG.

Writing is fun, just like painting or playing music, or making a vase. But when you try to shift from doing art for joy to doing art for a living you realize you have to do this thing all the time instead of just when the mood hits you. You realize it’s not always going to be fun anymore. Sometimes it’s going to be a slough and you’re going to have to do it anyway.

Oh I love my stories. I love creating worlds with fantastic creatures roaming through dark woods, and witches flinging spells across wide oceans, and men being cursed to live as hawks. I love the fact that all of these mystical and magical worlds that lived inside of me for decades now get to be seen by others. And I love that they will live on beyond me.

But that only happens if I actually write them. They only have a life of their own if I put in the work.

And, lets face it, playing a video game is fun. It can be mindless entertainment. It can be a complete distraction from everything else around you, including the art you want to create.

Substitute TV shows, books, train rides, sky diving or whatever in there. If we are using these little distractions as an excuse not to seek out our creative fulfillment then we are just hurting ourselves.

Now…I have a book to go write.

Tales from Radcon 2016 and a Question

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2016-02-13 12.20.50Now that I’m getting over the con-crud I thought it was time to share what happened at RadCon with everyone, and what I took away for myself from it.

First: Radcon was amazing! So many amazing things happened, so many new friends, so much new information. Gregg and I had to take some time to process it all. It’s been a week and the excitement of RadCon wore off a little bit, but the knowledge and encouragement are still working.

For Gregg this was a moment of validation. He won the best in fantasy for the masquerade, then he was invited to stand up at a panel and talk about his armor, and the road to it’s completion. He had several of the speakers (men and women currently working in prop/armor making for TV and movies) there oh-ing and ah-ing over his armor. Then they invited him to be on a panel next year as a full member. It was overwhelming. Gregg might have done a happy dance a few times, and then just collapsed from sheer joy.

It was so amazing to watch him transform from the unsure, self critical person he had been into this massive beast of a man walking through the crowds with his head held high, clad head to toe in red and black armor that he made with his own two hands. The pride, the smile, the final moment when he could say “I did something great!”

Sure, there are still little imperfections that bother him, little things that stand out as “I need to fix that.” Every creator has that little voice in the back of their mind saying those things, and we wouldn’t want to make our stuff better if we didn’t. But…as one of the panelists (a man who works on Grimm) said “There is only one person who sees all the little mistakes, and that’s you. Everyone else just looks at the overall piece.” (paraphrased, of course.)

I watched his transformation with pride, and happiness…and maybe a little jealousy. I realized that I needed that same transformation for myself. The same validation that yes, I am a good writer, and yes I’m on the right path. And I realized that I didn’t know how to get there. For me…it was a moment to realize that I need to get my shit together and figure out what the hell I’m doing.

So for the past week, while I’ve been battling con-sars, I’ve been thinking about my writing career, where it’s going, and what pieces I want or need to change.

First of all, The Bradbury Challenge has been a fantastic thing for me to do. NaNoWriMo has it’s good points, especially in learning to write faster and let go of the inner critic, but the Bradbury Challenge focuses on finishing things, and really need that emphasis on getting things done.

I haven’t been doing well. It’s been seven weeks and I’ve completed three stories. That’s not a story a week. This week I had a good excuse. First the convention, then a horrible head cold that knocked me out for three days, and left me incapable of writing. But what about all the other weeks? What excuse did I have then? And were they really good enough?

Now the truth is I have written almost every day since November first, and accomplishment in itself. I put down 6.4 thousand words on my novel last month, getting it closer to publication. I wrote 11k more on the short stories I worked on. But I didn’t finish all of the Bradbury stories. I didn’t send them to my newsletter as I promised. And this month I’ve only written 5k so far.

I should at least be continuing with a story if I fail to finish it the week previously. Instead I have come up with new stories every week since January first, and written plots and paragraphs for all of them. I LOVE the idea phase of a story a thousand percent more then actually finishing a story. Brainstorming is second nature to me, and if I get an awesome idea for a novel I have no problem jotting down 3-5000 words in a couple hours on that idea.

But ideas don’t make a career. Ideas are just that…ideas. They have no form, no function, and no monetary value. If all of my stories stay ideas I get nowhere. I get no actual career.

This, I think, is what I saw with Gregg and his armor. At the end he was sleep deprived and his body was screaming for relief. He kept telling me about pains in muscles he didn’t know existed, or his hands cramping, or being surprised he didn’t break something when he hit his hand with a mallet. But he kept going. He wanted to finish that armor. Not just a few pieces, he wanted the whole set.

Do I want my writing career even half as much as he wanted that?

It is no surprise that they invited him back to speak at the conference. It is no surprise that he had many people in his industry talking to him, encouraging him, and telling him how truly awesome he was, and is. Because he is amazing! He has persistence, and he has a passion, a real hunger, for his craft.

Do I? Or is this more of a hobby that I just enjoy when I’m not playing video games? I don’t think it’s a hobby, but then again, where are the finished products?

That’s the question I’m going to be asking myself the next couple of weeks as I am working on my short stories, and finishing things. I’m not at 100% yet, still recovering from this sickness, and still very, VERY, tired. But that’s nothing but an excuse, and I know it.

So are my passions bigger than my excuses? Time to put up or shut up, I think.

A new platform?

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There’s too much social media out there? Blogs, twitter, facebook, tumbler… the list goes on and on and ON!

I’ve tried to limit my time on social media. I do use several of them for different things. I post my book reviews and book reads on Goodreads, and some for booktube on youtube, I have a Facebook and a tumbler but I just push things to them, I don’t really interact there much. I have a G+ that I use to use a lot, but less so lately as my feed has gotten more like facebook and less like the community I loved. Twitter is where I tend to communicate with people, and my blog is where I share things, behind the scenes and such.

So why did I just get into Medium?

My blog is fun, and I love it, but it is a catch all. I use my blog to sometimes discuss things that are incredibly important to me, like welfare, or politics, or TPP. I also use it to talk about things that bother me, and the trouble I have with writers block, or even just the twit that cut me off while driving the other day. It’s a place to be me! I chat, I show who I really am, and I share it with you.

But if I am doing all of those things at once then anything I have to say that is remotely important get’s lost in the background. It quickly gets pushed down under mini rants and questions of “what the heck was that.” And I actually love essay writing. Argumentative, evaluation, comparative, and descriptive. That’s basically what article writing is: an essay.

So when I saw Medium articles posted by some of my favorite people on twitter and youtube I thought I’d check it out. Then I decided it was a perfect place for me to share my essays and articles without them getting lost under my more personal writing here.

So…the first article is up. It’s called “Where do ideas come from?” I probably won’t add articles there very often, but I might go back through my old posts on here and pull out the best ones to be updated and used as articles over there.

 

Formatting Matters

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I have been doing a lot of reformatting lately. Adding in better back matter, adding in a little notice about the news letter and a offer of a free book. Little things here and there that take forever, but they go a long way to making a book look professional.

It’s amazing how much my ideas of a “finished” book have changed over the last two years. Even my covers have improved dramatically. But none so much as my print books.

IMAG1817When I first printed the original print editions of my various books I did okay, got the right page size and put the beginning chapter on the right side of the book. I even added a page of reviews so anyone picking it up might see that I had at least some accreditation. They looked good.

When I got to “Witch’s Sacrifice” I did everything the same way, or so I thought, and ordered the proof. The text was itty bitty and could barely be read. I adjusted, sent a new one and found that I forgot to add the front matter. Tried again, upped the font size and added the front matter. Adjusted the table of contents since that always changes when you adjust the font. This version was readable, but I still wasn’t quite happy with it.

It turns out I was using the wrong sized pages when creating the print files for “Witch’s Sacrifice.” That meant when it was shrunk down by Create Space the font shrank with it. When it printed the text ended up being off in every way, as did the page numbers, maps, and everything else.

I didn’t bother changing it after the last time. The text wasn’t too small, so it didn’t look horrible, but it wasn’t exactly what I wanted either, but I knew that I’d have to get to it eventually along with all the other little things. Last week I finally took a few days to start reformatting.

IMAG1820It is amazing how big a difference it is just to have everything the correct size. It’s about a one hundred page difference. After adjusting the size of the page and putting in the correct size text made the book feel more substantial, like a real novel.

I got the new and improved version of “Witch’s Sacrifice” today, and it’s beautiful. It’s everything I wanted it to be, and now I know how to format the other two.

BTW!

“Witch’s Stand”, the final book in the series, will be going to the editor next week! I will also be getting the cover done at the end of the month. That means I will finally have a finished trilogy! SQWEEEEEEE!

There is one more story in the Witch’s Trilogy, and that’s a short story about Salvia, the little mother, and how she learns that she is a witch. I haven’t decided if I will be giving this away for perma-free, or just sharing this with my newsletter (though my newsletter will get it long before anyone else does.) However, once that is done I will be putting out a combo pack that has all four stories in it. I will hopefully have the other print books out as well, and might also get a print book of all four together depending on how long it ends up being.

But right now we’re getting ready for RadCon. If you’re there let me know, I’d love to meet you.

Map Building

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PeyllenI’ve always enjoyed building maps, and world building in general. I have a few dozen of them stashed among the pages of old hand written story ideas, their edges smudged over time, and words sometimes faded out WSsmltill it’s illegible. But the concept, the idea of the map is still there.

The journey of Peyllen started with a young girl leaving home for the first time. That was the first book that I wrote in the series, the first book I finished in the series. But it won’t be released for a long time. There are many stories that come before that one, and it will have to be rewritten in its entirety before it ever sees the light of day. But the idea behind it, the world and the magic, remain. You might have already taken a peak at it. It is the same world that my Witch’s Trilogy came from.

map2The very first iteration of Peyllen was a scratchy pencil drawing on a spare piece of paper.

I scanned and copied it into Gimp and started adding outlines, colors, adjusting the land masses, and giving it more definition. I added “The Sea of Tears” since it did not appear on the original maps (though the idea was always there).

peylinPeyllan has grown, taken shape and mass of it’s own in my thoughts. And the stories have grown as well.

I’m getting to the end of book three in the trilogy. I think I’ll take a short break from Peyllan after that to work on a few other projects, but eventually I’ll be back. There are ten more novels in this world waiting to be told. And I bet by the time I’ve finished some of them I’ll find more stories lurking in the world. Maybe some from areas yet uncharted on the far side of the world.