A Special Date Made More Special, Update and...Cats??

Special Date Made More Special

The Book of Prophecy: Book 1 in The Chronicles of Elementary. Cover Reveal!!!

Some of what I’m about to say won’t make much sense to most people, but it needs to be recorded. 16-2-14 is an important day and made more so by becoming the day my book cover was revealed to the world. It was a lovely, selfless gift to be revealed on that day and I’m thankful that the 16-2-14 has two reasons to be memorable.

As for the book cover I absolutely love it. The artist employed by the Kristell-Ink (www.kristell-ink.com/about), Ken Dawson (www.ccovers.co.uk), brought my ideas to life and I’m thankful for all the hard work he put in to the cover for The Book of Prophecy. I really feel this cover stands out and will draw people to it, but I guess only time will tell. A publication date has also been given and this is 01-8-14. Does anyone have a time machine so we can skip to that date already :).

Update

Nurture Fails, Nature Remains: Book 2 in The Chronicles of Elementary. Update.

Book 2 is now 151,000 words and I have one chapter and an epilogue left to do. Once that’s done it will be going back and adding the dates. This will be tedious, but I like having the dates and I think it adds a little realism to the story. After the dates are done there are 19, ‘things to add or check,’ and after this a chapter by chapter read, focusing on some world building, will take place. Then a final read all the way through and hopefully it will be done and ready to show to a few people to get feedback. All of this may take another month or two, but that's good as it keeps me busy. It has taken a lot longer than I thought to do this re-write but I’m so happy with how book 2 will be when it’s done.  

Cats??

A few weeks ago I was asked to do a flash fiction of 500 words for an anthology called, ‘Felinity.’ The theme was a sci-fi or fantasy story that had some link to cats. After an hour I had constructed a piece called, ‘The Caterpillar of Catastrophe and The Catatonically Drunk Cat.’ It was very fun to write this story and for once not be overly serious. I believe Felinity is currently being formatted, but the collection will be on sale shortly.

4Y, 3Y, 2M, 1C.W/Dodging Plot Holes In The Road

4Y, 3Y, 2M, 1C.W.

4 YEARS! Yep, it’s been that long since this journey began. It’s also been: 3 years of writing this blog, 2 months since the last update, and still one crazy writer who hopes for the fourth time that this will be his year.

Dodging Plot Holes In The Road

In the last couple of blogs I think I mentioned how it was hard to know what choice to make in terms of reviewing, or doing my own writing. I chose to focus on book two in the Chronicles of Elementary as I hoped it would make time go by fast, which it certainly has. It also turns out it was the right choice because I found a plot flaw in the Book of Prophecy when I went back to check something that was mentioned in book two. It was only a small thing, and only a few lines of information, which was easy to clear up, but it was a case of too much plot revealed to early. So it was taken out and all is well. I’m very glad I was able to put it write as especially as BoP will be out this year.

Furthermore, as I’ve written the second book, which is now 110,000 words and counting, I’ve seen a few plot holes (weaknesses) in it and been able to strengthen them dramatically. It’s so good to see how far I’ve come over these four years and I'm very happy that I can now spot the weaknesses and change them to make my stories more organic and realistic. It’s exhausting though, as there’s so much to try and remember about the plots of two books, and the others that are to come, but then I guess that’s one of the skills a writer should have. I'm thankful for those who have helped me with editing as each person has shown me what to look for and how to improve; I couldn't have become a better writer without their wisdom.

Conclusion 

I actually don’t have much else to say except that 2014 should be an incredible year. As far as I’m aware people are working behind the scenes to make the Book of Prophecy the best it can be and I want to thank them with all my heart- THANK YOU! You all know who you are and I’m looking forward to thanking you all in person one day.

I just can’t believe it’s been four years. I have four years of built up energy, and four years of love and hate for this journey, but in the end both the positive and negatives are just fuel for what is to come. I’m ready to share BoP with the world, but until then I must be patient for a little while longer. Hopefully in another two months, when I blog again, there will be more news on what is happening with BoP. Book two’s re-write should hopefully be finished as well.

The Calm Goes On/Life Lessons/Selfishness

The Calm Goes On

There has been no change to the writing situation in two months, which is fine. It’s what I expected and it may not move forward for another few months, which again is fine. I’m trying to keep my excitement for publication at bay and I think I’m doing well. I just keep doing my little bit of writing each day at that keeps me distracted.

Life Lessons

Over the last few years there have been some difficult times and they have been the fuel for another writing project. Each experience has given me inspiration for this project and it’s allowed me to be creative in a consolidated way. I’m thankful for the difficult times and the life lessons because they help give all my writing essence and substance.

Selfishness

I know I said I’d try to keep reviewing, but I've decided to be selfish and work mostly on book two of the Chronicles of Elementary (now at chapter 11, 55,000 words in, but not even close to half way yet, yikes!). This has been for one reason and one alone- it will pass the time quicker. If I focus on this project it will keep me busy for many months and keep me focused. I’m not good at juggling things, or multitasking, so focusing on one thing at a time is the best option for me. After it’s done and B.O.P is out I can take some time to read some stories as I have a growing list.

Conclusion

So the calm of not much change continues. In a way I've actually come to love the tranquility and serenity of just focusing on writing book two. That said I am really excited for the Book of Prophecy being published, but must keep that excitement under control. I’ll probably update in another couple of months and things may be the same, or things may have moved forward. Either way I’m very content with the writing situation at the moment.

The Calm Before the Storm

The Calm Before the Storm

Wow, life as a writer is very quiet at the moment. It’s taking all my patience to keep my head down and focus on writing and reviewing. I can pretty much give a list of what I'm going to be doing for the next six months. It’s going to be a winter of hard work that’s for sure. There will be very little posting, or anything to report, hence the 'calm,' but once it’s all done it will be close to publishing time and the 'storm' of marketing will commence :)

The Next Six Months

1) I will be editing through the second book of the Chronicles of Elementary. I’m on chapter three so far. There are a lot of changes, but it’s reassuring to see how much my writing has improved in three years.

2) The last edits of the Book of Prophecy need to be made, but once they have it will go to the editors at the publishing company.

3) I will be reading a variety of books and reviewing them.

4) The art for the front cover of Book of Prophecy will appear at some point. I'm very excited to see it.

5) The changes for B.o.P will come back from the editor/publishers and I’ll need to work through those.

And that is most likely everything for the next six months. That is the glamorous life of a writer in a nutshell. It’s part of the process and after more than three and a half years this is the closing stage of one chapter. Once the Book of Prophecy is published it will be a massive relief and weight of my shoulder. I  really cannot wait to start marketing it. But first it’s time to knuckle down and work as hard as I can. 

Hello!/Keeping A Short Story Short

Hello!

First of all I would like to say an official hello on here to anyone who has 'liked' my Facebook page recently. Thanks to KristellInk's competition there has been about forty of you and if you have come to look at this blog update via F.B, Hello! and good luck with the competition :).

Keeping A Short Story Short

In my previous update I talked about a short story I've been working on and the effort it took to find what I needed for it. The short story is now ninety-nine percent finished. It needs some little bits added, but I will do those at some point soon.

It has been really fun blending Ancient Greek Mythology into a Steven style story and I think people will enjoy it. I've called it, 'Blood of Atreus: The Last Hope for Gods and Mortals.' The word count was meant to be about eight thousand, but I hope I can get away with ten thousand. Even getting it down to that was a struggle.
   As I wrote I had a lot of really cool content, but by the time I got to thirteen thousand words I realised I needed to stop. I saved that version and one day I will keep writing and it will probably be a twenty to twenty-five thousand word novella. With that version saved I started cutting and editing what I had written and managed to slim it down to ten thousand words.
   I'm happy with this, as it's still a really good story with all the main ideas I wanted, but I do feel it can be expanded and even more interesting and enjoyable. I'm really looking forward to sharing this short story with you and will post about when that will be in the future.

I have also decided to turn my Frankenstein short story, and two other ideas for stories, into novellas. I think having these three, and the Greek Mythology short story as a novella, will make a really good collection if put together in one book. This is a few years off though, as I have to get book one of The Chronicles of Elementary: The Book of Prophecy, ready for publication. I also need to start properly editing the second book of the series and I'm going to try to keep reviewing other stories too.

As always there's a lot of work ahead for me, but I love creating stories and I hope you will enjoy reading them once they are ready to be shared.

The Thin Line Between Genius and Insanity

Not that I think I’ve been on the side of genius at any point in my life, well except maybe for when I learned how to walk and talk, but recently I’ve certainly crossed the line into insanity.

I'm currently writing a short story and needed to find a brief quote that was vital for the story. The quote was from a book but it was obscure and due to having audiobooks, because of my dry eye issues, I had to search through two audiobooks that were both sixteen hours long. In total it only took me about 8-10 hours of searching over three days. I say 'only' because it could have been a lot worse. Fortunately I knew which character said it, so that helped, but it was in a really obscure place in the book that I hadn’t remembered. After checking all the obvious places I stumbled across it and you can imagine my relief when I finally found it and could get on with actually writing story.

It made me realise how crazy I am with my writing and how focused and determined I get when I want to achieve something. That said I am very lazy in many aspects of my life and this focus rarely gets seen- unless I'm trying to furnish a flat for free. (That ones for you Bear Wills). 

Published! (in 2014)

(A part of what I posted on Facebook)

KRISTELL INK HAVE PURCHASED THE RIGHTS TO MY NOVEL, 'THE BOOK OF PROPHECY!' Cannot wait for this!! Thank you to everyone at Kristell Ink and to you guys for all the help and support you've given me over the years. This is a massive step up the ladder and cannot wait until it's published- Bring on Autumn 2014!! :D 

https://www.facebook.com/KristellInk/posts/639936652701408

http://www.kristell-ink.com/future-releases/the-book-of-prophecy/