Up Next

Tonight was quiet at work. It was a nice change of pace after the past six days of non-stop running every moment I've been there. In the long lulls of nothing going on, I started mulling over what I was going to write next.

Naturally, this next writing adventure won't happen until after the new year. December is normally too busy, and this year I've got boatloads going on that I wasn't anticipating originally. I decided to start thinking about the offshoot stories I planned to eventually write, called The Human-Born Chronicles. I already wrote one (what was supposed to be my only piece for senior sem), but I'd really like the opportunity to write the other five remaining ones.

So, after I finish Arthur (which will definitely be happening!), I'm gonna start tearing into at least some of the HBCs (my affectionate nickname).

Yeah. I really want to beat my nearly 600,000 word total from last year.

Currently Writing: Nothing at the moment. Give me a few weeks.
Currently Reading: Green by Ted Dekker
Currently Listening to: "Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies)" by Chris Tomlin

Where'd July Go?

Holy crap it's almost August.

You know what that means: another month of Camp Nano! And, crazily enough, another wedding! My August looks packed and I'm actually not sure if I'll reach my 50,000 word goal for the month. With a wedding, a sister coming back from a summer gone working stage design for a theater, and a week down at Ocean City with my family...

It'll be tough. But I think I can do it. So long as I'm dedicated. And that's the important thing. Just keep plugging away. My breaks will become time to scribble notes, small scenes and what not down while I'm away from my computer and I'll just learn to drink coffee.

July has truly flown past. It's been good, but shockingly busy. With getting into a stride having regular work (and with that, regular money), and all of the craziness at church with Philly Extreme and VBS, it's been hard to get into a routine. It also doesn't help much that despite the many ideas floating around my head, I took this past month off to not write.

I'm itching to get back to it. Writing the outline for the Arthurian tale has been fun, but a lot of it is foggy. There's a lot that I really don't know what's happening. It's kinda how I felt when I started trying to figure out my fifth book.

Well, as always, happy writing everyone! Anyone interested in Camp Nano should check it out. I highly encourage everyone to embark on it. You never know what you're capable of until you try.

Currently Writing: Absolutely nothing (sing it again!)
Currently Reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Currently Listening to: "Idumea" by the Millikin University Choir

All Grown Up (Sorta)

The highest high point of my life has arrived.

Graduating college was great. Watching my best friend get married was fantastic. Writing all five books of the End Game series in a year was phenomenal.

But holding an actual, professional bound copy of Genesis takes the cake (and probably ate it too).

Every time I see it sitting on my bookshelf or take it to show a family member that has yet to see it, I start grinning. Holding it in my hand, fingering through the pages, reading the story in this new medium. It's all so exhilarating. I sort of want to jump around and dance and scream. I even tried to take a picture of myself with the book. My webcam sucks and I don't look recognizable without my glasses on.

So you'll just have to make do with this lovely picture of me.

My book is all growed up. Kinda. I explained to my brother that it's as though my book just graduated high school. In a few years, it'll graduate college, be picked up by a publishing house and go off into the real world.

Meanwhile, I'm reading The Once and Future King like a crazy person, though I don't plan to follow that framework for my Arthurian lore story. That's a little more romanticized and, I'm fairly certain (don't quote me on this), that it's through this version of the story we get the whole idea of Lancelot and Guinevere having a love affair behind Arthur's back. Which is not happening in my version of the story.

Oh, and I redesigned the blog. Obviously. I'm attempting to figure out how to transform this into my official author website. Right now I feel like I've got two jobs: one pays the bills and the other is scraping along meagerly. And, of course, the meager one is what I want to do for the rest of my life. How silly is that?

I'd say only a crazy person would do it.

Happy writing everyone!

Currently Writing: Nothing. And it's driving me a little bonkers.

Currently Reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White

Currently Listening to: "Hymn to Life" by Thomas Bergersen

Faith

It's a funny thing. You have to just have blind faith sometimes about some things. Faith that something will work out the way you've been dreaming of. Faith of a promise being fulfilled with absolutely no proof that it'll actually come to pass. Faith that one day, your hurting friends will find peace.

I have to remind myself of these things. Because I can do very little on my own. All in all, I'm a fairly helpless creature.

Thus I have left the ledge and jumped off a cliff. Will I fly? Will I die? Will this be the end of a dream, or only the beginning? Or neither?

The absolutely beautiful, crazy thing is: I'm not worried.

Huh.

Happy writing everyone :)

Currently Rewriting: Unity

Currently Reading: Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet

Currently Listening to: "Stars Burn Down" by Phillips, Craig & Dean

Leaping, Hoping to Fly

Have you ever heard of CreateSpace? Two days ago, I hadn't.


Apparently, as a winner of NaNoWriMo, I can get 5 free copies of my book. Bound, pretty, and with a cover printed and all sorts of professionalism-ness that I'm yearning for.


The catch is, now it's out there for the masses too. Which means...inadvertently, I have unleashed End Game: Genesis into the world. In theory, I could cancel the account once I get my 5 free copies and maybe travel down this road later on in life. Or, I can just let it sit out there as I search for an editor. Does that make sense? Would an editor want someone who already has the book out for the masses through CreateSpace?


Now, almost at 3 in the morning, I find myself in this tangle of emotions. I'm elated and timid and excited and a little worried and a lot unsure. Have I made the right step? Is this where I'm meant to travel? Have I veered off the path I'm meant to stick to, simply because I'm impatient? Or, by some great grace of God, have I, in my terrified stumbling, wandered right where I need to be?


I simply don't know.


However, I'm not going to lie. When that proof comes and I have my book in professional bound-ness, I very well may scream out loud so high in pitch I won't recognize myself.


Currently Writing: Zero Point
Currently Reading: Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet
Currently Listening to: "Lead Me" by Sanctus Real


P.S. - Today is my birthday. Around 7 this morning (only 4 hours away!), I turn 24. Let's hope for another amazing year filled with God's promises and possibly even some unknown adventures.

Entering Adventure

Tomorrow I'm going to the library to search for these books.

In all of my searching for agents and editors (although honestly, I've only really looked at agents), I had constrained myself to the Christian market. The idea of going into the secular world scared the tar out of me. It still kind of does, if I'm honest with myself. Although, for some reason, I've never actually thought that the Christian market was where my books were meant to land.

Let's look at things. There's the secular market, where you have, well, everything. Then there's the Christian market. It's where everything even remotely hinting at God gets thrown. Books there tend to wither and die. They're allegorical and annoying. Not that allegory is wrong. It's just wrong for me. And boring. Take Ted Dekker's Color series (Red, Black, White and Green). I read through the first three and knew all of the plot twists that were going to happen halfway through the first book. It made the reading of the other two to be irritating. There wasn't any surprise or suspense. I know he can write it, because Adam was pretty dang good.

All of this to say that my books are not allegorical. I sat back while talking with my mom and realized that the people I'm attempting to emulate (C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien), are not confined to the Christian market. In fact, when you walk into a book store and search for Narnia, it's in the children section while Lord of the Rings sits in the Fantasy section. These two titans of writing have straddled the line between the Christian and secular world.

I wish to do the same.

I guess that means that I'm heading toward where I think I need to be. The research begins and hopefully (fingers crossed), I'll be sending out proposals within the next month.

In the meantime, anyone reading this - do you pitch a series differently from a one book, stand alone novel? Seeing as I'm technically only sending the first book in my series to people for publishing, I am pitching the whole five-book series. Is that done differently? Do I need to be sure to mention it in a query letter? Or am I pitching the whole story arc itself?

Happy writing!

Currently Reading: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Currently [Re]Writing: Unity
Currently Listening to: "Without You" by David Guetta feat. Usher

On Teb. On.

That's from Galaxy Quest.

I'm starting editing on my second novel.

I think it's the right timing. I'm waiting to get feedback on my fifth book from friends, so until then I have little advancements I can do. That's not true. I've got three prequels to write eventually (at least for my own knowledge), but I want something to work on during Camp Nano.

Things went really well when I edited my first book. And I think things'll go really well with the second book too. I'm looking forward to it. Which is kind of funny. I think most young writers like myself detest the idea of editing their books because we look at it and say, "I just wrote it. Isn't that enough?" Being told, "Great, that's wonderful that you just wrote 70,000 words. Now go back, tear it apart, and put it back together again." That's simply detrimental.

It very well may be brain-crush worthy.

Now that I've done this once before and I'm about to embark on the task of epic editing again, I have little advice to give. And really it's this: have fun with it. Y'know, just enjoy your story. In rereading it, just explore the avenues you can travel. If you find something that might work better, venture down it. That road might not be the right one, but be open to whatever the story may say and whatever your critics may say.

So that's it. Just be willing to go the way the story needs to. Be open to exploring other avenues. Don't shy away from suggestions - even if they don't work. You never know, an awful suggestion might give you just the right idea that will make it all work better than you had ever thought.

Happy writing.

Currently Editing: Unity
Currently Reading: Homecoming by Alaina Bargar
Currently Listening to: "Raise Your Glass [Clean Version]" by Pink

Coming to 5 of 5

I'm beginning preliminary work for my fifth book today.

Is this a dream? Is this just some screwed up, sick joke? It has to be. My fifth? really? That's 5 of 5. That's the end. That's the last of the series.

Really?

It's a wonderful and yet daunting thing to experience. There's a lot left to be done and explained, and as I seem to have followed the models of the fantasy genre, I've left the answers to come in the last book. The darkness has fallen on the characters at the end of the fourth book and in theory, the sunrise comes at the end of the fifth book.

In all honesty, I don't know how I feel about this. I don't know how I should be feeling. Times like these lead me to wonder if all authors feel this way when they near their finish line. Did C.S. Lewis feel this way when he crafted The Last Battle? Did J.K. Rowling feel this strange apprehension when she sat down to begin penning out The Deathly Hallows? Did Orsen Scott Card feel this way about Xenocide? How about Jeffrey Overstreet with his Auralia thread? Or J.R.R. Tolkien with Lord of the Rings? What about Christopher Paolini with Inheritance? Or the countless other authors I have yet to read?

Series writing is hard. If you've been following along, I've documented a good deal of it here on this blog. Not all, but a good chunk. You have to be sure that the pieces you've got in your head match up. You have to make sure the bread crumbs you've been leaving behind in the previous books lead to a satisfying conclusion. Is there a plot twist strong enough to give the audience the double-take they're looking for? Is there an ending that leaves them looking back to the beginning? Do they still ask for more, even when the main story has reached its end? Have you given them a rich enough world that they believe in it?

I'm excited and nervous. I'm smiling yet frowning. What happens when I'm done? What then?

Strangely enough...a lot. At least for me. For me, there's a growing number of stories I want to write that might never get published and I'd be okay with that. But I want to explore these stories and write them out. I want to delve deeper into the characters surrounding the main cast.

When you introduce over 50 characters into your ensemble and say, "But really we're only focusing on about 12 of them", the audience probably takes a breath and says, "Good." Some of them do anyway. I like to think there are whole hosts of smart readers out there that are looking for a complex story with a myriad of characters to follow. At the very least, I like to assume that my audience is intelligent and capable of keeping up with my sluggish brain.

So onward I march. There's a finish line out there, somewhere. Right now I'm in fog and can't really see. I'll keep moving forward though. There's a drive in my soul that keeps pushing me forward, so I can't really ignore it. There's a reason for this advancement. There's a reason for this. This story didn't pop into my head for kicks. It means something. I'm adventuring to find out what.

The outline for my fifth book begins and thus the tidal wave will crest and I'll wait in anticipation for the break of it to wash over me.

Let's discover together. Who's with me?

Currently Editing: Alaster
Currently Writing: Revelation Outline
Currently Reading: Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: "Emergency" by The Vitamin String Quartet

World Creation

I've been reading Orson Scott Card's book Writing About Science Fiction and Fantasy and one of the main sections he stresses is world building. As writers of new worlds, it's important to understand the world we are placing our characters into. If necessary, make histories that go back to the dawn of that world. Our understanding of it is a requirement. Because if we don't understand it, then no one will.
I've begun writing my fourth book and I know come the end of the series, I have to destroy the world I've built. I have to look at it and it's beauty that I've wished to walk through, and tear it apart. When I started out it seemed like the logical thing to do. It seemed like the right thing to do.
Now, when I started out, I was fourteen.
I didn't even understand that there was a world there to really explore. But that's a story for another time. No, instead I'm going to talk a bit about the fact that one day I'm going to have to tear everything apart that I've built. It's a necessary part of it all, although I couldn't explain why without first explaining everything else. At the same time, I can't give away too much because I know Kara knows about this blog and might pick something up that she shouldn't. (Yes Kara, I'm keeping an eye on you, even from 400+ miles away).
I don't look forward to that day. I didn't look forward to the deaths of characters and I definitely didn't relish in those agonizing hours spent in front of my computer, bawling my eyes out as I tried to write the words to the saddest things I could think of.
But I know it's there. I know one day I'll finish my series and put the books on a shelf and say, "It's finished." And on that day, I'm going to step back, look at what I've done, and ask, "Okay, now what?"
Aside from End Game, I have no idea what I'd do afterward. I mean, I think I've only got that one good idea. I really don't want to write anything else right now because I'm filled to the brim with stuff just for this one idea. I can't imagine adding a different world, different characters, and different situations into my brain at the moment.
Will it still be the same when I finish my series? I don't know. If it is, I won't complain. I'll enter the mission field. I'll write a memoir or something. Maybe I'll start a college. I don't really know.
I won't run away from it though. In starting my fourth book, I'm running toward a finish line that I've set up for myself. A goal that only I instated, and I'm glad I'm the only one to say, "Okay, by here, we've gotta be done!" It makes it more manageable to me. I don't know how, but it does.
And who knows? Maybe by the end of the summer, I'll have all five books done. Wouldn't that be awesome?
Currently Writing: Unseen
Currently Reading: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Currently Listening to: "Sleep" by Polyphony & Stephen Layton

The Continued Adventures...

Of the writing life!
At least the writing life of a fantasy writer. I'm beginning to embark on the journey of my fourth book! Woohoo! Always a fun thing; starting on a new book. If I'm successful in writing this by the time I graduate, I'll have written 3 books in a year and rewritten my first one and written a novella! I like to think that's pretty dang good.
That's still to be determined of course. It's likely that everything I've written is in dire need of editing. In fact, that's incredibly likely. But enough about that. Editing is most of the work of the writer.
One of the most difficult things I've had to come to terms with is the unknown elements of a book. It's been a little while since I was planning out a book and didn't know mostly what was going on. My fourth book isn't the one I'm talking about. For the most part, my fourth book is pretty well figured out. Naturally, when I actually start writing it, that might not be the case.
I started a timeline to see where I was in my characters lives since the beginning of the series. It's an important thing to do. Since I'm not a fan of just sitting around forever for kicks and giggles, I tend to plow straight forward without looking back until I'm knee deep in water. But I realized that I was having a lot happen quickly. Which I like. I'm not complaining in the slightest, because it makes sense to me to have this all happen so quickly.
To an audience...well, I haven't gotten any bad reviews yet about the timing and pacing.
Anyway, I started writing into my fifth and final book of the series and hit a huge gap. What's going on in that book entirely? I don't really know. I know lots of stuff that will happen in the book. I know how the series is ending, I know how the last book is beginning. I know what's happening in it, I just don't know the order or the details to a minute level.
Then again, I never know the details to a minute level. In fact, I sort of BS my way through the whole thing and somehow come out with something coherent. I don't know how, I just seem to. It's times like these where I wonder if I actually know what I'm doing. What do I realize I'm getting myself into? Because this lake just keeps getting deeper.
I'm waiting as patiently as I can on timing for publishing my books. However, I'm having trouble. I can't seem to find an agent to back me (which is worrisome), and I don't dare to publish traditionally without an agent. Perhaps I'm not presenting the series in a good enough light. Maybe I'm not presenting myself in a good enough light. I don't know how to change that. Writing a query letter wasn't something Houghton offered in classes. I wish they did. If it were up to me, it would have been part of my senior seminar project; learn how to write a great query letter.
Instead I was taught how to write short stories a million times over. It was helpful, but now that I'm trying to do something with my books, I don't know what to do. And it seems just downright silly to buy a book about selling a book. It seems silly, but it probably isn't. The downside is, that requires money, which I don't have.
*Sigh* I keep trying to remain positive. Someday this will work out. It's just taking a little longer and is a little harder than I had thought. It'll all be okay. Just keep breathing and keep fighting. Eventually this will work out.
Currently Writing: Alaster
Currently Reading: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Currently Listening to: "This Man" by Jeremy Camp

Gosh This is Hard

You know, as a child I always thought writing was something old people did. No one could actually do it in today's world and anyone that did got lucky and never really had the chance to live off of their struggles. Then one day, I was told that wasn't the case. Then we had people like J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer show up and I realized, hey, if they could do it, why not me?
And now at 23, I realize my child-self was right.
Publishing isn't just hard, it's like, super-impossible. I'm exaggerating of course. However a bit of me isn't. I've been searching for an agent to back my book series and perhaps help me get published. And you know what? As a new writer, NO ONE WANTS ME.
That's also a bit of an exaggeration. There are some people out there looking for new writers, and naturally I will be seeking them out with a video of me crying saying, "Please, please, please take me on! I promise I'm good!" But most agencies, both Christian and secular, don't want new writers.
I understand why. From a business standpoint, we're a major risk. All it takes is a little misplaced faith and BOOM, you're an agent or editor with a crappy book that no one wants to buy and a writer you've got to pay whining that it wasn't their fault.
But then what about those of us that are good? Now, I'm not saying I'm great. I'm not even comfortable saying that I'm good. But I've been told enough times by a wide variety of people that I am a talented writer that it seems a little silly to ignore them. Especially when among those people are friends who wouldn't really care if they hurt my feelings in the process of telling me the truth. Because to my friends, telling the truth and hurting someone is better than lying and snickering behind their back.
All of this to say that I might have to self-publish.
Now, that wouldn't be the end of the world. I'm aware of that fact. However, it really wasn't my first choice. I really would prefer to actually learn the publication process. But hey, for all I know that's the way I need to go.
For some reason though, that road seems so much harder. Self-publishing means doing all the work myself and me paying out before even a hint of revenue comes in. Granted, if it worked well, then all of the profit would come to me (at least most of it would, I think). However if it didn't work well, I'd be up the creek without a paddle.
It's a little discouraging really. I know that the traditional publication process can take up to a year and a half. By then the fantasy thing might be old news. It might not be, but all it would take would be some new fad to come along and suddenly everyone but die-hard fans would hate fantasy stuff. And where would that leave my novels? High and dry that's where.
So what do I do? Struggle along and hope I'm going in the right path? Or take a plunge and a leap of faith and self-publish?
Sometimes I wish for neon signs. And other times, I'm so incredibly glad I don't get them. This is one of the times I wish I got them.
Currently Editing: End Game: Genesis (Chapter 24)
Currently Writing: Alaster
Currently Reading: Eragon by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: "Alive" by Superchic[k]