I had a breakthrough this weekend. While doing work in the yard on Saturday I had an amazing moment of clarity and inspiration in regards to one of the story ideas I have had in my head for a long time. It really was incredible to experience. After finishing the yard and showering I sat down with my laptop and outlined 95% of a book in less than an hour. It was the most fun I have had writing in quite a while.
So what is the long-term impact of this? Well...
Imildurin Tales has not been progressing as quickly as I had hoped recently. There are a lot of things I could cite as reasons that contributed to this, but I am not in the business of making excuses. The bottom line is that I was banging my head against a wall with that story and I just couldn't get myself to power through it. Now I have this lightning-in-a-bottle moment from Saturday and I can happily say that I am setting Imildurin Tales aside for now and starting a new project.
Starting tonight I will be working on a new book. I am REALLY excited to start writing this. I told my wife this morning that I feel like I could write this whole book in one sitting if that was possible. That is probably a bit of an exaggeration, but I feel like I have a strong grasp on this entire story from start to finish and I think I will be able to put together a first draft pretty quickly.
Without getting into too many details I will say that this will be a middle grade fantasy book. This is one of the things that has me excited because I feel like this is something my kids would all be interested in reading once it is done, and the thought of writing with them as a target audience is awesome. I don't want to say any more right now, but I will say that the thought of sitting down to a fresh Word doc tonight puts a smile on my face.
Get ready page 1, I'm coming for ya!
Monday, February 25, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Silver Linings and Such
So my plan of hitting the ground running in 2013 and writing like nobody's business has not been much of a success thus far. I have gotten some good plotting work done on Imildurin Tales, but I have been thin on actual writing. Basically, Chapter 5 is kicking my butt at the moment. I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted it to go at one point, but I shifted some pieces to be in later chapters and that left me a bit unsure as to how to proceed with it. This is a less than ideal situation and I even considered shifting focus a bit to start a new short story just to get the writing juices flowing again. I did not do that, and now I am very glad I didn't.
During lunch today I had a moment of inspiration and it was just what I had been needing. In reality, it was just a thought on a relatively minor detail in the story, but it grew into something more and ultimately was the key to unlocking Chapter 5. At least I hope so.
So, my message here is one of positivity and perseverance. The last couple weeks have not been nearly as productive as I had planned, but things are looking up now and I think I will get some good momentum going in the coming days.
On a side note, Amazon finally made Keepers of the Tallath free this week and the response has been good. It already has almost half as many downloads as on Smashwords and it got as high (that I saw) as #31 on the Amazon chart for free Science Fiction short stories. I know that is getting pretty specific but I will take what I can get.
During lunch today I had a moment of inspiration and it was just what I had been needing. In reality, it was just a thought on a relatively minor detail in the story, but it grew into something more and ultimately was the key to unlocking Chapter 5. At least I hope so.
So, my message here is one of positivity and perseverance. The last couple weeks have not been nearly as productive as I had planned, but things are looking up now and I think I will get some good momentum going in the coming days.
On a side note, Amazon finally made Keepers of the Tallath free this week and the response has been good. It already has almost half as many downloads as on Smashwords and it got as high (that I saw) as #31 on the Amazon chart for free Science Fiction short stories. I know that is getting pretty specific but I will take what I can get.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Play Time Is Over
So, 2013 is a week old already eh? Time to get down to business! My writing trailed off dramatically at the end of 2012 (I could blame it on visiting family, but that would not be fair at all. Totally my conscious decision), and now it is time to get thinks cranking again.
I would not say that time spent not writing was a complete loss. I made a lot of mental progress and have a lot of new ideas I am looking forward to writing. I made some decisions in regards to Book 2 of Imildurin Tales that I am very happy with. I am really looking forward to writing Book 2, but I know I have a long way to go on Book 1 before I get there, and I am excited about that too.
I also made a great deal of progress on a series of short stories I am planning to write. I have had a firm grip on the first story in the series for quite a while, but I now have a pretty solid plan for where I want the series to go beyond that first story. As focused as I am on Imildurin Tales right now, I am also looking forward to starting this other series on the side in the coming months. It is quite a departure from the other things I have written or am currently working on and I think it is going to be a lot of fun.
So what does all of this mean? To be short; it is time to get to work! I have a lot of pages to fill and only myself to look to to fill them. I plan on spending tonight working on a map and outlines for Imildurin Tales. From there it is all about writing. And then writing. And then writing some more. My goal is to have the first draft of Book 1 done by the summer and I think that is a very achievable goal if I put in the work. So like I said, it is time to get to work.
I would not say that time spent not writing was a complete loss. I made a lot of mental progress and have a lot of new ideas I am looking forward to writing. I made some decisions in regards to Book 2 of Imildurin Tales that I am very happy with. I am really looking forward to writing Book 2, but I know I have a long way to go on Book 1 before I get there, and I am excited about that too.
I also made a great deal of progress on a series of short stories I am planning to write. I have had a firm grip on the first story in the series for quite a while, but I now have a pretty solid plan for where I want the series to go beyond that first story. As focused as I am on Imildurin Tales right now, I am also looking forward to starting this other series on the side in the coming months. It is quite a departure from the other things I have written or am currently working on and I think it is going to be a lot of fun.
So what does all of this mean? To be short; it is time to get to work! I have a lot of pages to fill and only myself to look to to fill them. I plan on spending tonight working on a map and outlines for Imildurin Tales. From there it is all about writing. And then writing. And then writing some more. My goal is to have the first draft of Book 1 done by the summer and I think that is a very achievable goal if I put in the work. So like I said, it is time to get to work.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
It's All Part of the Plan
Some people have asked me recently where I am going with my writing so I figured this would be as good of a time as any to lay out some of what I have planned for those interested...
Let me start out by saying that I have no shortage of story ideas to write about. Over the years I have accumulated quite a few. Most of them have grown and evolved over the years, and in some cases I have even combined ideas. Some started out as video game ideas back when I was working as a Game Designer and many of them were ideas for comics back when I was leaning towards making my own comics (thankfully I accepted that I don't draw well enough for that and moved on to more productive pursuits). In any event, I have a lot of things I want to write before all is said and done.
That brings us to the present. I recently published Keepers of the Tallath, my first short story. That was a fun and rewarding exercise in many ways. It also allowed me to scratch one thing off of that mental list of stories that I have. As luck would have it though, discussing Keepers with some people spawned a new story idea to take its place on "The List". It is an intriguing idea, but one that I have not put much thought into at this time so it will not be happening any time soon.
While working on Keepers I have also been working on my first full length book. It is a fantasy novel that is the first in a planned trilogy called Imildurin Tales. This story is one of the oldest ones I have had and it has gone through much evolution over the years. I am really enjoying writing it (finally) and I am looking forward to being wrapped up in this world for the next few years. The overall story is planned out in such a way that there could be other books coming in the future from this same universe. I am trying to create a rich world with a definite sense of history so it is definitely possible that I could end up writing more books in this series after the original three I have planned that take place either before or after the current trilogy.
That brings me back to "The List". My plan is to continue to put out the occasional short story while working on Book 1 of Imildurin Tales. Once I get Book 1 published, however I ultimately end up doing that, I will reassess this plan, but for now I want to work to self-publish some shorter works while continuing to move forward on my bigger projects. Thankfully I have enough short story ideas to support this plan for the foreseeable future. I have my next short story all lined up and I am pretty sure I know which one I want to tackle after that. Beyond that, I have at least two more full-length books I want to write, a couple series ideas which could end up being collections of short stories, and also a couple children's book ideas.
So, to boil this all down into one statement; there is plenty more to come. I have just scratched the surface on my writing plans and I am really looking forward to where this is going to go. I have enjoyed every minute of this journey so far and the thought of putting something out there that even a single person would really enjoy is enough to sustain me when I hit a bit of a wall. I know this is going to be a long, hard road and that there will be plenty of bumps along the way, but I have no intention of turning back now. So why not join me?
Let me start out by saying that I have no shortage of story ideas to write about. Over the years I have accumulated quite a few. Most of them have grown and evolved over the years, and in some cases I have even combined ideas. Some started out as video game ideas back when I was working as a Game Designer and many of them were ideas for comics back when I was leaning towards making my own comics (thankfully I accepted that I don't draw well enough for that and moved on to more productive pursuits). In any event, I have a lot of things I want to write before all is said and done.
That brings us to the present. I recently published Keepers of the Tallath, my first short story. That was a fun and rewarding exercise in many ways. It also allowed me to scratch one thing off of that mental list of stories that I have. As luck would have it though, discussing Keepers with some people spawned a new story idea to take its place on "The List". It is an intriguing idea, but one that I have not put much thought into at this time so it will not be happening any time soon.
While working on Keepers I have also been working on my first full length book. It is a fantasy novel that is the first in a planned trilogy called Imildurin Tales. This story is one of the oldest ones I have had and it has gone through much evolution over the years. I am really enjoying writing it (finally) and I am looking forward to being wrapped up in this world for the next few years. The overall story is planned out in such a way that there could be other books coming in the future from this same universe. I am trying to create a rich world with a definite sense of history so it is definitely possible that I could end up writing more books in this series after the original three I have planned that take place either before or after the current trilogy.
That brings me back to "The List". My plan is to continue to put out the occasional short story while working on Book 1 of Imildurin Tales. Once I get Book 1 published, however I ultimately end up doing that, I will reassess this plan, but for now I want to work to self-publish some shorter works while continuing to move forward on my bigger projects. Thankfully I have enough short story ideas to support this plan for the foreseeable future. I have my next short story all lined up and I am pretty sure I know which one I want to tackle after that. Beyond that, I have at least two more full-length books I want to write, a couple series ideas which could end up being collections of short stories, and also a couple children's book ideas.
So, to boil this all down into one statement; there is plenty more to come. I have just scratched the surface on my writing plans and I am really looking forward to where this is going to go. I have enjoyed every minute of this journey so far and the thought of putting something out there that even a single person would really enjoy is enough to sustain me when I hit a bit of a wall. I know this is going to be a long, hard road and that there will be plenty of bumps along the way, but I have no intention of turning back now. So why not join me?
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