The 8th Voyage of Sinbad

As working on my trio of novellas is heavy under way, I wanted to point everyone in the direction of a little something mildly related. In college, I took a seminar on the Arabian Nights. It was an incredible course, and actually inspired the setting for these stories. I had dabbled with Middle Eastern fantasy for a time, but nothing coherent came of it until Nisa and Cayden. 

For our final assignment, the professor came up with a most interesting essay prompt. We had the option of writing our story to continue the adventures of Sinbad. Of course I jumped at the chance. During the break, I got an email from the professor asking if he could publish my story on his website. He wanted to share his favorites. Again, I jumped at the chance to do more with my writing. 

While you all wait for the final result of that class and everything I learned, perhaps you'd enjoy the first dabbling.

Read The 8th Voyage of Sinbad. 

WIP Wednesday

Another snippet from a new scene in The Red Crown:

"Would you like to join the other ladies outside for some wine?"

Cayden froze as the warlord finished his question. His mind drifted to a similar conversation years ago between Nisa and a lesser lord. She had responded with a trick involving several knives and the head of the roasting pig in order to demonstrate her displeasure with being pushed away from the men.

The Problem of "In Media Res"

In middle school and high school, I loved reading the Greek tragedies and comedies. They were wonderful and I couldn't wait to get my little hands on them. Except for one thing. Everything started in the middle.

This is my biggest pet peeve in books. I hate coming in in the middle of things. I don't want to be treated to the height of the action right away. I want to know every little detail of how we got there. I write my stories where we join the characters right before setting off on their adventures. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks like me. I receive a lot of comments from editors and other writers that it takes too long for my stories to get into any action.

For example, here is a rejection I just got this morning. The editor says "I found the world interesting, but the story was slow in building for my tastes".

First of all...Yay! Someone found it interesting! Focusing on the positive is good. But aside from the generic "it's not the right fit" rejection, this is the one I hear a lot. My characters and the setting are great, but it just doesn't start with gripping action. In my edits, I try to balance this with my own personal goals for the story.

Let's look at the opening of my two novels.

Our Fathers: Scarlet Black is lost in the streets of Bath as she searches for Colby Redd. In the first draft, it started with her at the door. When I was told that wasn't exciting enough, I added in her getting lost and more tension with a young woman wandering down dark alleys. Some then said it would have been better to just meet Colby first. You just can't please everyone! In the end, I stuck with the expanded scene of her getting lost. It added to the overall feeling of how Scarlet struggles that I wanted in the whole book.

 The Resurrected Thief: A mummy vandalizes the British Museum, and Bryan tries to avoid the case. In the first draft, I had it so Bryan and the clients were bickering about an undisclosed mystery. I wanted it to be a big twist that it was a mummy in a world where elves and centaurs walked the streets. Again, I was told that wasn't really gripping and it would be better with the reveal of magic at the very beginning. So I reworked the scene, but it didn't feel quite right yet. There still wasn't a sense of the mystery and magic that I wanted. This is the first time I used a Prologue. I thought of it like in a cop drama where you catch a glimpse of the murder before cutting to the detectives hanging out. So I have an unsuspecting guard walking in on the crime. I'm happy with the scene, and plan on keeping prologues for the entire series.

I suppose we should look at The Red Crown too! That opening hasn't really changed at all. It starts with Cayden walking into his bedroom and seeing a shadowed figure on his bed. I always thought that was an exciting opening, because who wouldn't be shocked by that? The pair then banter and get into their adventure. I always liked it just the way it is. Since no one's said to change it, why bother?

I doubt I will ever stray too far from my personal preferences. I'll never turn away helpful advice, but we must do whatever is best for the story.  

Introducing: The Red Crown

Isn't she lovely! The first of the three novellas, The Red Crown starts the wild and mystical adventures of Nisa and Cayden. 

The holy festival of Velis brings a pause to the civil war plaguing Meijra. In the middle of a city full of masked pilgrims, Nisa seeks out her old friend Cayden for some assistance in stealing an ancient and powerful relic. After years apart, the pair reunite while attempting to solve the ancient riddles hidden underneath the temple. The promises of riches and adventure keep them going despite unparalleled obstacles.  

The Dawn of Two Rogues

Cayden, Nisa, and their adventures together are consuming nearly all of my time. It's a wonderful sort of consuming though, as the writing and editing is going very well. Three excellent (in my opinion of course) novellas will be gracing virtual shelves in 54 days.

These two started out in a short story called "The Prayers of Another" which has been remastered into the novella "The Lost Prayers". I was inspired by statues trying to communicate through magic. This is actually something that happens quite a lot in these stories. It was in a way inspired by the Weeping Angels of Doctor Who and the moving statues in Dishonored's DLC. I sent the short story to a few places, then tucked it away after the rejections.

Nisa and Cayden showed their faces during an open call for an anthology all about rogues, Blackguards by Ragnarok. I loved so many of the authors in it, and was so happy for a chance at submitting my own story. I wrote "The Red Crown" for that submission, which of course received a rejection. The call of the Muse kept me from doing anything else with them as all she wanted to think about was the Victorian era.

The final story is little more than a scribbled note, but I suspect it will be just as fun as the other ones. I've missed working in a fantasy realm that I've created from scratch. I have tried to keep away from the popular motif of a scruffy dark haired man wandering through a quasi-European kingdom. Instead, I have the perky Nisa and clever Cayden making their way through desserts and sand strewn kingdoms. Magic is creeping just underneath it all, which makes their heists much more thrilling.

BookLyss has given me a chance to return to these great characters, and I'm ecstatic. I haven't gotten all my other projects either, but these two deserve all the attention right now.

WIP Wednesday!

As a tease for the first adventure with Cayden and Nisa, here are the opening three lines!

"By all the spirits!" the castle guard shouted seconds after he stepped into his narrow room. A lean figure occupied his bed, yet did not move in response to his cry. The light of him dim lantern revealed an amber skinned woman reclining backwards.

Meet the New (but really old) Neighbors!

As I already touched on, the series of stories set to come out this fall are a little outside what I've been talking about lately. While I originally started writing this world back in late 2013/early 2014, I haven't touched it since I finished two of these short stories. They were submitted, rejected, and then added to the pile. Since then, I started focusing on the Victorian fantasies. Now that they are back into focus, I think they deserved a proper introduction.

Meet Nisa and Cayden! A pair of rogues exploring the far off realm of Meijra amidst a traveling troupe of performers. For now, they start in three tales: 

The Red Crown: With the city occupied by both a holy festival and civil war, Nisa seeks out her old friend Cayden for some assistance in stealing an ancient and powerful relic. The pair reunite after years apart while attempting to solve the puzzles hidden within the temple. 

The Serpent's Horde: As the troupe flocks between villages, the pair of rogues hears local legends regarding an ancient demon and caverns of treasures. With nothing else to do, Nisa whisks Cayden off into the depths of the forest.  

The Lost Prayers: After a fine evening of dancing and snatching purses, Nisa and Cayden find stumble upon an abandoned temple. Their search for treasure uncovers something far less pleasurable. 

I hope you are all excited about reading these. I simply cannot wait for them to come out!

In the meantime, I should probably get to work on finishing them. 

Exciting News!

I am pleased to announce that this fall, yours truly will be offering a selection of short stories and novellas as eBooks!

Hooray!

These are going to be exclusive to BookLyss, a newly formed and author friendly online store. I am incredibly excited with this project, and could not be happier. I'm actually going to be the featured author for the first month. Isn't that exciting!

Now, what tales will be available for you to buy and read? Tales of fantasy and adventure! Of rouges and magic!

What about historical fantasy and mystery? Those tales are already on their path, and we don't want to disrupt the Muse too much, do we? I am actually taking advice from Michael J Sullivan, who is an author I greatly admire. He has written a number of posts on the advantages of "hybrid publishing" or a mix of traditional and self.

My plan is to keep the historical mysteries of the same plan as ever, while simultaneously offering my fantasy tales through BookLyss. I was thinking about self publishing these for some times, so this works out well. While the market for shorts and novellas are growing with eBooks, traditional publishing is still getting there. I see absolutely no downside to this!

I hope you are all as excited as I am about this news. I get the chance to share with you both new and old characters that are very dear to me.

Stay tuned for more good news!

The Art of Expansion

This is a subject that I suspect I will be dwelling on for quite some time. In my editing/rewrites, I have found quite a number of scenes which require a good deal of changing. This is all as a result of having expanded the history of my setting and characters through the short stories. The changes are nothing drastic to the plot, but merely proving extra layers.

I've already touched on the way I rewrite a few times here. It's not nearly as tedious as it sounds. Though, I have developed a habit Tolkien had for most of his life. He tended to rewrite, and rewrite constantly. But each time, he started over from the beginning. It's why there are so many variations of tales in his history of Middle-Earth. Many are not even finished.

While Tolkien is my hero and inspiration, I do not want to fall into some of the same issues he had. First, I refuse to allow myself to leave work unfinished any longer. I already have too much of that. If I have to rewrite or change something, I try to limit myself to restarting at the beginning of that scene. This is only after trying to go in and tweak line by line.

I am also trying to condense my various drafts into one. There are quite a number of tales where length requirements required me to make a lot of cuts. I always save each version, but then review them all when trying to rework a story. My current project is seeming to require me to start from the beginning just because it's been through so many changes. But more on that later.

The other danger of expansion is simply padding on scenes and words to fit a minimum length requirement. You have to make every word actually count for the story and the characters. This might limit your market of submissions, but it's worth it. I had actually been in touch with an editor that I thought would be a good fit for one of my steampunk novellas. Even though she liked the pitch, she said they simply could not accept it because of the length. She and I both agreed adding a few thousand words would not be the right choice, and I would have to carry on the search.

On the same note, this is why I want to stop finding a market and then writing. It's really putting a limit and strain on the Muse. Write first, then find a publisher. It's what I used to do, and want to want to get back into. The work itself should come before all else. And if that doesn't work, there is always self publishing!

WIP Wednesday!

Rewrites can be so very demanding. I have about nine pages I'm redoing right now, and it's driving me bonkers. The new notes and ideas in my head are so much better than what I put on the page months ago. Tweaking the original document is not quite working out as well as I thought. So it's opening a blank page and re doing the entire thing! Thank God, there is no deadline.

It's worth it for the story, in the end.

"What on earth was that?" she inquired, but no one stopped their own revelry in the rain to answer her. She dropped her skirts despite the mud gathering under her feet in order to shield her eyes from the consistent downpour. Her head turned towards the continuing rattling noise, and then jolted at the sight of smoke billowing from a mechanized carriage.

A Brief Look Back

This is a lovely little feature from The Submission Grinder to show how my attempts at actually getting published are going. I'll admit the numbers are not entirely impressive, but everyone starts somewhere. It helps to stop and take pride in what you have actually accomplished. 

First, this isn't really a "Lifetime" status. It's missing the sporadic submissions and writing I did before 2014. It doesn't count the attempts at getting any of the novels published either. It really just shows how things have been since before I "restructured" my attempt to get published. 

All my life, I've had the same end goal. It's the one most writer's share. Now, I'm trying to get more serious about the whole thing. Not that I ever wasn't serious. I just thought someone would stumble across me and instantly publish everything I ever penned. How silly of me! 

So now I'm trying to keep myself on the straight-ish path. Writing, editing, constantly sending stories out. I'm about to start querying book agents. I wish I had taken this a lot more seriously before, and maybe the Acceptances would be larger. Or maybe just the Rejections would have grown. 

In the end, I'm proud of all 16+ of those pieces. I'm proud of how far the Muse and I have come. Things are different from the first rejection, where I spent the following days curled up in a ball refusing to leave my misery. We will get to the dream one of these days, won't we? I have faith.

A Most Stubborn Muse

She really is the worst, isn't she? The best as well, which I do not intend on forgetting. The fair Muse has decided that editing is in fact very inspiration. So inspirational, that she is filling my head with ideas for novellas. 

The novella market is growing, so I am happy for any new ideas. I just wish she would have provided these ideas months ago when several publishers has open calls for novellas. Oh well. More will come. 

The "plan" now is to try and split my time between editing and writing. It's worked before, and it shouldn't slow me down at all. I really don't have any hard deadlines at the moment, or any open calls to respond to. Plus, this isn't really straying from the idea of finishing longer works while sending out the already finished shorter ones. 

I will say, that I tend to write better with looming deadlines. It discourages me from slacking off or telling myself it can wait five more minutes...and another five more minutes. I'll have to set up better self imposed deadlines. 

Slight Deviation from the Master Plan

I suppose that doesn't come as a suprise.  My schedule keeps on changing, but this should not derail things too much.

I'm still focusing on getting the novel finished. But it doesn't seem wise to leave the pile of 15 or so short stories just sitting there. I've decided to spend one day a week sending out an old story to a new market. To be honest, I should have been doing this all along. I did a few times, but the constant cycle got tiring. I think spacing it out to once a week or every other week will be better for my state of mind.

I'll of course give each one a quick edit, but it won't be constantly switching between projects like before. Plus, I think this might help when I get stuck on editing The Resurrected Thief.  But I am following up on avoiding themed submission. Hopefully that helps with the whole "not quite the right fit" rejection I get all the time.

Here it goes! 

My Poor Eyes

I don't what it is, but lately I cannot stand staring at a computer screen for so long. The day job requires doing so for a very long time. And I've been relying on pen and paper to help ease away writer's block. Now, as I'm chugging along at The Resurrected Thief, my eyes itch and I get antsy from it.

I currently have almost 150 pages to sift through, with plenty of edits and new scenes to add. I don't have any set deadline, so it's not like I have to worry about time constraints. While there is always the anticipation a big publisher might open their doors, I do not want to rush it. I want this book to be perfect.

I just don't want to stare at a computer any more.

WIP Wednesday!

Since I am digging back into The Resurrected Thief, you will be seeing quite a bit of that in the upcoming weeks. As a taste, here are the opening three lines. 

The sound of a single crash poured through the empty halls of the British Museum. The night guard’s skin prickled as the echo reverberated in his ears. A brief application of friction eased away the small bumps sprouting on the back of his neck, but could not banish the cold lingering beneath his skin. 

Back to the grindstone

While I've talked about it a few times before, I am officially back to finishing Resurrected Thief. My short stories have all been sent off. Only two open submissions remain, but I have two months to decide if I even have a good idea for a story. In the meantime, I want to finally get back to my book.

There is quite a bit of work to be done. The short stories have led to more backstory, and some changes need to be reflected in the novel. Plus, there are new scenes and scenes I just don't like any more. Hopefully, this novel will finish smoothly and the Muse will be encouraging.

Right now, she is napping. Hence the lack of ideas for those two open calls for shorts. Let's all hope she wakes up soon. But I must be back to work!

Snip, Snip, Snip

Another day, another completed submission! I'm surprised I finished this one nearly a month ahead of the deadline, but great things happen when the Muse lets me write 1,500+ words a day!

The only hiccup was that my streak of getting under the word cap for the shorts has ended. My final story was almost 9,000 and this submission had a cut off of 7,500. EEK. The past three days have been trimming and rewriting. I'm still happy with it, but kept the longer draft just in case. Can't hurt to be prepared for a rejection and moving forward.

I'm nearly done with my docket of short stories for the time being. And by that I mean, I have one more I'm thinking of writing and two more to edit and ship out. I really do what to get back to fixing up the novels. Someone should make the Muse and the Internet aware of my thoughts. No?

In other news, edits for "The Knocking Below" have been sent in. That should be out any day now! I plan on doing something really special when that finally happens. I've also started sending follow up emails to publishers when I don't hear back on submissions. I was passive and waited for months before, but I think it's time to be proactive.

Here is hoping more good news comes along.

WIP Wednesday!

Here is another snippet from "The Moss People".

"What are they chattering about?" Bryan cringed, but refused to back away from the horde of glittering lights.

"You angered them by disrespecting their queen," Esther answered him with a lowered voice and head.

"The only queen I bow to is Queen Vicky," he huffed, causing Esther to snicker.

Staying on Track

For once, my thoughts are not geared towards meeting deadlines or reorganizing a writing schedule. I am actually doing quite well there. But I have seem to come into a habit that may or may not be good. It may or may not also slow me down.

As of late, I have been just writing out whatever scene pops into my mind. While the entire story is outlined, the Muse doesn't want to follow it. She wants to write whatever is more exciting at the time. I've been following her moods, and it's leading to some great numbers at the end of the day. However, that leaves some gaps in the story marked by some asterisks.

I know many other authors that do this as well, so it's not really revolutionary. It's only causing hiccups for me because staring at those asterisks seems to chase away the Muse. In order to combat it, I've been looking to a blank sheet of paper instead. With my lovely pen, I can fill in the breaks between scenes. It's a great deal better than staring until my head hurts, but it just causes that slight delay in having to write out the scene on paper and then again on the computer. Since I type fairly quickly, this has not been an issue yet. Plus, I'm ahead of schedule.

At this point, I'd do just about anything to keep writing and avoid the dreadful writer's block.

WIP Wednesday!

Today's snippet comes from a piece I just started working on this afternoon. Tentatively titled "The Moss People"

“Be careful with those! That is invaluable equipment,” her employer, Mister James Hawke, barked at the young man unloading his trunks from the train. He proceeded to wave a sleek black cane in the air, which caused the porter to cringe. Biting down on the corner of her lip, Esther stepped away from her two small bags.