Month: January 2014

Busy, busy

On By MikaelaIn Writing

The rewrite of A Shadow of Love is moving along smoothly.  At the moment,  I’ve rewritten the first third of the draft, and it is much better.  What is making me continue rewriting at a rather brisk pace ( 5-9 pages per day) is that I’m reminded of how much I love this story.  Like Daughter of the Dark, it is fast paced and filled with action. The plot twists makes me happy, and what’s even better is that the rewrites are making them even better.  Which is as it should be, right?   I should finish the rewrite just in time to get the edits for Daughter of the Dark.

And after the edits are finished, I’m taking a break from this Universe.  I love it, and I definitely plan to write Cauldron 2 later this year, but since November, I’ve written one novella ( Cauldron Bound), one short story( Exile), edited Daughter of the Dark, and I’m revising A Shadow of Love.  And I’m starting having trouble feeling entusiasm about the upcoming stories I want to write in this world.  So. A break is necessary.

So what will I write instead? Most likely The Silver Hand, the Sequel to the Wild Hunt.  I have an outline, and I know the world.  Plus it will not require any revision of the previous story.

Despite this, Daughter of the Dark will be released this spring/ summer. It might be pushed back a bit, since I want to release it and  A Shadow of Love close to each other.  ( I.e.  If Daughter of the Dark is released in late May/ early June, I want to release A Shadow of Love late July/ Early August)

Edit: And there is a possibility that I’ll get even busier, cause life just gave me a pleasant surprise 🙂

 

 

Was this even revised?

On By mikaelalindIn Writing

I finished the prequel story last week, and since I don’t have the time to start writing something new, I spent Friday and Saturday writing notes about gnomes, shifters and Vampire on my tablet. It was an experiment, to see if I could actually do something writing related on a tablet without getting a headache.  Today, I decided to do something else. And, since  I’m  planning on Editing Daughter of the Dark in February, I decided to read through A Shadow of Love, the sequel.  Which turned out to be such a hot mess, that I had to ask myself if it had been revised at all. If it was revised, I did an crappy job at it.  To be fair,  the plot is rather solid.  Too bad nothing else is…

The draft is at 19000 words, and at the moment, it is more like an  very detailed outline.   That means it should be doable for me to rewrite it before I get Daughter of the Dark back from the editor.  If nothing else, it will be a challenge.  And  I like challenges.

 

 

 

 

The prequel story is done!

On By mikaelalindIn Writing

I know. In my previous writing update post I said it would be a novella. Well. I was wrong. I had written 3000 words when I realised I had forgotten one important difference between the outline for Cauldron Bound ( the novella) and Exile ( the Short story), namely that the middle of Cauldron Bound was compressed into ” they travelled and met clans, some hostile.”  While the middle for Exile was more detailed.

I’ll admit that I was a bit relieved, since I had been trying to figure how the story would cover 17 000 words.   I’m happy that I wrote the story, since it gave me  an insight into how Jenny managed to leave Dhurig without being caught.

Now I’ll let it sit for a bit, while I focus on getting Daughter of the Dark  ready for publication.   But rest assured that I have plans for this story.

As a side note:  I’m running out of stories to write in this world. I just have two story ideas left! ( Maybe three, if I can find my notes for the third one…)

My 2014 Re-reading challenge:

On By mikaelalindIn Book Recommendations

I have 200 books marked as unread in Calibre, most of them written by authors that I have wanted to give a try for a long. And yet, none of them spark my interest.

Normally, I would have shrugged it off, and assumed that it would change soon. Except that I have been in a reading slump since October. Which is very frustrating, when you like me used to  read 1 book/ day, if not more.. But then I started to think about why I have been in a reading slump. I don’t think it is a coincidence that the reading slump started roughly around the time I decided to focus on my writing career.

Which made me sit down, and think hard. It is unheard of for me to read as few books as I currently do. I also know that some authors simply cannot read new books and/ or books in the same genre that they are writing in.

And add to the fact that the only books I haven’t DNF’d have been re-reads, I have decided to focus on re-reads this year. I am not sure which books I’ll re-read, but I look forward to browse my library, and pick up old and newer faves that I want to re-read. 🙂

And here I am at Chapter One again

On By mikaelalindIn Writing

I finished Cauldron Bound on Friday, and then had a CSI Miami marathon the whole weekend.   This morning, I sat down to outline the prequel story I want to write before I get  Daughter of the Dark back from the Editor, sometime in February. ( I’m sending it to her Feb 4, and I suspect a short turn around time.)

I cursed a bit when I realised that the short story didn’t want to be a short story. Nope. Based on the fact that the outline is as long as the one for Cauldron Bound, it want to be a novella.  But! I look forward to write about how Jenny managed to reach  Ahira, one step before the Arch-Priestess men.

Despite the fact that the draft probably will be 10 000 words longer than I expected, I can still finish it before I get the edits back.  After all, I wrote Cauldron Bound in 3 weeks over the holidays, so I should be able finish this draft in a month. ( Yeah. I know, just because I assume this, I’ll hit an unexpected plot snag.)

I’ll probably take a couple of days off, to give Daughter of the dark one last read through before sending it to the editor.

And once this draft is done, the juggling editing and revising part  of 2014 begins.  I’m not keeping a brutal pace ( 750-1300 words is  doable for me) , but I’m definitely keeping a writing/ editing schedule.  And yes, sometimes my brain gibbers, but it seems to have worked for the writing.  So maybe it will work for the editing too!   *exhales* But I am telling myself that it will be worth it in the end.

Oh, and I am giving myself the summer off from deadlines.  Still plan on writing, but no deadlines :).

Done, and reflecting over writer growth

On By mikaelalindIn Writing

I finished the first draft of Cauldron Born today. It isn’t perfect, but I’m proud of it. Cauldron Born was originally written for an anthology, as a historical fantasy short story featuring undead. Except as I finished the first draft of that story, I knew I had left a lot of the story untold. So I let it sit, with the vague plan of rewriting it, and change the setting to Ireland or the British Isles.

Fast forward, a couple of years. I’m revising the Daughter of the Dark, when I have a lightbulb moments. Set the story during the Clan Wars. Which I decided to do.

And this mental journey is a sign of how I have grown as a writer. When I started writing, setting was set. It was the thing that I couldn’t change, or the story would be gone for me.

To be honest, I’m glad that has changed. Since sometimes, stories need a different setting. And that isn’t the only thing that have changed. When I outlined this story, I outlined it in less than 1 hour. More, I trusted myself to write the portions that I wasn’t sure about. And I succeeded. Granted, this was a straightforward story, and not as complex as some of the stories I’ve written previously.

But I’m happy with it. And I’m especially proud of the fact that I wrote it in 3 weeks, despite the fact it was christmas and New Years. I also feel ready to tackle some of those more complex stories later this year. First on the list is the sequel to The Demonlord’s Escape, previously known as Angel among Demons. .The new title fits beautifully, since a big part of the plot is pulled by Lucifer’s wish to escape from Hell. I’ll probably start writing the Heaven and Hell #2 some time this summer, since I have Cauldron 2 to write first, and also a prequel to Daughter of the Dark. ( Which will hopefully be a short story.)

But now, I’m off to enjoy my weekend off, since I’m not even thinking about writing until Monday.

All good things must come to an end

On By MikaelaIn updates

 

I have dreaded writing this post for weeks, but I have to. I reached a reading slump in October, and I’ve never really left it. Yes, I’m reading, but it is at a much slower pace. And the books that I do read, I feel no urge to review. So during the holidays the decision to take a long time hiatus from book reviewing matured.  So I’ve decided to close this blog. I don’t think I’ll stop reviewing for good, but if I review it will be books from my TBR pile, but it will not happen anytime soon.

The website will be up until July or so, since that is when the domain expires. Meanwhile, I’ll work on posting all the ARC reviews I wrote to Booklikes, Amazon and Goodreads. ( Most of them ended up there, but not all of them.)