“Good evening, Prince Detren.”
Oh no. How had he missed that Anaya was sitting almost directly across from him? “Good evening, Miss Morwen.”
“Please, just call me Anaya.”
Detren smiled, hoping she couldn’t see the sourness behind it. There was no way Continue reading “Small Talk – NaNoWriMo Excerpt Day #4”
Day #2:
Nissa reveled in the feel of the three dresses draped over her arm. They were heavy, but they felt glorious. They were smooth and lacy and beautiful… She knew she’d walk in and take the spotlight that evening. She grinned at the thought, gathering up the Continue reading “Castle Basement – NaNoWriMo Excerpt Days #2 & #3”
September 24 – Word Count: 481
Well… That’s a lot of words. I wrote a couple of blog posts that day (and apparently didn’t copy them into the program that I use to track my words. Oops), but I did about nothing on drafting my novel.
September 25 – Word Count: 535
Another blogging-centric day. I came up with a list of blog posts to schedule and liked some people as my Facebook page, and that was all. Although I did figure out a couple of trouble spots to fix in my novel, which is always good to do.
September 26 – Word Count: 606
Hey, two palindromes in a row! At least that’s cool. On Tuesday I replaced the images for the majority of my blog posts and pinned them to my Pinterest account. (I apologize for the disarray of my boards. Pinterest decided to experiment with something and then didn’t clean up the mess it left behind. I’m working on hopefully getting it fixed.)
September 27 – Word Count: 448
Wednesday I started working on editing my Pinterest account, adding descriptions to my boards, secreting the ones that I didn’t want public, changing my account name from Autumn Meadowlark to R.M. Archer, and changing my profile picture so that everything matches my Facebook page.
September 28 – Word Count: 445
Wow. I did… absolutely nothing on Thursday. Except emailing Pinterest to get their mess fixed.
September 29 – Word Count: 465
I wrote a scene of The Last Assassin yesterday! Hooray! I doubt anyone would understand a triple rhyme, but someone may. (Sorry, booknerdiness. Don’t mind me.) I also copied a lot of worldbuilding information for The Dark War Trilogy into my binder for easier access and made myself a NaNoWriMo prep checklist. My hand was sore afterwards.
September 30 – Word Count:1,931
Hey! I actually wrote something of substance! Specifically, almost a chapter of The Last Assassin. I’m glad to finally be being productive again, and hopefully that’ll continue. This week has been massively unproductive.
So, I’m going to start something new: A writing update every Saturday. Since this is the first one I’m pretty much playing it by ear, so we’ll see what this includes. :)
Sunday, September 17th – Word Count: 6,189
I wrote two blog posts that day, neither of which has gone up yet, and that was the day I renamed Alpine Writer to Scribes & Archers. Fun fact: The short story I planned to have go up on Sunday is not actually the one that went up. I wasn’t happy with the way the planned one was going, so I wrote 4,099 words of another short story that I knew I could keep on track and posted that instead. I believe that the other 2,090 words were on those two blog posts I mentioned. I also chose names for the characters of a short story that’s currently expected to go up on the eighth. It’s an urban fantasy, which I’m a little nervous about since it’s outside my genre, but I’m excited about it.
Monday, September 18th – Word Count: 2,399
On Monday I got more into the groove of writing The Last Assassin again. I’d been kind of struggling with it, but Monday was my first step toward getting out of that rut and back on track.
Tuesday, September 19th – Word Count: 4,347
I almost doubled the words I wrote per day on The Last Assassin from Monday to Tuesday, as seen above. Yep, all of that was on The Last Assassin. This was where I really got into a groove, thanks to the Fighter’s Block word sprinting tool. Since I found that (or rediscovered it, actually. For some reason the first time I saw it I thought it was boring. Why, Past Self?!) it’s been my goal each day to use it to write 4k on The Last Assassin.
Wednesday, September 20th – Word Count: 3,919
That’s actually not quite an accurate word count. 4thewords counts words differently than Fighter’s Block. I wrote 4k that day. Or Fighter’s Block lied, one or the other. This was when I discovered that at this rate, and presuming that The Last Assassin doesn’t go too far over 100k, I’ll be finished with the first draft on October 4th. I’m excited for that day.
Funny quote of the day: *asking my sister* “What did I do writing-wise today?”
“Tortured me to death.”
I love having a tiny fandom. ;)
Thursday, September 21st – Word Count: 2,598
Well, obviously I didn’t make my 4k goal on Friday. I was distracted making a document of moments I want to remember and looking back through old stories with cringes. Although, looking through old stories did give me ideas for the third book in a dystopian trilogy I plan on writing in the future.
Friday, September 22nd – Word Count: 1,026
Yesterday I did more planning than actual writing. I did write a bit of actual story, but mostly I was prioritizing my list of future projects/past projects that still aren’t finished and figuring out what I need to do with each one before I can write it, so that I can pick one and outline it or worldbuild for it or whatever needs to be done while I’m working on drafting The Dark War Trilogy. Ideally I’d like to have another project ready to start when I finish this one, and then keep that cycle going. How well that works remains to be seen.
The story scheduled to begin after this one, if anyone was curious, is a fantasy temporarily called Dark Queen Rising. (I’m trying really hard not to get attached to that name, since it’s rather spoiler-y.)
Saturday, September 23rd – Word Count: 3,307
And then we come to today. Today’s research on license plates (the MC of Dark Queen Rising needed a license plate number) led me to learning that not all license plate numbers are just randomly selected. In Britain, in particular, the first two letters and the first two numbers correspond to region and date of registration, while the last three numbers are selected randomly. In some states in the US, the license plate number includes an expiration date and/or has numbers corresponding to the county or region in which the plate was issued. The random things you learn from writing research. Also, Tolkien fans will appreciate this one: Elevenses and second breakfast are actual meals in some countries. Countries that eat elevenses include Australia, Chile, New Zealand (I mean, it is Middle Earth, after all), and the United Kingdom, among others. Countries that eat second breakfast include Bavaria, Poland, and Hungary (they must be hungary… Yeah, that was bad. If you want good puns, this is not the place to look, unfortunately).
In addition to learning random facts (e.g. the above about license plates and how London Bridge ended up in Arizona), I actually did writing. I did a lot of work enhancing my story binder for The Dark War Trilogy, which is shared with The Heart of the Baenor, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to write a full 4k in the story once I got to actual writing, but I’m glad I came closer than I did the past couple of days.
Well, it’s halfway through April and I haven’t written a March overview yet. Sounds like me. Well, better late than never, right?
The first book I finished in March was Spindle, which I had started all the way back in January or February. It wasn’t my absolute favorite, but it was pretty good.
I also finished The Last of the Mohicans, which I hesitate to add since it was a book I read for school (and it’s also mega, mega boring), but I read it, so it’s on here anyway.
Rebellion Ever After was my main project in March. My aim was to get it to 60k before April, but that didn’t happen. I got to 40k, though, which is good.
I also wrote a short story in March to go with it, and that was a lot of fun. It follows one of the MC’s dreams as she’s asleep in her stasis chamber, and she’s the only one there except a SRV-droid, so there’s a lot of description and not as much dialogue as I usually write.
Since it’s halfway through April already, I’ve already gotten some writing done. Namely I’ve written 32k in my Camp Nanowrimo novel, The Heart of the Baenor. This story is really interesting to write because I’m specifically working toward putting in more description and internal dialogue since those are things I tend to struggle with in my writing. The description part is made easier by the fact that HotB takes place in Kaloris, which I’ve fleshed out considerably more than some of my other storyworlds. The well-developed world also helps with character development and so forth.
I’ve been working on editing my book House of Mages, as you know from January’s wrap-up/February’s welcome, and working toward getting it ready for publishing. Well, I got a cover on March 22nd and I’m sooooo happy with it! It’s perfect! And it was a premade one, so it didn’t cost as much. I got it at The Book Cover Designer.
Now I’m looking toward getting an editor for when I finish my third draft, which I haven’t even started yet because I haven’t finished my second draft. I really need to do that.
Anywho, who wants to see my beautimous cover?
Tadaaaaaa! Oh yeah, and I finally settled on a pen name: R. M. Archer, as you can see above. ^-^ I’m so happy about all of this! It’s amazing! I could be published before the year is out! *squee!* Yeah, I’m happy. ^-^ And in honor of this momentous occasion, how about an excerpt from House of Mages? Just a short one.
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They walked through the tunnels for several minutes before emerging on the surface. But it wasn’t anything like an earthly surface. The ground was black, the sky was stone-like with stalactites hanging from it, and the whole atmosphere was penetratingly dark.
The castle that loomed in front of them was especially dark. Whatever material it was made of seemed to absorb what meager light there was, and the towers were like cold stone claws that would reach down and crush or impale her at any moment. The gates were bent outward like ribs, and the small dank breeze seemed to make them shift like there really was a beating heart behind them.
Lian shuddered.
“Do we have to go in there?”
“Of course. That is the Conqueror’s castle.”
Asphodel led the way up to the gate and Lian followed, trying to seem more courageous than she felt.
As they passed through the gates and walked up to the front door, Lian tried to quiet her rapidly beating heart. It felt like a caged animal trying to break free, making her feel like her chest would explode.
She survived the walk to the front door however, despite almost running into Asphodel when the demoness stopped suddenly to pull the bell rope. Its gong was eerie and melancholic almost causing Lian to shiver again.
The door slid open soundlessly and the two of them entered, passing through several corridors. The only sound was that of Asphodel’s heels clicking on the odd black floor.
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This is one of my favorite parts of House of Mages. There’s actually description! Anyway, I hope you liked it. :)
This post has gotten kind of long, so I’m gonna go now. See ya!