Category: Mirror’s Gate
Wow, there sure are a lot of books here
| April 8, 2010 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Child of Ocean Child of Stars, Mirror's Gate, Queen of Souls, Shadow of the Rook, Shards of Recollection |
It occurred to me this week that I have six, count ‘em, six books in progress in various stages, and as part of the Great Get My Ass Back in Gear Initiative, it might behoove me to do a quick rundown of where all of these books are and what needs to get done with them. Therefore, by way of high-level overview and more or less in order of priority, here we go!
- Bone Walker. Urban fantasy, the first sequel to Faerie Blood. I’m very close to the end of Chapter 7 on this. I have not yet formally queried it to Drollerie but plan to do so as soon as I have a working draft. Beta readers, be on the lookout for a call in the latter half of the year.
- Queen of Souls. Urban fantasy, a sequel of sorts to the Hades and Persephone myth. This is the most complete of the lot since the first draft is actually finished, and I am stalled out a little ways into doing the second. I last left off finishing editing the Chapter Formerly Known as Chapter 1, and which is more like Chapter 4 now. I need to pick up again from there, so I can get this thing into queryable shape and get it out the door.
- Shadow of the Rook. Fantasy, Book 2 of the trilogy The Dove, the Rook, and the Hawk; Book 1 is of course Lament of the Dove, and that’s out getting queried right now. Since this is one big story, I want to have progress done on it in case somebody wants to actually buy the whole shebang. Currently trying to get out of Chapter 2.
- Mirror’s Gate. Fantasy, set in the same universe as The Dove, the Rook, and the Hawk. Still in Chapter 1 and the story is still taking shape.
- Child of Ocean, Child of Stars, in which a young telepath discovers things that could completely wreck the budding alliance between humanity and the native species of Nereus. Soft sci-fi. Three chapters and change in.
- Shards of Recollection, in which a young thief falls in with a smuggler eking out a ragtag existence–and discovers that he’s forgotten some dangerous secrets that could bring a world to war, not the least of which is his own past. Soft sci-fi. Didn’t like the first draft’s initial start, started over, still in Chapter 1 on this too.
With pretty much all of the first drafts in progress, I need to buckle down and do some heavy duty outline work. I’m really kind of daunted realizing I have finished three whole novels (Faerie Blood, Lament, and Queen of Souls), and have FIVE MORE waiting to get done. The two big things that really need to get done are finishing Bone Walker so that my editor can tell me if she wants it, and getting Queen of Souls ready for its escape into the wide world. Anything above and beyond that is gravy, but if I want to make some serious progress by the end of the year, it’s time to start some serious planning.
Wish me luck, folks.
Wrote tonight, more or less
| March 29, 2010 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Mirror's Gate, Queen of Souls |
Pried a couple hundred more words out of my brain tonight, some for Bone Walker and some for Mirror’s Gate, mostly for the sake of advancing the pointers on at least a couple of stories. And being able to say that I actually wrote something tonight. This long dry spell is frustrating in the extreme, folks. Intellectually I know that the solution is simply to buckle down and write, but man, trying to re-establish the habit is hard.
We’ll see, though. These two stories remain the two pulling at my brain the most for new words, although Queen of Souls is sternly reminding me that its second draft edits are long overdue to be resumed. I really need to beat that thing into proper queryable shape so I can get it out there.
That's all I got
| February 22, 2010 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Mirror's Gate, Short Pieces |
|
When I find myself staring dully and tiredly at the screen and no words are flowing, that’s the signal that it’s time to go to bed. But I did at least make a few words go tonight! And even if about 100 words into each of these things doesn’t seem like much individually, it will at least add up if I keep at it. That’s good advice to keep telling myself.
Let’s see if I can do this again tomorrow.
Bone Walker:
Written tonight: 110
Chapter 7 total: 1,723
Bone Walker total (first draft): 18,457
Mirror’s Gate:
Written tonight: 115
Chapter 1 total: 1,417
Mirror’s Gate total (first draft): 1,417
Untitled short story:
Written tonight: 115
Story total: 615
Finally, some more words
| February 21, 2010 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Mirror's Gate, Shadow of the Rook, Short Pieces |
|
I’ve been frustrated enough with my months-long block on regular writing that I figured tonight I should try the multi-novelling trick. That’s helped in the past, and I felt it was long past time to try it again, just for the sake of advancing some pointers on various works on progress. I’ve mentioned before how it’s often helpful for me to just try to do little chunks at a time–and tonight, I was pleased to note that it worked again.
So yeah, a small number of words for Bone Walker, Mirror’s Gate, and Shadow of the Rook out of the novels in progress–and a few more for the as of yet untitled story about my Psychic Chick of Size. Whose name is, by the way, Elizabeth Breckenridge. Her male lead is Ross Taggart, and so far what I know about him is that he’s actually too heavy himself (because if there’s anything as rare as a fat heroine in a fantasy story, it’s an overweight hero) by thirty or forty pounds, and that he’s either a private investigator or a reporter or maybe a blogger. I’m not sure which yet. Waiting to see if anything pops out of my head as I throw words at the story.
And we’ll have to see if I finish it in time to submit it to and for their anthology.
Meanwhile, the word stats:
Bone Walker:
Written tonight: 109
Chapter 7 total: 1,613
Bone Walker total (first draft): 18,347
Mirror’s Gate:
Written tonight: 104
Chapter 1 total: 1,302
Mirror’s Gate total (first draft): 1,302
Shadow of the Rook:
Written tonight: 112
Chapter 2 total: 3,950
Shadow of the Rook total (first draft): 13,378
Untitled short story:
Written tonight: 266
Untitled short story total: 500
Quick word count update
| February 15, 2010 | Posted by annathepiper under Mirror's Gate |
|
Not much to report on this; this is mostly just me trying to kick myself back into gear yet again and write whatever words I can manage to coax out of my brain! Still in Chapter 1 on Mirror’s Gate, and working on the scene where Yevanya arranges to sell her old house with her half-elven barrister.
Written tonight: 120
Chapter 1 total: 1,198
Mirror’s Gate total (first draft): 1,198
Word catchup
| February 1, 2010 | Posted by annathepiper under Mirror's Gate |
|
Just to quickly cover the rest of the words I wrote on Mirror’s Gate while at Conflikt, this quicky post!
A brief snippet from Aleksi’s POV is now in place, although I think I’m going to have to work on that in the second draft. That snippet may actually need to be an entire chapter. But I want to get the first draft written first.
Yevanya is also now on camera, and has started off with a bang, attempting to sternly remind herself that no matter how severe the provocation, ladies of quality simply do not, do not, murder their cousins!
Written at Conflikt: 532
Chapter 1 total: 1,078
Mirror’s Gate total: 1,078
There goes my amateur standing
| January 30, 2010 | Posted by annathepiper under Defiance, Faerie Blood, Mirror's Gate |
|
Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to report that as of this evening, I have received royalties for my writing for the very first time in my writing career. Actual money for my actual words is now in my possession. It ain’t much, I grant you–I am, after all, a micropress ebook author–but it’s evidence that somebody out there has in fact cared to put down a few of their dollars in exchange for my work.
Roughly 217 somebodies, in fact. If you’re one of those 217 or so, I thank you wholeheartedly and hope you’ll have enjoyed what I provided. Most of these sales are indeed Faerie Blood, although Defiance does have a tiny blip of presence on the statement. Also, it is a point of interest that the reported sales are for Drollerie Press’s own site, Fictionwise (by far the majority of the sales), and Mobipocket. Amazon sales are not represented and hopefully this will be updated as of the next statement received. Clearly, though, Fictionwise loves me. <3
There are more words on the way! And tonight's addition to that "more", tapped out on the iPhone at Conflikt while listening to the inimitable Alexander James Adams belting out his best (and then more typed after), was a few hundred more words into Chapter 1 of Mirror’s Gate. I know now that the lead characters are Aleksandr and Yevanya Morokev, and that Yevanya’s cousin who’d really like nothing better than to step into the esteemed position of “husband” with her is Antoli. The names are of course Russian-influenced, although I’ll be playing around with this some and thinking about how the elves of Vreyland would have affected the language and the naming conventions. Plus, I just want to throw in a few character names that aren’t direct real-world analogues.
Tonight’s efforts got paused though as I got to a point where I need to mention the name of the city serving as the primary setting here, and I’m not sure yet whether I want a short terse name or a long exotic one. Spent some time mulling the list on Wikipedia of Russian cities, but so far none of them have served as inspiration for naming the Vreyish capital. Potential elven influence may be called for here.
Written tonight: 316
Chapter 1 total: 546
Mirror’s Gate total: 546
Bone Walker has a contender
| January 28, 2010 | Posted by annathepiper under Mirror's Gate |
|
It looks like Christopher and Elessir are suddenly going to have to fight with the male lead currently known as Aleksi for my word count love. Mirror’s Gate got its first official words tonight, since three chapters’ worth of outline is enough to get me started and this story really wants out of my brain. We’ll see how well I can keep it up.
I can say that I actually haven’t been this excited about producing something in a while. Maybe I just needed a brand new idea to play with, I don’t know! thinks that I must have been working on this under the hood and it popped out for attention when it was ready; if that’s so, I can forgive my muse for many months of silence!
And I’m looking forward to playing in Vreyland. I want to write about its snowy city streets and the colors its people wear, bright and bold against the long pale spans of their winters. There are elves in Vreyland, immigrants from the west, but most of the true-blooded ones keep to themselves. The elven blood has blended with that of Vreyland, though, and it is from that that the Vreylanders get their magic.
The Vreylander mages are as free with their powers as magic never is in Adalonia. There are magics to protect houses and light the city streets, to seek out truth and to protect the sanctity of an office of law. And there are greater magics a man may use if he has the talent–and some of these magics will be what drives this story.
I need more names for characters, and Aleksi still needs to tell me if that’s his full name or if it’s an endearment… but now he has sprung into his first few paragraphs of life. I’m going to like getting to know him.
Written tonight: 230
Chapter 1 total: 230
Mirror’s Gate total (first draft): 230
My muse is liking this a lot
| January 26, 2010 | Posted by annathepiper under Mirror's Gate |
|
Another productive round of brainstorming with has let me flesh out several aspects of the main characters of Mirror’s Gate, although the proper names of most of them have not yet clicked into place. But I know quite a bit more about my hero and heroine now, and at least about their oldest child and what part she will play in the story.
I’ve also decided that this story takes place in the same world as Lament of the Dove, only in an entirely different country, clear over on the other side of the continent. I’m still toying with what I know about the country in question but I’m halfway suspecting that it’s called Vreyland, that it’s farther north than Adalonia and has proportionally colder weather, and that the people there tend to be of hearty and fair stock. I do definitely also know that they are magic-friendly and elf-friendly, and in fact, there is interbreeding with the elves in the national background, which is how magic got into their general gene pool.
And as of tonight, I just coredumped about three chapters’ worth of initial outline, covering the rough beginning of the story–as well as a later, almost complete scene that resulted from the brainstorm.
Man. If I can get a few more character names into place I think I’ll be able to start writing this thing. Bitchin’.
I do believe this is a story
| January 25, 2010 | Posted by annathepiper under Mirror's Gate |
|
That dream I had over the weekend hasn’t let me go, and thanks to some fine, fine brainstorming from , I now actually have the working core of what’s promising to be a new fantasy novel for me to work on. The working title for now is “Mirror’s Gate”, and the core concept is this:
My hero is a mage who’s in service to the local royal court, and it’s six months since his death. He is survived by his wife and children, who are devastated by his passing–and who, like everyone else in the court and the city, believe that his death was an unfortunate magical accident since he was found dead in his spell-room amidst the shattered remnants of his scrying mirror and other magical implements.
Since then, his wife has striven to ward off her grief by focusing on caring for their children. But the mood of the city has turned dark and strange, for there are rumors of sightings of ghostly figures and creatures on the streets and even in the houses. People are seeing glimpses of loved ones both human and animal who were thought to be dead–only these glimpses are often warped and dire, and the people are beginning to fear.
Disturbed, our heroine retreats with her children to the shelter of her uncle’s church, in the hope that holy ground will shelter them. But that doesn’t stop her from discovering that someone else is wandering the city, a man who should not exist–a man with no memories, and her dead husband’s face.
I decided I wanted to do this as a fantasy novel, mostly because I’m kind of burned out on urban fantasy right now and would like to swing back into some traditional fantasy. Also, this will be a first for me: writing principle characters who are already an established family, which will be a nice switch.
This is going to be fun.
Recent Comments