Posts Tagged by mirror’s gate: first draft
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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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
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