New home

I've moved to a new domain, purely because I like its features just that little bit more.
So here it is: http://potterspimp.wordpress.com/

I know size doesn't matter ...

Well I'm slowly but surely getting back into the swing of things. I haven't started setting myself a daily word count, but I'm definitenly beginning to try and write everyday. It's always in the back of my mind that I have school work too, but to be perfectly honest, I am really not in a school work mood. It's pretty much the exact opposite. But I do have to get half a page on staging for 17th Century Comedy done for drama. I know half a page isn't a lot, but it's more than I want to do. Well I reached 10,000 words yesterday, and I also finished writing out a basic synopsis in my little notebook. It doesn't cover a lot of time in the world. Only about 2 or 3 weeks, but something inside me tells me this book might be bigger than book 2. I have no idea how big, but it just feels a lot bigger. Then again, it might just be me being hopeful again. I might only reach 80,000 words. Not that size matters, but it's the last book. I'd like it to be fairly long. But I do have a lot to cover, so who knows. It might end up being (not likely) 200,000 words long. Well I should be off writing. Link-x The Darkest Umbra Wordcount

10,258 / 120,000 (8.5%)

Epigraph

I've had this picked for some time, but have never actually said it here. I've got an epigraph for each book in the Atryniti trilogy, which I spent quite some time searching for. They had to be perfect and sum up the story quite well. And surprise, surprise, all three of the quotes actually come from John Milton. I will, however, only post the epigraph for book 1 here, as while the last two are just as good and almost set in stone, this one is most certainly going to be the one for book 1. So here it is:

O thievish Night,

Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,

In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars,

That nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps

With everlasting oil, to give due light

To the misled and lonely traveller?

It is so perfect for the first book, I nearly fell over when I happened across it a few months back.

Also, I recently finished the first round of edits on book 2. I'm definitely going to do more, but not for some time. For the time being, I know the text too well.

I sent the manuscript for The Severed Umbra to Scholastic today, so let's hope I get a positive reply from them. If that fails, I've got another publisher to try, and then a couple overseas. Something that would be even better would be if the agent got back to me. I know Scholastic normally doesn't publish young adult fantasy, but they did publish His Dark Materials (One of my all-time favourites!), so I can't see any harm in trying. But we'll just have to wait and see. Fingers crossed!

I'm still feeling a little distant from The Darkest Umbra, which I can't remember if I did or didn't experience. I know that The Severed Umbra had a very slow start, but I think that was all my own fault. What's making this hard, I think, might be the knowledge that this is the last book of the trilogy, and that the 20 or so people who have/are yet to read books 1 and 2 would like me to do it justice. Either that, or I'm just not into my usual "swing" of things yet. To be honest, I don't know.

Well that's it.

-Link.

The Darkest Umbra Word Count

8,421 / 120,000 (7.0%)

Future Plans

I'm feeling a lot better now that I've had time to think about why Random House rejected me, and it's helping. I knew I'd take it badly, but not quite as badly as I did.

But enough of that. There's no use whining about everything.

So what am I going to do next? Well, write, of course!

I'm just a little further through book 3. I'm just having a bit of trouble re-establishing my voice, especially as it's been so long since I've pumped out 1000 words. I'm finding myself being very under-descriptive, which is pretty bad since I'm very stark with my descriptions, anyway. I just have to remind myself to slow down with my writing, and get back to my normal ways. I'm still in 'last-fifth-of-the-book-mode'.

Also, I've sent a manuscript email to Scholastic Press Australia. It says on their site they don't normally accept unsolicited manuscripts, but also that there's no harm in trying anyway. If that falls through, I'm going to try some overseas publishers. Then, if everything else just dies, I'll probably be finished the entire trilogy, and will self-publish an omnibus of the trilogy, and also get one for anyone else who might desire it. I don't want to make too much money out of that, as a hardcover Lord-knows-how-many-page book generally doesn't come cheap. Probably over $50 given the exchange rate at the moment.

But the real question is what am I going to write once I've finished the trilogy. At the moment, I really like the idea of going back to Sinspell, my first story, and reworking it. It'll end up being an entirely different story, but the basic premise of the original will still be there. It helps, too that it is a stand-alone novel, so if it doesn't get published either, I won't be investing my time to writing things simply for friends (not that I really ever write for any other reason. Getting published though would make it just that little bit better).

Link-x

Back to Square One

The last 24 hours have been very dichotomous to say the least. On one end of the spectrum, my first adult reader read The Severed Umbra and enjoyed it thoroughly. When she posted the book back (she lives some distance away), there was a letter inside it from her, and everytime there was a reference to my characters, I got all excited and giddy. Also, she had a small list of corrections where I had the wrong character's name written down in some scenes, which was a big help. It was a very good feeling.



And at the very other end of the spectrum, I recieved a reply from Random House, and it's a rejection. Six months of waiting, and I'm back where I was six months ago. I'm not taking it fantastically, as this is literally the furthest I have gotten through the publishing process, but I'm sure after a day or so, I'll be better. I was a constructive, but very short letter. The editor said that they enjoyed the main concept of the story, but not the writing itself. It was nice to recieve something like that alongside the rejection.



Luckily, though, I've still got the agent looking at the sample chapters I sent her. I'm still deciding though If I should tell her about the rejection as I had told her about being considered by Random House, which may have had some explanation to her consideration.
Link-x

Excuses?

I'm not quite speeding through the opening chapters, but that's because I've now got to keep editing book 2. I've only just started part 2, and the person that types in my edits is expecting it. But then again, I haven't been writing much either. The last few days have just been an utter debacle. So I think I've got about 1 and a half hours to go until I have to be back at school, and I'll use that to ....... edit. I'll write more tonight if I don't want to edit more. Or maybe I should do some homework. Maybe? The Darkest Umbra Wordcount

5,543 / 120,000 (4.6%)

Re-introducing the Introduced

I'm about half-way through Chapter 10 of book 2 in editing, which I am actually not happy with. I was hoping to be a little further by now, but everything has just been crazy that I'm surprised I'm nearly 4000 words through Book 3. That's probably why editing has slowed down. Book 3 has begun with a bit of a bang, in more ways than one. I've forshadowed some stuff, and finally sorted out how certain concepts are going to be revealed. The one thing that I'm finding really hard is re-introducing characters. It's just annoying to try an not do it in obvious ways. I've sorted out most of it, by looking through the eyes of a character not in the know, but it's still hard to make it not sound forced. Well I'm off now. I'll probably reach 4000 words today before I have to go to school. Link~x The Darkest Umbra Progress

3,830 / 120,000 (3.2%)