Updates From My Writing Desk: In Which I Emerge, Blinking, Into the Sunlight
Hello again, dear Reader! I’m back from my hiatus…
Which totally did not end up being a whole month longer than I planned for it to be…. eheheh.
Whoops.
blinks at the calendar in disbelief… it’s JUNE? Already?
But I promise, even though I’ve been fairly quiet here on the blog and over on social media for the past two months, it’s been a very productive kind of silence. So much is happening behind the scenes, and today, you get to hear about some of it! I feel like I’m finally making up for my lack of productivity back in 2020. And it feels good.
Very good.
So, what has been a-happenin’ here at my Writer’s Desk?
Drafting the Super Secret Project - code-named: Thief
In April, I participated in Camp NaNo on a massively ambitious quest to hammer out the first draft of my Super Secret Project: Thief.
erm, yes, I may have changed the code name from a previous post. Deal with it.
This was not at all made any easier by my husband being out of town for one of the weeks of April. Nor was it made any easier by the fact that I was assisting with my daughter’s track team and spending my Tuesday and Thursday evenings with the most awesome group of middle school and high schoolers ever to roam the earth. Seriously, these kids are A-MAZING.
But I persisted, and I managed to hit both my goal of writing 34,000 words by the end of April AND I typed “the end” on the rough draft of my newest novel. And honestly, I think it’s some of my best work ever. I love this story so much and I can’t wait to share it with you. I have to keep certain elements of this story secret due to reasons that are also top secret… but I can tell you that it’s a companion novel to The Turrim Archive, set about 100 years before the opening of The Orb and the Airship. I can tell you that you will have no need to read this book in order to understand the Turrim Archive and vice versa. I can tell you that I’m planning to publish it in 2023. I can also tell you that it’s a short novel, clocking in at just over 50,000 words. Other than that, I can’t tell you much.
if you’re one of the people I’ve told in real life more info about this project, remember that you have been bound by unbreakable oaths of silence
Editing
Instead of celebrating the Camp NaNo win (okay, I did treat myself to some delicious ice cream), I dove right back into my editing routine as we hit May and began making major revisions to Mantles of Oak and Iron (book 2 of the Turrim Archive). Meanwhile, I sent my SSP: Thief off to my content editor.
It took me approximately two weeks to finish my Mantles edit (I had gotten halfway through Mantles in the month of March, so don’t go getting too amazed at my speedy editing ways).
Before getting the line-edits going, I sent this draft back to my content editor to make sure we were on the same page. And in the meantime, he sent me his notes for Thief. (We are a well-oiled machine at this point. I don’t know WHAT I would do without my amazing editor!)
So, while I waited for any further notes on Mantles, I dove back into Thief and just finished up those re-writes yesterday.
I am still not sure what the actual title of this story is going to be. It’s giving me fits.
Cover Updates
I’ve been working with the fabulous Savannah Jezowski of Dragonpen Designs (she did the cover for An Echo of the Fae, as well) on the covers for the Turrim Archive. It’s been a blast trying to nail down all the elements for these covers. The first one is just about done… and I can’t wait to show it to you all!
seriously, sitting on this much exciting stuff and not being able to just fling it out into the world might just about kill me.
The Turrim Archive is a bit of a different genre from anything I’ve published so far. It’s still fantasy, but the setting is in a sort of mid-1800s Victorian type era, with six very different cultures ranging from Nordic to European to Mediterranean to Persian to Russian to Chinese in look and feel… and that’s just where I pulled inspiration from to try to make everything feel realistic, I also made up a lot to make it feel different from our own world.
I will hopefully be sharing some posts in the near future introducing you to various elements of the world as well as some of the characters you will meet in this series.
Anyway, because of the gaslamp/fantasy genre that this falls into, the covers have to reflect that. Because, as we all know, even if you shouldn’t… everyone does judge a book by its cover.
And that’s okay. The cover should give you a clue about the story inside. And we’ve been working hard to make sure that these covers reflect the adventure/gaslamp/fantastical/piratey stories that they contain.
And this cover… Oh my giddy aunt! It’s GORGEOUS!
Snippets
Because I have to be so secretive about just about everything for just a short while longer… AND because you all are literally the bestest readers an author could ever ask or hope for… here are a couple of my current favorite snippets from each of the projects that I’ve been buried under the past couple of months.
I hope you enjoy this small taste of what is to come!
Mantles of Oak and Iron
Ioan waved a hand, white teeth gleaming. “I wish he could have been here, too. But I understand he’s new, and still settling in. They don’t give the students a lot of freedom until they’ve earned it, not even as a favor to the Regeont.”
“A policy I support.” Nadia winked. “Well, congratulations, Ioan. We are all very proud of you.” She pulled a small box out of a deep pocket on the inside of her cloak. “This is from all of us, but mostly from Drengur.”
Ioan accepted the box and grinned. “Thank you, Aunt Nadia. And thank you for coming. It means the world to me.”
“You are welcome,” she tousled his dark hair playfully. “Now, go celebrate with your friends. No reason to stand around talking to your old aunt.”
“You’re hardly what any of us would call old, dear Aunt Nadia.” Ioan stuck his tongue between his teeth in a wide grin.
“That is the right answer.” Nadia raised her chin. “No wonder they let you graduate.” She turned to her friend. “Roshana, he’s a smart one, your boy.”
Roshana’s heart felt as though it might burst with pride and love. “Yes, he is.”
Mantles of Oak and Iron
Daegan sat hunched over his table, straining his already weak eyes in the flickering lamp light. Papers, books, bits of charcoal, and a spreading ink stain from where he had jostled his inkwell were strewn across the table in a haphazard frenzy, but the clutter did not bother him. He pored over his current schematic with single-minded purpose. His quill scratched across the paper as he put down his notes with precise strokes. He jotted down measurements neatly in the space around the drawing, measuring everything twice to make certain the scale was correct.
The door behind him opened and a much younger woman entered the room. She carried a stack of papers carefully in her arms.
“Daegan, where do you want me to put these?” she asked, glancing about the room with an expression of defeat in her eyes.
“Just… wherever they fit,” Daegan waved a hand at her, but did not look up.
“Daegan, these are the latest schematics from the rest of the department, based on the criteria you outlined in the last meeting. You’re the head of the Artificineers, you need to be coordinating our efforts, not working on the problem all by yourself.” Her tone was frustrated.
Daegan sat up and stared at her. “We are so very close, Molly. Your own designs are brilliant, as are the others, but I’m the only one who can make the pieces all fit together. I can’t be holding everyone’s hands and doling out platitudes right now. Haven’t you heard? The Igyeum attempted to kidnap the young Adelfried heir… or assassinate him… or both…” He paused. What had the reports said about it? He decided it didn’t matter and shook his head. “It’s a bit muddled, but either way, it means the impending war is nearly upon us, and we must be ready.”
“I know all that, Daegan, but…”
“Not now, Molly. Just set the schematics on the table somewhere, I’ll look over them when I’ve finished these notes. I don’t want to stop in the middle of a thought, I may never be able to remember where it was going. I’m so close, I can feel it, we’re on the cusp of something great. This could be our salvation when the war comes.”
Molly muttered something under her breath, but Daegan had no focus to spare. He did not look up even when she had left his workshop, so intent was he on his latest idea. At some point, he began pulling the new schematics from the stack Molly had brought in, perusing them to see if they held the answer he was looking for. He scribbled down notes and took measurements and completed equations long into the night.
Thief
They continued through the forest, backtracking the way they had come. As they made their way through a valley with steep hills climbing up on either side, Olifur thought of how beautiful everything was in the misty purple of dusk. The silence that had hung between them all day was now broken by the swishing sounds of the sledge dragging behind, and Olifur knew that he could speak if he wished and say the things he had wanted so badly to say. And yet, he held his peace for a while longer, savoring the silence. Today, here, on this hunt, he had begun to understand Fritjof’s silence. The old man was not averse to words, Olifur realized, he just understood their value. He wanted to learn that same understanding. To say what he meant with precision and care. Not to waste his time with useless words. And so he waited, thinking over exactly what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it.
Thief
“Did that creature take a swipe at you?” he asked, his voice full of concern. “Are you hurt?”
Olifur shook his head.
Fritjof stopped and swung around. He stared at Olifur for a long moment in the dark. “You handled yourself well, boy.”
Usually, such high praise would have sent bursts of warmth through Olifur’s very soul, but now they rang hollow.
Silence stretched between them. Olifur was glad for the darkness, that Fritjof couldn’t see his face or read what was written there.
Fritjof came to stand in front of him, the sledge creaking slightly as it dragged sideways. He laid his hands on the boy’s shoulders.
“Fear is nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. “Unless you let it rule you.”
Something shattered inside Olifur’s chest. Strangling shame filled his throat and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. “But… I… I did.”
Fritjof did not say anything.
Olifur hung his head. “I didn’t take the shot,” he choked. “I couldn’t. I had my arrow ready, but…”
“Why didn’t you shoot?”
The gentle question startled him and Olifur looked up, confused. He considered the question. Why hadn’t he taken the shot? The moments of terror flooded back to him and he swallowed hard. “I couldn’t tell which one was Bet,” he said. “I didn’t want to hit her.”
“That doesn’t sound like fear taking over,” Fritjof said. “That sounds like wisdom.”
And that’s what I’ve been up to for the past couple of months as far as authoring goes. I have done a little bit of reading and watching of movies/tv, but not much, honestly. It may seem like I’ve been buried under a rock, but it’s all been in the major, massive effort to get these projects finished and polished up for YOU dear Reader.
Hopefully I will be able to emerge from my Stormcave (where I’m… writing up a storm… hahahahah) a little more often now that some of these big milestones are behind me… but there’s still a ton of work to do. I still have a round of line-edits to do on Mantles, and then the complete editing package still left on books 3-5 of Turrim. So… it’s hi-ho, hi-ho, back to work I go!
How has YOUR Spring been, dear Reader? Any big projects or events consuming all of your time and focus lately? Have you done anything fun? Do you have any big summer plans? Have you read or watched anything you want to shout about? Please tell me all about it in the comments!