Pod People Unite! Yesterday, I blogged about my Work In Progress (WIP) and invited followers to tag along. This is blog 2 to point you to my new page where I’ll keep all my updates organized and share fun stuff like what follows… ❤️
A Peek Into Starlight Chronicles Dragon History
Fact One – The dragon species was wiped out eons ago in the Great Purge
Fact Two – In the time before the last dragon vanished, an underground sect formed to continue the noncorporeal species through a symbiotic bond with a human who could withstand the harrowing transformation to a dragon. Many made the ultimate sacrifice to perfect the ability.
Fact Three – These humans became the first animal shifters.
Fact Four – When dragons disappeared, so did their kingdom in the fae realms. Great magic still exists there if anyone knows where to look.
Fact Five – Our sexy main character, Michael Elliott, is a dragon shifter and the alpha of the Fire Star Pack. His territory covers the State of Oregon in the U.S. Michael is bonded with an ancient dragon called Onyx.
Fact Six – When Michael shifts into a dragon, Onyx gets his corporeal body back though he occupies it with Michael. When Michael is human, Onyx is with him in body and soul. It’s truly a symbiotic relationship, and the bond is never meant to be broken.
Fact Seven– The two share a castle in the Scottish Highlands passed down by Michael’s dragon host predecessors. (In The Starlight Chronicles, Elliott, as Selena came to call him, teamed up with bear shifter and alpha of the North Star Pack, Andras Johns, to support Selena Aires in her prophetic quest. The three reunite in this story, and Michael will finally share dragon lore with Selena. It will be more than she bargained for.)
Fact Eight – Onyx has scales like obsidian and the same deep midnight blue eyes as his host.
The Starlight Chronicles series is a great place to rev up for Michael’s spinoff story from Book Two, Drago Incendium, which starts where Book One, Ursus Borealis, leaves off. The saga concludes in Book Three, Tigris Vetus.
This new novel is for Michael. 🥰
Let me know if you’re enjoying the journey! Comment with ideas and feedback.
In Part Four we will cover Writing Contests and what I’ve got in the works because Nicolas was kind enough to ask…
Let’s wrap up this amazing discussion with writing contests and the benefits and challenges. I’ve had so much fun participating with you in the Writing Battle Summer Nanofiction 250-word Contest we just finished where we navigated our way through the huge community and commented on each other’s stories.
I find I enjoy the shorter writing challenges when I’m in the middle of a busy writing period. You get all the benefits that Writing Battle offers the community, but the participation consumes less time with the nano-sized stories. But wow! The caliber of these little pocket fictions blew me away! Every story I read for the Duel and in the Debrief was exceptional. I did a little blog about the contest and my results here.
I also participated in a Fae vs. Punk Mashup competition with the Fantasy Sci-Fi Writers Alliance. My story was judged fifth out of nine so it didn’t make the anthology but I loved this story so much that I worked on it post competition and that’s what my readers are getting with my newsletters in parts through the end of the year. So, I guess my overall take on participating in contests is having opportunities to write more, in different genres, in shorter bites, and finding ways to share it.
I’ll turn the mic to you for your take.
The Writing Battle – What I loved
NL. I thought I’d break it down in a list…
Having a clear deadline to produce something outside of my ongoing projects. It’s super refreshing.
Reading ten great stories over one month, and a bunch more at the Debrief stage. Wow. They were all good, astounding and enriching, all in their individual, quirky, diverse, creative way. I stand amazed.
Commenting on other people’s stories. It’s a challenge, it’s a responsibility, it’s fascinating. Always easier to say what you liked about a story. More challenging to say something you think could make the story better, in a warm, understanding, respectful, constructive way.
Connecting with like-minded people eager to support and encourage and help.
Discovering so many great writers, and being introduced to their work.
Like you, I think it’s less involved, time-wise, to focus on the nano-fiction battles rather than the longer ones. I might try the long ones someday, but for now, having to read, and constructively comment on ten longer stories over one month, let’s say, each of them 2000 words long, however fun and captivating I’d have to do nothing else during all that time!
The Writing Battle – Questions I Have
It is fun; it is wonderful to connect with fellow writers and to read great stories, and dip my toes in constructive feedback, both given and received.
But one thing Simone Seol says is “If you don’t repel anyone, you can’t attract anyone either.” I’ve been mulling on that. It makes sense to me.
Hmmm. There is a risk when dealing with a lot of feedback from multiple people.
It’s a good thing to gather a lot of feedback, but how to use the feedback afterwards? If many people (let’s say more than three or four) tell me the same thing, and if it makes sense to me, then it’s probably a good tip to steer me into finding better ways of writing.
However, if I fall into the trap of trying to please everybody, then it can become counterproductive. If I tone myself down into trying to appeal to everyone, then I’m at risk of diluting my true self and writing something that may be somewhat acceptable to everyone, but not really appealing to anyone at the same time, even to myself.
The saddest thing about it is that the very people who might have loved my true, honest, sincere, creative work; they won’t even get a chance to see that I’m there.
If you don’t repel someone, you can’t attract someone either. I think it’s a life-changing notion, worth repeating.
If you quit being afraid of displeasing some, you have a better chance at pulling your true readers closer to you because they will see you when you show up in the world. The ones who will truly get and like everything you have to say or share, and who will love your work no matter what, because they’ve seen in you something that resonates deeply in them.
So who’s your ideal reader? Simone Seol says picking an ideal reader is BS. Don’t pick. Just imagine someone you really trust, someone who already loves what you do and believes in you. Someone who loves you unconditionally no matter what. Someone who drinks everything that you say and do and are. Write for that person, even if it’s just you; write for that person only. The others don’t matter. It’s not for them you’re doing this. Their opinion doesn’t matter. If there’s no one yet, just imagine them. Or be them. Be the first one. Start with yourself. How does your own work resonate with you? Be your own starting point.
But then, how do you improve your writing? Isn’t this a contradiction? How to find a balance?
I’d say, trust your instincts. Keep learning of course, but take your time choosing from whom you’re learning. Remember that any book you read, any course you take, any webinar or blog, or whatever you watch… is for you and for you only, to use at your own convenience, in your own time, with absolutely no strings attached, with nothing to prove to anyone and no reason to impress anyone either; with no other responsibility on your part than using whatever aspects serve you and your creativity, and help you grow into the true, sincere, wonderful, creative, honest, precious, human being that you already are.
DLL. These are awesome things to consider, Nicolas. I’ve had similar thoughts about the feedback and how to use it. In my previous work life, and I’m sure you will relate, it’s all about performance feedback and pleasing the boss, or the customer, or what have you. Writing is truly the opposite. Sometimes, old habits are hard to change.
It was interesting this round to read the feedback from those who didn’t get my story at all to those who raved about the power of the prose and emotion because they absolutely got what I was going for.
I’m in a writing group also and we critique each other’s work. I’ll be chatting with that group on my blog next month for my Spotlight. It’s been a real eye opener because I’ve had to have some serious talks with myself about utilizing the excellent feedback while maintaining my true voice. This speaks to the aspect I mention in my response to your questions – learning too much about writing! And how it feels like I’ve been stymied. I wrote much freer in the early days when I was ignorant. 🙂
While much of the feedback is consistent because it points to areas that everyone recognizes need work, a lot of it is very subjective and you can’t let subjective opinions mute your voice or color your efforts as you move forward. I feel like I’ve listened to too many people and tried to compensate (or compromise) much too often, and I need to pull myself out of the quagmire. I really like that idea about finding that one audience to write to even if it is just yourself. I also really appreciated something you said earlier about your rewrites of Seven Drifts. You love your story. I get teased sometimes about loving my own writing. Well, duh!! I wouldn’t be so dedicated to writing if I didn’t like what I wrote. We’re allowed to be our own worst critic and best fan, right?
NL. Absolutely. I believe we have too, in fact!
Darci, for the benefit of our lovely readers, what are you working on currently? What did you launch recently, and what are you about to release, mid term and long term?
In the Works
DLL.Thank you for asking! I’ve always been a multi-crafter with too many projects started at once and waiting to be finished even as many do get miraculously finished, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that my writing is the same. I would love to start jamming on all of them and stack them up on the publishing line, but I must be realistic. I’ve learned to work on what’s calling to me on any given day. Ah, those fickle characters…
I’m especially focused on listening to the passionate call as I struggle with that glut I mentioned.
Thankfully, it is currently a spinoff from The Starlight Chronicles (“TSC”), a contemporary paranormal romance series that is working for me. I’m committed to sticking with this one and publishing it next year. Crossing my fingers!! Michael Elliott is a dragon shifter, introduced in Ursus Borealis and featured in Drago Incendium, really a main character along with Selena Aires (human) and Andras Johns (a Kodiak bear shifter). Selena attracts both men to her cause and Elliott (as she calls him) comes to care for her as deeply as Andras does. Where the three end up takes us on a lot of twists and turns and concludes in Tigris Vetus.
It is important to me to follow my series with a standalone novel for Elliott. In TSC, we meet his dragon, Onyx, and are introduced, in tantalizing bits, to their backstory. Now I can flesh that out. Besides being the alpha of the Fire Star Pack with a territory that covers Oregon, Elliott has a medieval castle in the Scottish Highlands (due to his long history with Onyx). This will be the setting for his story where he gathers his friends from TSC and love and danger will find him there. The theme is trust and betrayal, and there will be lots of dragon lore and magic.
And thanks for asking about my latest release! It just so happens I have a volume of three fantasy romances on Presale in Les Romances des Trois. “The romances of threes,” (probably an awkward usage of French, so pardonne-moi, Nicolas! But it looked good for a title 🙂). It means we get three deeply romantic and adventurous fantasy stories in different settings and subgenres involving ménage à trois romances.
These threesome tales were previously published in anthologies, and I was dying to expand on them and offer them together because I love them so much. They average more than 20,000 words, so I’m calling them novellas. A short adult fairy tale is included as a bonus.
I have plot ideas for more spinoffs from TSC and I truly hope to get them out there in the next few years. I dream about a huge TSC world for readers to enjoy. The one I’m focusing on next is my vampire, Mortas. I left him on an awful cliffhanger and he is a fantastic character and deserves his story. He will be paired with a minor but important character from TSC, a witch named Ember. Their working title is Giving It Up for a Vampire.
The other TSC spinoff I’ve made huge inroads on is a historical fantasy romance, The Spanish Maiden Who Dreamt of a Bear. The main characters feature Andras Johns’ grandparents, Broderick Johns, and Elara Sofia Estrada de Luna. We dive into Andras’s family history when he shares his grandparents’ journals with Selena and their pack as they sail up the Inside Passage to Ketchikan on Elliott’s motorsailer – a scene in Drago Incendium.
This tale is set in a fascinating time in North American history, 1776 Alta California, when Spain competed for the Pacific Coast territory with Russia before the Spanish Crown gave it up to Mexico. I’m incorporating a historical expedition from Mexico to the Coast that established Monterey Bay and San Francisco. We will also explore early Alaska when Broderick and his father trek up the coast to Kodiak Island where Broderick takes on the first Kodiak bear spirit.
Other stories in the works outside of TSC that should go fast once I can get that mojo flowing again:
The Fourth Planet of Cinnamon Jones – a fantasy sci-fi romance that takes place in eastern Oregon and Portland and involves aliens from a nearby planetary system who have been visiting and inhabiting our planet for so long that they became the source of Earth’s elf mythology.
Caged Diamond – a sci-fi, cyberpunk, and mafia planet hybrid. My main female character is a retired MMA fighter who wants a peaceful life away from the UFC fight scene only to be kidnapped and taken to a fight ring on a mafia planet where she encounters many interesting characters including a towering barbarian warrior.
Can we say… “Three more lifetimes!” There’s more, but I’ll stop here… 😄
NL. Wow! Thanks for all this privileged, insider information about your TSC spinoffs and other projects!
About Les Romances des Trois, I love that you’ve chosen to use French in your writing, and from what I’ve been lucky to read already (from more insider information!), I can tell it is working beautifully.
I gotta say, I really dig your titles! Les Romances des Trois, Giving It Up For a Vampire, The Spanish Maiden Who Dreamt of a Bear, The Fourth Planet of Cinnamon Jones, Caged Diamond… I mean, come on! And not to mention, Ursus Borealis, Drago Incendium, Tigris Vetus… There is an art to finding great titles, and I believe you’ve mastered it.
DLL. Thank you, Nicolas! And I can say the same for Seven Drifts!
I Love Designing!
I will add that my writing process includes designing covers early on and coming up with working titles. Both steps inspire my storytelling and help me meet my publishing goals, effectively establishing a vision.
I design my covers with tools like Canva, DIY Covers, and Bookow, and with the help of a few generous friends. The paperback edition of Les Romances will feature my first wraparound cover using a free template by Bookow. I’m working on a new edition of my collection of short stories in Priss Starwillow & the Wolf, A Starlight Chronicles Short Story, and Other Stories to incorporate a wraparound cover. I’ve decided to get this volume into more stores like Les Romances. TSC is available only through Amazon and on Kindle Unlimited. Deciding to be exclusive to Amazon or going wide (other markets like Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, and Kobo) is a story for another day, and it’s been an endless headache.
NL. Each time I look at your work, I am delighted at how my eye is caught. I know that whatever tool you choose to use, you’ll always come up with something beautifully engaging to reflect the gems from the inside. I hope you find solutions for your headache! The choices are infinite and often painful but know you’re blasting a trail for others to follow, and we’re grateful for it.
DLL. Thank you Nicolas for your comments, support, and for letting me elaborate on my projects!
NL. Thank you Darci, for elaborating on them! It’s been such a blast!
And thank you to those who have sorted through our writer’s life discussion and taken away a few inspiring nuggets to add to your arsenals. This is it until Nicolas and I catch up again next year!
I write romance. I like to think it’s romance with heart and enough steam to compete with a hot mug of tea and keep those pages turning. So, I’m going to talk about what influenced me to march down this path. First, I was heavily influenced by all the fantastic romance authors of my day, Johanna Lindsey(greatly missed), Jude Deveraux, and Julie Garwood to name a few.
We’re talking, sexy, Fabianesque, badass, cinnamon roll heroes whether wearing tartan, business suits, or armor and engaging in all the exciting tropes of today, and maybe a few forgotten ones of yesterday–and the strong women who cleverly persuaded them to change their ways.
Remember the movie Romancing the Stone–the opening scene when Joan Wilder bawls like a baby and can’t find anything in the apartment to blow her nose after she finishes her novel? I wanted to experience that… and crying after writing an emotional scene or ending is real folks. Awesome!
In my youth, my favorite place to get lost in a good romance novel was climbing my way around to a remote ledge along the Pacific Ocean at places like Salt Point or Timber Cove. My parents were scuba divers and they’d be out all day freezing in their wetsuits while I cozied up in a rocky alcove with a bottle of pop and a bag of sunflower seeds, the ocean spread out before me and the surf crashing below my dangling feet. Often, whole families of seals would be lounging near my spot, and a grey whale would spout so close I could see the barnacles on its back. If I wanted to cry at the end, no one could hear me. It was heaven.
Salt Point State Park, California
But my stories must also be steeped in fantasy and paranormal lore. This brings me to the other side of my romance coin–the influence that came from my obsession with muscle-bound barbarians in the delightful, violent, and sexy eighties movies… thank you Schwarzy for blazing the trail.
Conan The Barbarian, Conan The Destroyer, and Red Sonja taught me that fantasy can take you anywhere you want to go in a plot. Yes, they might have come with lots of cheese, but it’s all in the perspective. Great actors like Max Von Sydow and James Earl Jones elevated the cheesy pizza grade movie to a steak dinner in my book. Enjoy all three movie trailers in this YouTube video.
Do you remember the other lesser enduring flicks like the one starring another of my favorite eighties hunks, Mark Singer, in The Beastmaster? I’m providing it below. Watch if you dare. 😉 I’d even consider my all time favorite fantasy flick, Willow, to be in the barbarian realm, and all the Highlander movies. Seems like where we had magic, we had to have barbarian hordes. This is the stuff of fantasy world building for me.
People think I’m crazy when I tell them I love being my age. But hey, it means that I got to spend decades steeped in all of the above while watching and being part of the exciting romantasy genre taking over the fiction landscape of today. Barbarians still have a role to play in romance and many of them have moved into space. I’m not surprised. It’s harder to imagine fierce horse cultures and warrior races clashing over territory across the vast steppes of the Earth we have today. So, why not fly off to unknown planets? That’s what I’m doing in a novel I have in the works, Caged Diamond.
Stay tuned for the story of MMA fighter Justina “Diamond” Jewel Blake who’s forced to fight for a planetary syndicate and the barbarian warrior she’s pitted against. You can follow me here and subscribe to my newsletter for updates.
I’ll leave you with a sci fi romance reading recommendation. A romance writer who brings to mind my old faves is Zoey Draven. Her Horde Kings of Dakkar series is a romping lot of fun and full of suspense. Here’s the first in the series.
The journeys I end up on as I conduct research are a major part of the joy I find in writing. This month, I wandered into the Golden Age of Pirates and discovered all the fun facts that aligned with my precious memories of a favorite Disneyland adventure. If you’ve visited Pirates of the Caribbean in that magical park, you’ll know what I’m referring to.
I shared this in part in my recent newsletter, in case it looks familiar, but I wanted to expand on the fun facts and resources. Towards the end, I’ll give you a glimpse of the pirate story I’ve started for an anthology.
I’ve long asked myself why these infamous men who engaged in short careers rife with heinous acts of mayhem were such romantic figures who still capture our imaginations and sense of adventure hundreds of years later. The words of the most successful pirate, Black Bart, might give you an idea.
In an honest service there is thin commons, low wages, and hard labour. In this, plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power; and who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worst is only a sour look or two at choking? No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto.
— A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates (1724), p.213–214
Bartholomew Roberts, aka John Roberts, aka Black Bart
And just look at them. They were swashbuckling commanders of the fastest ships who wore tricorn hats shaped into their own rebellious fashions, kept pets like parrots, wore a brace of pistols in a sash slung over their broadcoats and a cutlass hanging from their belts, just to name a few of the iconic images. They lived by a democratic code of conduct customized for life aboard their ship, which gave them a semblance of order among chaos critical to the company’s success. [This image was acquired on Pinterest, shared by Beyond Geek]
They came to their ends in action-packed battles like Blackbeard (allegedly shot and stabbed multiple times before succumbing) or were hung, covered in tar, and put on display in a cage like Captain Kidd.
A fun fact shared in an article by Disney Adulting on the history of Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean; Disney’s Imagineers used real skeletons donated by a university medical center until improved technology allowed them to be replaced and returned for proper burial. Click on the image to learn more.
Pirates flew flags of doom known as the Jolly Roger like this one still in existence and referenced in Wikipedia, and allegedly wove smoking firecrackers into their beards (Blackbeard again) to terrorize their enemies.
Some faced these relentless dangers and horrible ends simply because they wanted a life of excitement and adventure. Stede Bonnet, the gentleman pirate, gave up his family, wealth, and a leisurely life on a Barbados plantation, bought a sloop he named the Revenge, employed his pirate crew, and set sail for his first raid knowing nothing about seafaring, fighting, or commanding a ship.
No one knows what motivated the Englishman to change his life so drastically, but it begs one to attribute it to boredom and discontent with his perfect life (some say his wife). This story is the most fascinating to me because of this man’s dramatic arc, though there are so many great characters to pick from.
It is harder to fit heroic women into these tales since they were banned by the code from life at sea and relegated to the background as pirate wives or prostitutes in pirate havens.
There are astonishingly two famous women, who turned out to be fiercer pirates than their not so impressive captain, Calico Jack (John) Rackham, who were tried for piracy and pardoned as expectant mothers, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Another great story, though much of it must be drawn from sketchy historical accounts and their trial documents.
So, how do women figure into the fictional pirate legends so many people love to write about? Well, when you write fantasy, there are endless possibilities and plenty of loopholes in the pirate code at your disposal.
My story will involve a pirate captain who wants his pardon and yearns to retire to his plantation, but his crew isn’t on the same page. After a fierce storm, they come alongside a piece of wreckage and two mysterious castaways… and this is where my bent for fantasy comes into play and will loosely involve sea god mythology.
I hope you enjoy this opening scene.
It was the company’s first day of meager sunlight after the darkest storm in Bastien Marceau’s memory. The struggling brightness was welcome, which said a lot about the bizarre weather dogging the Salty Pearl since the day five months ago when his crew forced him at sword point to sign the articles of agreement and command this cursed vessel.
The reluctant captain’s skills and sheer luck had kept their losses low and this time, even as the heavily repaired and vulnerable mainsail was torn asunder by the force of nature, no hands had met their end. The quartermaster was even now rallying the men for a vote to allow their new commander to live another day.
Bastien didn’t waste this rare moment of calm worrying about his fate. Instead, he enjoyed the breeze brushing against his face as it carried the scent of sand, coconut, and spice. It comforted his troubled soul like the image he carried with him of his sugar plantation bathed in the glow of a sinking sun. His dream waited for him on Saint Dominique… if he could just break free.
D. L. Lewellyn
My latest writing journey started when I wanted to understand the anatomy of a pirate ship. I found Gold and Gunpowder on YouTube and meandered happily into a rabbit hole.
Retire I said. Write full time, I said. Get up when I want. Eat when I want. Listen to books when I want. Go out with friends when I want. Eerrk! Wait, back up. Write full time? That’s work, right?
Did I really think my pod people (aka book characters seeded in my brain by aliens) would let me retire? Get up when I wanted, go out with friends when I wanted. eat when I wanted? Okay, so that stuff is actually happening, but yikes! I am really writing full time!
Like get up, stay in my jammies, bring a cup of coffee to my office, and start writing, until I want to stop kind of full time writing. Oh Yeah!
It was a great month to retire from the old day job because it’s Camp NanoWrimo! I passed my goal yesterday and I’m closing in on a finish to a story I have been dying to write since Book Two in my series, The Starlight Chronicles (slipping in an announcement here – my series relaunch is happening in May!!), because there’s a vampire, one of those secondary pod people you fall in love with from his very first introduction. And he only gets better all the way through to his cliffhanger ending (coming in Book Three!!).
So what better Camp project is there than giving Mortas his own short story. And events unfold that include another great secondary pod person, Ember, the witch. But pod people beget more pod people when writing fiction. And that’s what’s happening in this story. New compelling pod people!
I’m trying to keep it short, which means its 15,000 if I want to submit it to an Indie Press anthology. But it’s pushing the boundaries really tight. So, we’ll see.
Let me know what you think of the story description that follows my beautiful teaser. I would love any help with using it for my submission.
Mortas
Description:
No one remembers how Mortas came into existence, least of all him. Due to his vast age, he can command magic, and his vampire urges. His other inexplicable ability? He can exist in daylight. These skills mean Lord Aramis, the ruler of the North American Vampires, often assigns his favorite emissary to missions involving humans.
But Mortas has not always been at the pinnacle of vampire perfection. He’s done a lot of things in his thousands of years he would rather forget.
When he meets a witch in San Francisco in 1969, he wonders for the first time if it’s possible to live life without being plagued by dreams of regret. But Ember has another calling and leaves their bed one afternoon, never to return.
When you’re immortal, you move on.
An assignment leads Mortas to Selena Aires. He’s captivated by the beautiful, marked maiden with a prophetic destiny. Turns out she needs his help. But Mortas’s help is never free. When she pays the price without question and joins him on a dangerous mission, his fascination turns into purpose. A purpose that sends him into the worst predicament of his life.
~~~
Ember grew up in Fisherman’s Wharf, part of a coven who told fortunes for sailors as cover to more lucrative work, like picking their pockets. When two of her marks got the better of her at fourteen, she got rescued by a bear. To this day, she would do anything for that bear shifter because Andras Johns is one of the best men she knows. When he calls on her to help a vampire in trouble, she doesn’t hesitate to answer.
I’m so glad my writing buddy talked me into Camp NaNoWriMo. (Thanks Dustin – You’ll get to meet him this Sunday on my Creator Spotlight.) Because my Pod People are coming out to play! They like going to camp, and now I know this is the place to be for spinoff stories that I’ve got stacked up from my series, The Starlight Chronicles.
So many people are doing writing sprints and I keep wanting to jump on, but I never catch them in time. Still, just knowing so many of my writing peeps are getting those words in this month is phenomenal and ever so motivating.
Are you doing Camp? Let me know your thoughts about it in the comments. And buddy up with me there. My project is so cool because the MC is my coolest side character ever! So glad he’s getting his own story.
What a surprise this November is turning out to be. The best laid plans… as they say. But I have never been one to stick with plans if something tells me I need to mix it up and to go a different direction.
For NaNoWriMo this year, my Pod People (aka characters seeded in my brain by aliens) spun me around blindfolded under a pinata and after bashing away, I’ve made all sorts of turns and transitions in my writing career.
And I’m totally thrilled and surprised by the results.
In the first week, I changed my project three times. Then, I had an epiphany. I needed to unpublish my novels. Books One and Two in The Starlight Chronicles were languishing, loveless in the nether regions of the Kindle Universe. I’m still working on the conclusion and thought at one point that would be my focus for November.
But the pressure of completing my series has been weighing on me. I decided that getting them off the market, using the time to finish and polish them, finding a book cover artist for a cohesive professional look, and launching them with a fresh marketing campaign might be exactly what they, and I need.
An exhilarating freedom resulted. I’ve been infused with new energy. There are three other novels in the works that are getting the attention they deserve. I made one of them my focus for November but decided not to worry about hitting my goal if I want to write on other projects. What a relief that has been, and I’ve made progress with them all.
I have also allowed myself to participate in various flash fiction and short story competitions, which have been more enjoyable without the pressure of getting that third installment done.
Other factors played a huge role in my rejuvenation. I belong to a writer’s alliance and the support I got for this crucial decision was phenomenal. A Twitter post by a member of the Writing Community about deciding to unpublish was ever so timely. And advice on holding onto the joy of writing while letting go of the drudgery of marketing sealed the deal. You can join that discussion in my recent interview with Sci-Fi author, Kent Wayne.
The month is not over folks… I wonder what other surprises might be in store. And please. Tell me how your November is shaping up.
The Death’s Head Omen is a recent micro fiction story I entered in a contest. Results in January.
NaNoWriMo starts in three days! I’m ready, I think… At least my characters are poised at the starting line. I highly doubt I’ll make the 50,000 word count because my project is finishing Book Three of my series, The Starlight Chronicles. I hope I don’t have 50,000 words left to go, because I’m at 80,000 already! But you never know.
What I do know is that November is a great month to set everything else aside and focus on writing… every day. I also lost my head and signed up for a few sprints and competitions. Hmmm… It will be interesting to track it all.
There are still so many plotlines to be wrapped up in Tigris Vetus, and a lot going on in my conclusion to Selena Aires’ story. Which means so many beginnings for other novels. But I must finish this one to start more stories about all the great characters, aka Pod People, who found their beginnings in this series. Another great reason to participate in a month of daily writing.
Good luck to all you who will be participating! You can find me on Nanowrimo.org at DLLewellyn if you want to buddy up.
Here is a little art inspiration from Alexander Danailov, Hermes crossing the finish line.
By D. L. Lewellyn 