Back at it

This week went really well for writing. I added a little less than 6k to this draft and I have written past the few scenes I outlined after pulling the outline from the draft I got interrupted writing. I got it over 50k now. Woop! I am pretty excited about that. I am still very much discovery writing this version of the story despite pauses to think through how each of the story strands are going to come together.

I have a few of the side and more minor characters getting a promotion to “important to the story” which has been a lot of fun. I keep finding little quirks in how the magic works that add and fill out the story. I guess that having a world with four distinct magic systems leaves plenty of room for that sort of thing. And man is it fun to play with.

Here’s a little snippet from the excitement I got to write this week:

A curse broke from him as he realized he had overshot his landing. He hit the ground but couldn’t slow enough to keep himself from flying over the edge. He brought up a block to stop his forward motion as something wrapped around his waist and jerked him back at the same time, another block formed beneath him.

With a grunt he slammed into the platform behind him and his legs folded as the block beneath him rose rapidly. Soon he was on his back in the dirt, a slew of ice and lightning and the occasional ball of fire, flying just over the edge where he’d just been dangling.

“Zuriel!”

Staying low, Aaron rolled over and found Aila’s green eyes looking at him with a mix of relief and fear. She released the plant link, and he looked down to find a vine wrapped tightly around his torso.

“Thanks.”

“Same.”

Both a Terrible and Very Fun Week

This week I was taken out by a migraine. Settled in Monday night and hung around until late Wednesday morning. This took me off my 1k a day pace, but not by much. I did get just over 6k added bringing the draft up to 41k.

The writing I did get to do this week was so much fun. I have reached the part of the story that breaks from the last draft so rather than transferring and making minor changes to scenes, I am crafting entirely new ones and building out altered and strengthened plot lines and character arcs.

This has been so fun. I got to write an adorably awkward early scene with Aila and Zuriel as well as a darkly fun scene with the minor baddie where he is gaining actually sinister attributes.

Here’s a little snippet from how Zuriel’s training is going:

“You have already become so much more than I ever thought you would be.” Halvar said, a soft awe to his voice.

Aaron’s smile faded and Pyre nudged his side with his warm snout. He ran his hand on the dragon’s scales and tried to offer assurances that they’d fly soon. Then he turned his attention to Halvar.

“I can’t even handle a real sword. I can’t keep my thoughts from barging in on other people’s minds. I can’t pull fire without blacking out and I can’t form enough stairs to mount the dragon I barely know how to talk to.”

Halvar chuckled. “You’re just going to gloss over the fact that you have three magics and a dragon, then?”

Aaron sighed. “I’ll count them as a plus when I can do anything useful with them.” Halvar stood and offered his hand to help Aaron up. The potion Cyrus had given him had helped, but he’d pushed himself harder than he ever had in his life. And all he’d managed was to leave himself so useless he’d probably need someone to carry him back to his room.

Another Solid Week

I added a little over 7k to The Shadow of Vale this week bringing the word count nearly to 35k.

The amount of the previous draft I am transferring over is really surprising and quite exciting. While I have made significant changes to some of the plot lines and characters, there is still so much that I am finding just works with minimal changes. I think changing some of the context is making some of the scenes work better than I thought they did originally.

Despite getting really sidetracked by another WIP this morning, I did get my 1k in today to round out a solid week of writing.

I also did a fair bit of work on some out of sequence scenes that got stuck in my head. That might have been another 1200 words or so, but they won’t actually count until I get to fold them into the draft. 😉

So much was transfer, it was actually kind hard to pick a snippet, but here we are:

“What’s that?”

“A dummy sword.” He pushed it closer to Aaron who took it reluctantly.

“Shouldn’t I be training with a real sword?”

Cyrus rolled his eyes and drew his sword again. He turned and offered the hilt to Aaron while taking the dummy sword back.

With a grin, Aaron took hold of the sword, the tip of which immediately dropped into the dirt when Cyrus released the blade. “Oh! It’s heavy.”

Cyrus sighed and ran his hand over his face. “This is going to be a long day.”

I have news

This week I had a bit of an epiphany about The Shadow of Vale. I realized where the story has a bit of a natural break that would lend it to be multiple books. I have had this idea before, but I haven’t had this clear of an idea as to how to execute it before.

I decided to print out my abandoned 3rd draft to see what I wanted to keep and was shocked to find that for the first time, I didn’t want to gut and rewrite it. The scenes themselves need work, but they don’t need to be changed completely. I could see what was wrong with them and what I need to do to make the story work better.

I don’t really know how to explain how excited I am that I might have found the version of this story that works after two decades of picking at it. This story is old enough to drink and I might finally be getting close to a version of it that I can actually publish and get in the hands of eager readers.

Wednesday I started the Fourth draft which now has just over 5k in it. My goal for this book is about 120k. Given that I hadn’t quite reached the stopping point in the last draft which I abandoned at 87K, and with some character and subplot cuts I need to make, I think that’s a workable length.

I do want to have a solid plan for the rest of the story before I do publish this one, even if I do get it to a finished state, but I don’t foresee that being an issue. I do know how the story ends.

For the first time in a while, I am happy to share a little snippet. Enjoy!

—

“Wait,” Ray grabbed Aaron’s arm as he passed. “Just tell me what happened.”

Aaron pulled his arm free and rushed out of the room. Ray was on his heels as he descended the stairs and grabbed his keys. He wasn’t going to the trail this time.

“How far down the trail where you when it happened?”

Aaron ignored the question he shouldn’t have known to ask and slipped behind the wheel of his beat-up Toyota. Was it safe to drive while you were having a mental breakdown? Probably not. He started the car.

The Shadow of Vale update

It is now 14,300 words long. I technically have a goal of 700 words a week, but once I sit to write my 100 words for the day I generally get closer to 500 or so. But the 100 words a day does pretty much guarantee I write daily.

I did get a little stuck this week as I introduced Agur and I haven’t quite settled on who he is in this version of the story, but me and Zuriel kinda met him together and I was happy with how the portion of the scene I got through turned out.

But I did get to write the first encounter with Pyre this week which I have been excited about for a while. In celebration of that I decided to share a bit of a longer excerpt from the end of that encounter. Enjoy!

The dragon growled and grew still. He could hear it breathing, an occasional growl emitting from deep within its chest. There seemed something almost calm about it now.

Zuriel rolled slightly and looked at the dragon over his shoulder. It stood not far off watching them with its enormous yellow eyes. It growled, opening its mouth. Zuriel rolled back, clutching Aila closer and waited for the dragon fire to flow over them. The dragon let out a defiant roar that seemed to move through them with a tangible pulse of energy.

There were more growls and snapping branches and trees, but they were moving away.

Zuriel released Aila and rolled back to watch the dragon as he pushed his way back out of the forest. Around them, the other’s got to their feet, watching the dragon with guarded optimism.

“He’s leaving?” Lonan stood watching the great blue dragon with a frown.

“Let’s not give him a chance to change his mind.” Cyrus reached out to help Aila to her feet.

Zuriel climbed to his feet and was immediately jerked forward by the front of his shirt. He looked into Cyrus’s furious blue eyes. “Do not ever pull a stunt like that again. Don’t think for a second I would have left her there to die. What you did risked not only her life but all of ours.” Cyrus released his shirt and shoved him away. “Idiot child.” He muttered as he headed back to the front.

“That’s a bit harsh, he didn’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter what he did or did not know, he needs to know that when you break defensive formations like that you get people killed, especially when you drop your block.” Cyrus shot another glare at Zuriel before turning toward the path that Pyre had carved through the trees. “Let’s go.”

Zuriel watched Cyrus a moment trembling from the adrenaline, a sense of shame tearing at him. Cyrus was right, it was simple luck that the dragon hesitated. He turned as he felt a hand on his arm and found Aila looking up at him.

“Cyrus is a good man and listening to him will save your life, but he does have the people skills of a briar bush.” She gave him a small smile, her eyes still wider than normal. “Even if it was probably not the safest thing, I’m still grateful you came back for me.”