Almost done

Hello!

Last week I missed my update for a few reasons, the chief of which was it was the weekend of my daughter’s birthday and we were celebrating.

But I also didn’t have much to update because I spent most of that week stuck in a particular scene in The Shadow of Vale and puttering around in my two contemporary romance stories while I tried to figure it out.

Well, I have figured it out. Yesterday I had one of those writing sessions where the characters were saying and doing things that were not in the outline and were actually brilliant arguments for why the order I had the events planned to occur in was wrong.

I have since paused to pray and figure it out and this morning I think I know how to finish this book and what the next book is going to look like (and it will probably be the last for this story).

I haven’t worked everything out entirely, but I am excited for how it is looking now. Granted, I am well aware that I say this all the time. What can I say? I’m a pretty happy, optimistic writer.

So with this clearer vision in my mind, I am hoping that by the one year mark (March 12th) I will be done with this draft and able to let it rest a bit before tearing it apart again (but not rewriting it, I think I am finally past that part of my process) and then editing.

I did have a secret goal of maybe aiming to publish by Oct of this year, but that feels a little too optimistic even for me. haha!

As of now, the draft is sitting just over 107k and with the events coming I think it will land around 140k, which was my first gut instinct of a word count goal.

Here is a little snippet:

“I can’t go to battle and face Samael. I can’t save Vale. I can’t make him pay for what he’s taken from me; from all of us. But I can do this. I can stand by you. I can love you.”

Approaching the Halfway Point

Pretty good week of writing. I didn’t hit 1k most days, but I did make good progress in the areas of the story where I am still figuring things out.

I wrote about 5k so far and I still have some writing to do today which will probably take the draft to 60k which is halfway to the 120k I have planned.

This week I got to work on a really fun and sweet scene with Zuriel and Aila. It was a joy to write even though I spent most of it with no idea how it was going to go. I think it turned out well.

Here’s a little snippet from this week’s work:

Aila took a deep breath as the giant azure dragon landed before them with more grace than his size seemed to allow. For all his muscles, he was remarkably lithe.

“Do you want to climb the stairs or…”

Her stomach flipped when she remembered being carried from the dragon before. Despite the awkwardness of the rescue and the obvious difficulty he still had mounting the dragon, she’d rather enjoyed it. The relief of not being alone anymore, to feel safe.

“It’s a bit too difficult to climb stairs I can’t sense or see.” She gave a sheepish grin.

“Right.” He opened his arms to her and she reached for his neck as he swept her into his arms. She grinned at the blush that rose to his cheeks. She considered saying something to break the tension but the idea of pointing out the awkward position they were in only made her own face heat.

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.

Making good progress

Since last week I have added 12,800 words to the latest draft bringing it over 27k.

Part of that was how much I didn’t want to change. There were several scenes that I transferred with some adjustments and a couple that I copy pasted as is.

This morning I worked through a new portion of the story, where I am making adjustments to some of the character arcs and plot lines and I am feel very good about how it came out, especially since I was stumped when I sat down to write this morning and assumed I wouldn’t hit my 1k goal for the day (I flew past it).

In celebration of another good week, here are a few snippets:

Aaron’s mouth dropped open. “I’m your link? Your rider?”

Agreement.

With that, Pyre stood and pushed an image of Aaron climbing invisible stairs onto the dragon’s back.

Still in shock, Aaron stood dumbstruck a moment until he pushed the image in his mind once more.

“I, I don’t know how to do that.”

The image returned with the added detail of ripples of energy beneath his feet as he jogged up the invisible stairs.

“No, I get that it’s naim magic, I just, I don’t know how to use it like that yet. I haven’t even been here for a day, Pyre. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Pyre huffed and reached his head toward Aaron, his lips pulling back from his teeth.

“No, no, no, no, no.” Aaron held out his hands and stepped back quickly. “Do not throw me. I’ve never been so close to literally having the crap scared out of me.”

“He needs you, Aila.”

Aila frowned. “Who?”

“Zuriel.” He turned away, looking at nothing as he continued. “You are the last daughter of Abner on Vale, at least as far as well know. You’re a light. He must face down Samael, and I must ensure he survives that, but you,” he met her eye once more. “You give us all hope for what comes after.”

Derailed by a migraine

A little late sharing this week as I was trying to be as still in as dark a room as is possible while caring for two children under the age of 4.

Feeling much better today, but I didn’t get as much writing in this week as I would have liked, not quite 1k. I feel I have lost my grip one a few of the threads and am going through the painful process of rereading the beginning of this very rough draft.

While I dislike everything I have written at the moment (a side effect of rereading this very rough draft), I did want to share a sweet little moment between Zuriel and Aila from this week’s writing.

Enjoy:

Zuriel felt his heart studder and marveled that she was not only alive but had given him her promise that she would be his wife. This was the first kiss of a lifetime of kisses and eight hundred years was quite a lifetime.

He broke the kiss and Aila settled back into her pillow with a contented sigh that added to the warmth in his chest.

“Better?” He asked with a grin and was rewarded with a light laugh.

“Better.” She confirmed.

Zuriel brushed his nose against hers, not wishing to put distance between them again, especially after the past days of tortured waiting.

The sound of the door opening forced his hand and with a slight groan, he stood.