You Know You're a Writer When, Part 2

You know you're a writer when... With the imminent tornado threat heading our way in a couple hours, my husband and children and I are going to be heading for a safer location in a short while. As we knew that this weather was coming even early this morning, I began to think about what I wanted to bring with us from the house. And what do you suppose the first things I thought of were? My laptop, flash drives, and multiple writing journals containing all my notes for all my books. It wasn't until several hours later that I thought about packing an overnight bag with clothes and toothbrushes and food. Lol, I guess that says something about my priorities.

Encouraging Week

This week has been a little encouraging on the marketing end of things. After a slight lull for the past two-three weeks, my books sales are once again up somewhat on Amazon. I'm not selling oodles and oodles of books, but I am selling a small number at a constant rate. I'm confident that sales will continue in this manner for the rest of the year, and hopefully improve as I begin to chronicle the writing of The White Thread. In a little over a month, I break ground on book 3! It's hard to believe that in August I will be halfway through writing The Gateway Chronicles. I came up with another book idea this week, something that would be a stand-alone novel set in the future. I really like the idea, but I will have to shelve it for a couple years. I have to finish The Gateway Chronicles and then write the trilogy that I have planned after that before I go on to anything else. Ah, if only I had unlimited time to write... I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way!

I'm Writing!... Curriculum

Well, I can honestly say that I AM writing this week... but not fantasy fiction. I've had a bit of a period of silence here with my online "stuff" (blog, twitter, facebook, etc...), and not honestly because I needed a break or anything like that, or even that I've been overwhelmed with schoolwork, I simply didn't have anything new or unique to say for a week or so. I began to feel the itch once again to get back to my life as an author, but I realized that I still didn't exactly have anything author-related to blog about at the moment. The only writing that I'm doing right now is curriculum writing for school. I decided to add a new unit for my 8th grade classes, so I'm busy as a bee researching and writing lecture notes and worksheets. While this might not interest those of you who enjoy my fantasy fiction (and devestate those of you who are my 8th grade students), perhaps it at least shows you my versatility. I'm stretching to make this apply to my blog, I realize this. I will try to have something a bit more... engaging next time!

Indulging the Creative Urge

Why do I always get the creative urge to write late at night? It's as though I have an internal creativity clock that turns on around midnight and won't turn off until SOMETHING is put down on paper. This is annoying enough in the summer when I actually have the time to indulge it, but during the school year it is simply frustrating. I feel like saying, "Yes, I KNOW that you want me to write something, but I just CAN'T right now! I have school to attend to and prepare for and if I don't get my sleep, even over the weekend, then I can't do my job to the best of my ability." But, as these things usually go, it will not be ignored, and so it would be useless to go to bed anyhow because I will just lay there mulling over the story points in my head for several hours. I suppose that I had better indulge the urge...

Spring Break Wrap Up

This is a couple of days late, but I got rather distracted with family visiting over the weekend, so I didn't really have time to sit down and do this until now. My spring break was, overall, productive. I did not start actually writing The White Thread, but I got about as much prewriting done as is possible at this stage of the game. I still have a good amount of research to do on a few topics before I write, but I feel very well set to churn out book three this summer.

On the marketing front, I have continued to sell copies of both books 1 and 2 at a slow but steady rate since I published The Oracle in November. This is encouraging because last year around this time sales had pretty much ground to a halt on The Six, only to pick up in early fall in anticipation of book 2. I'm happy to see that my books continue to sell, and I really think that my readership is expanding into new areas of the country (and the world! I know of at least a couple readers in other countries). I'm also still waiting to hear back from an agent who is reviewing my books right now, and I'm feeling encouraged over even having that possibility, regardless of how it turns out.

As I head into the next two months, I will be very busy with schoolwork (as a teacher, of course), and I'm sure that the time will fly. Before I know it, summer will be here and I will be hard at work being an author once again. Not quite as cool of a moonlighting job as being a superhero, but close. I'll keep you all posted!

Change of Plan

Well, I changed my mind regarding the number of chapters for The White Thread. A couple of blog posts ago I had said that I was going to take it down to 22 chapters, but I decided that that is too great a break with what I have been doing so far, and so I'm going to cut it back only to 25, with an epilogue. Not a huge change, but I think it will work better with my plans for the story. As I was outlining each chapter, I just realized that I was trying to squeeze in just a little too much to each chapter. This would be problematic for me specifically because I think one of the things I do best (according to what I've been told by others, that is) is the art of the cliffhanger chapter endings. If I expand my chapters to include too much information, therefore, I'm afraid that I might lose my edge there. So, I have added three chapters and an epilogue, and I have named them all, and half of them are completely outlined. We'll see how much more I can get done before Spring Break is over in a couple days. (Where has all the time gone?)

Pronunciation Guide, Take 2

I promised a few weeks back that I would post another pronunciation guide for some of the names in The Oracle, so I thought that I would make good on that. I'm just going to take them as they come to me, so these won't be in any particular order:

Cal Meridian = KAL mer-IH-dee-yan (kal as in "cat")

Borna Fero = BOR-nuh FAYR-oh

Wal Wyn = WAHL WIN (wahl as in "wall")

Tokala = toh-KAH-luh (toh as in "toe")

Tormod = TOHR-mud

Badru = bah-DREW

Terra = TAYR-ruh (tayr as in "tear")

Mayim = mah-YEEM

Boitheia = boh-IH-thee-yuh (long "o" in boh, short "i" in ih, "th" in thee as in "with")

Grypas = GRIH-pus

Fobos = FOH-bohs (both long "o"s)

Archaios = ahr-KAY-yohs (long "o")

Did I miss any big ones? Let me know if you have any questions!