I’ve seen it a few times. People saying that ‘writing for yourself’ is a myth, nonsense, horrible lie… and any other such words including countless variations on lying to yourself and unpleasant truth.
Are they right, though? Not completely, I’d say.
I’ll keep this one short. The first sample of my coming fantasy is finally available to see. It’s up-to-date with edits made in early September and will be updated with each major draft. This first shared fragment is roughly 0,5% of the to-be book one and can be viewed here.
I should be able to share one to three more samples in time (no ETA yet). The whole book one should be completed in the second half of 2019 if everything goes well. I’ll probably try to share some other bits in the meantime. What they’ll be is hard to guess.
Anyway, that’s it from me. See you next time.
A few days ago, I was thinking a bit about the positive traits of ‘bad guys’. These thoughts came to me – how else – when I was lying in bed waiting for sleep to come. Even antagonists can have positive traits – and it’s not about the traits but how they use them that matters in the end.
As with my romance-related posts (#1, #2), the thoughts come primarily from fantasy genre but are not limited to it.
Significant inspiration comes from a post about character traits by M.L. Davis.
Continue readingAnother month gone, which means I’m here with another monthly update. The good thing is that there’s progress which means I have something to write about in September’s post. So, without any more fluff, let’s get to it.
In July, I wrote about how I initially feared writing backstories and how that changed over time. This time, I’ll talk about how my random sparks of imagination can affect backstory development.
With the last edits and fixes being done to have the first beta version of my to-be debut book, I’ve decided it’s time to reveal some bits about it. I guess that after a year of writing this kind of posts and only hinting, it’s about time.
Read on for the first bits to be revealed.
I guess that many writers face doubts. In my case, they come in many shapes and forms, they are sometimes really scary and there’s always at least a bit of it around. From small ones like not being sure if a paragraph says what I want it to say, the way I want to say it; to large ones that make me doubt the writing process in its entirety.
I’ve decided to share some of my doubts. Maybe someone will read it and it’ll help to know that you’re not alone. It helped me in past.
Continue readingAnother month passes and so I am back to the monthly updates. As I mentioned in a quick post pretty much exactly two weeks ago, I finished the sixth draft which I declared the first beta draft. I’ve found one beta reader even before it was finished from a discussion on Goodreads and, almost a months later, he was given the current draft. Now, I’ve received some early bit of feedback from him though the weekend gave me little chances to have a look at it.
I’ve reached another major milestone. The first beta draft (sixth draft by my own weird numbering) was completed some minutes ago. The largest changes were massive cuts in the early parts (something I wrote a blog post about a few days ago), the later parts being mostly rewording of sentences and other such smaller changes. Because I did major grammar pass between draft 5.4 and the sixth draft, this draft’s grammar pass was quite fast (it seems I’m learning something in this regard as well, hooray).
So, what’s next?
I’ll give the updated version to the people that were my ‘alpha testers’ and my first beta reader. In the meantime, I’ll play some games (World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth launching just in a few hours) and try to weave in the fifth book of ‘Chronicles of the Black Gate’ series after the two-week break from reading caused by my work on the beta draft.
I guess that by the end of the month or the beginning of the next one, I might try to find more potential beta readers in the few Goodreads groups I am a member of, though I’m not decided yet on the exact timing. Anxiety/stage fright is still a thing – as is the feeling that anyone reading will be like “what the hell is this?”.
I’ll also give some more details soon, this time for real. I have some of them prepared but still deciding what exactly to share at this stage (as the final version won’t be ready sooner than spring 2019). I’ll most likely give some details about genre and such + show some sample(s).
So, that’s my quick update. See you next time!
As I mentioned before, I am getting ready to get to beta with my fantasy story. There’s some more editing and fluff removal to be done. What I’m thinking about these moments is something I’d use as a sample people could freely have a look at and decide whether my story is something they should give a try.
It’s quite a difficult decision.
Tomas - the wandering dreamer 
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