Things are finally calming down around here. This means part 3 of Adventures Through the Window got finished up for a new podcast episode tomorrow! Huzzah! I’m happy to get back into writing. My other Summer project is to get a lot done of the rewrite of The Forest Awakens. I’m excited about this new take on the book. I’ve figured out places to add much richer descriptions, and more insight into the childrens’ reactions to the events unfolding around them. Multiple agents pointed out these changes to me, making me confident the effort will make the story that much more appealing to future agents, and the kiddos who will hopefully one day enjoy it.

Be sure to stop by tomorrow to listen to the first podcast in over a month!

I wanted to stop by and let everyone know of some changes that are going on in the podcast. Considering that you’ve probably realized this isn’t a usual podcast post, I’ll talk about the most obvious change. We’re going to start taking two weeks between the stories we tell. We’re going to do this for a number of reasons, but mostly it’s for me to have time to plot and the like. It takes me a bit to come up with a new story after the last one ends, I spend a few days working out all the problems and kinks. I would love to be able to make writing my full time job, but sadly that is not the case, not yet anyway!

So, now for the first week following the end of a story, we’ll be posting the story in full as usual. Then, the week after that, I’m going to post about what the next story will be, and use that post as the link on the front page of the site where I track percentages. That way you guys have an idea of what will be coming! So without any further delay, let’s talk about next week’s story!

Because of Alice in Wonderland coming back into our lives, I’ve been thinking a lot about making a story in a fantastical world of nonsense. It’s had me thinking in nonsense a lot, which is quite fun, if I do say so myself (and I do). So next Tuesday we will begin part one of Adventures Through The Window,  a fun twist of Lewis Carroll’s titles.

About Adventures Through the Window

In this story, young James feels like he is just another face in a large school until a mysterious substitute teacher takes an interest in him. Despite his cautious nature, James can’t help his curiosity when he happens to see the man walk through a large glass window on his way home from school one day! Unable to stop himself, James finds himself following his new teacher into a world unlike anything he’s ever experienced. To get back out again, James must not only find his way, but find himself as well.

Samantha made this from scratch!

Well I attempted to write this yesterday, you know, on my birthday, but things kept coming up. It was a great day! For me, birthdays are what New Years is to others. It’s a time to look at what you’ve accomplished this year, and using what you’ve learned to make the next year better. This year, it was mostly about writing for me.

I realized that I haven’t done a writing update in awhile while I was thinking about what this coming year will mean to me as a writer. I’ve gotten behind on it. First of all, The Forest Awakens jumped up to 100% on my editing goal. It’s pretty good, grammatically speaking. The rejections I’ve gotten from agents have made me look at it under a new microscope though. They all like my writing, they all like the story idea, but they all also said they didn’t connect with the main character enough.

I’ve more or less come to the inevitable question that most writers probably go through. My assassin book has been sitting at about 20% completed on the backburner while I edited TFA, and now I have to decide if I want to work on the changes to my YA novel that agents have suggested, or if I want to put it aside for now and finish my new book?

Currently I’m leaning toward another draft of The Forest Awakens. It would be a big draft, basically rewriting many parts of it, although most of the current material doesn’t need to be cut, just have more added to it. We shall see over the next couple days, while I have a podcast to finish anyway.

Happy (now late) Birthday to meeeee!

I tend to like “what would you do?” scenarios. That concept is what inspired my latest Tuesday Night Story, Deposed. If you checked out part one, you know that Anald was overthrown by Sildon as King of the realm. What would you do in that situation? Surely a king has to plan in advance for situations like this. That is the overwhelming flaw of feudalism I imagine. You are constantly at risk of being invaded, poisoned, or executed by someone who wants your power.

If you didn’t catch part one check out Tuesday’s post. It should be the post directly under this one. Deposed will be the tale of what a king might do when he finds himself replaced. Would he stand by and give up, or would he fight back? Join me every Tuesday to find out!

In other writing news. My assassin novel is inching its way forward on the progress bar. It is up to 20% now. I’m really loving this story, but I haven’t had as much time to work on it as I would like. The Forest Awakens is also moving up slower than I wanted. I’m updating the edits as soon as I receive them, but Samantha has been rather wrapped up in her own work lately. Hopefully she’ll have some more time for it again soon. For anyone interested, she’s currently holding a giveaway on her blog. You can win a piece of jewelry from her Etsy shop for you or for someone special. Entering is very easy!

Today we finished recording the final part of Mr. Snaggle’s Oddities. That marks the end of three stories that I’ve written for Tuesday Night Storytime. At 9 parts, this story was the longest so far with 11,000 words. I think it’s one of my best works yet. As someone who usually follows the more traditional medieval fantasy, this was both a challenge and a blessing. It was a blast to work on something in a modern setting.

Because I do all my podcast writing in yWriter, I thought I’d share the statistics that it has kept track of. Since we began we’ve done 3 stories over 23 parts. All together that is almost 24,000 words, written and edited, in the last few months. I’m feeling pretty good about that!

This means it’s time to come up with a new story idea! I thought I would open the floor to my readers and internet buddies. This is a fantasy podcast, so keep that in mind. Your suggestion can be anything related to the genre. I thought it might be a fun thing to do whenever we finish a story.

And don’t forget to check back Tuesday for the final Snaggle episode!

I haven’t given you guys a writing update in awhile. I’m still plugging away at the assassin novel. The percentage bar is up to 15%. It has been going a bit slower than my initial estimation. Mostly because after some agent rejections my wife and I began a 5th draft of my YA novel. Hey, it never hurts to do more work. It’s almost finished (again) and I’ll soon be sending it off to more agents. Then I’ll get back into working on the assassin book full time again.

Episode 8 of Mr. Snaggle’s Oddities comes out tomorrow. It will be the second to last part of the story, since we don’t want to get up to 10 parts on any given story. In all it looks like the story will end up about 11,500 words. Does that still stand within short story limitations? *gives an evil little laugh* I love this story a lot, easily one of my best works so far. Things are about to turn a lot darker, so look forward to that.

Literary Agent Nathan Bransford just wrapped up a fun little contest. The idea of it was to get people to post the first paragraph of their work to be judged by him. Winners get small prizes, it seems more a pat yourself on the back kind of deal I suppose. It seemed fun though so I entered.

I thought I should share it with my readers as well. This is from my newest draft which hasn’t been updated on my books page (I should get on that). So I hope everyone enjoys. He announces the finalists tomorrow. Since it had over 2500 entries, I’m not exactly holding my breath. One can hope though!

Any of my readers enter it?

“I expect one of you to secure a place among the humans and help prepare for this vision’s time to come.” Lauryn turned in shock at her mother’s words. The Queen of the faeries stared out over the men and women deliberating all around her without any expression at all. Never in Lauryn’s lifetime had her mother called such a group together. Seated facing them on the dais, one hundred high lords and priestesses were now talking amongst themselves.

Some people have been asking me about my projects listed on the front page. Everywhere on the site they are only hinted and “coming soon.” I thought I would go ahead and fill people in about what I’ve been doing since finishing The Forest Awakens at the end of July.

Assassin’s Tale, Adult Fantasy

That is not the title I’ll use for the book, but it sums up what I’m going for. When I have a title I’ll let you guys know. I have always loved to read both fantasy and espionage, so it makes sense for my third book to be a fun mix of the genre’s. It will be mostly fantasy, so no guns or advanced government spy organizations, more back to the basics. Knives will be a popular weapon choice among thieves.

The book will track the protagonist while his life is, to some degree, falling apart. Once an honored soldier turned merchant’s guard, he finds himself on a downward spiral that leads him to become an assassin with the fate of two kingdoms caught in his schemes of revenge.

The novel will really be about the protagonist. I wanted to tell a detailed story of what it takes to break an honorable man and turn him into a deadly adversary. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

I’m estimating 100,000 words for this book. It’s plotted out at 38 chapters, using 2500 words/chapter as my rough estimate. I have about 12,000 completed. This project began in the middle of July.

Tuesday Night Story #3, Mr. Snaggle’s Oddities

I can hardly believe that we’re already on the 3rd TNS! This has been so much more fun than I expected when it began. To those that haven’t been keeping up, every Tuesday night I post roughly 1100 words of a continuing story. When story #2 began, my good friend David Carroll offered to record the stories each week. So TNS got an upgrade and became a podcast as well! You can find it on iTunes if you’re interested. See the mp3 player on the front page to listen to recent episodes.

Mr. Snaggle’s Oddities is a new style of writing for me. It is my first attempt at such a young voice. This one is a children’s tale about a strange new circus that has come to young Peter’s street. The circus is run by old Mr. Snaggle and it all seems just a bit too good to be true.

*****

That’s what I’ve been up to lately. Feel free to tell me about your latest projects in the comments. And make sure to check back tomorrow for the beginning of Mr. Snaggle’s Oddities! It may be one of my favorite story ideas yet.