I’ve just started reading The Forest Awakens once again, preparing myself for its first real rewrite. I wrote a while back that based on reactions, both from agents and friends, I figured out areas the book was lacking. What I’ve noticed is that there is a difference between reading for enjoyment and to prepare for a new draft. I thought I’d share a few of the things I look for.

• Watch dialogue closely to make sure nobody is saying things that don’t make sense.
• Be honest about which parts seem slow to you, what can you do to liven them up?
• Prepare to scrap! I’m scrapping all of chapter one.
• Find places that are description driven instead of character driven. (keep consistent, whichever you are going for)
• Writing for pre-teen or teen? Make sure kids will connect with your protagonists. This is something I’m going to be paying a lot of attention to, people tend to think I wrote it more for adults.
• Make sure no names are too similar, same for locations, ages, etc.
• Also make sure places and people don’t change names in the middle!

Those are some of the things I pay the most attention to. Feel free to add your own if you’d like! I’ve enjoyed getting to read my book on my new kindle. It’s very fitting in a way that this is the first book I’m reading on it.

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!

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!

We have a very special treat tonight on TNS! I’m proud to share the prologue of my current draft of The Forest Awakens. This story means a whole lot to me. The main characters are all based on my sisters, nieces and nephews. I was fascinated by how different they each was from one another. It was fun trying to put those personalities into characters in a novel. The prologue starts it all off with a Faerie princess, Lorynne, who is based on my little sister.

The novel is the tale of young Colby Chemil, a kid used to being different. When the headmaster of his school, Kalthero Beldonas, suddenly disappears, the new headmaster’s brutal tactics force Colby to flee to a mysterious forest. As he travels, the forest itself helps guide him to questions about his past. While he is away, his best friends take it upon themselves to find their old headmaster, and discover how he was so quietly deposed.

As always, I hope you enjoy the story. Narrated by David Carroll.

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!

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.

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.