Plots and Seams

I finished writing Dark Fire book 2 last week! This week I worked on reading through book 1 again and making basic notes of what needs to be changed. It needs a lot of work!! I've also discovered how short it really is! 30,000 words is not very long. I definitely want to lengthen it. Maybe take it up to 35,000 words or so. I think that sometimes we writers pressure ourselves too much. Well, I know for myself that sometimes I stress about making my first draft good. I want the scenes to be right and I want it to be well written. But that's why I edit. The first draft is just to get the main story idea out. It is one of the hardest parts of writing for me. Just getting my jumbled thoughts out in concise words. So, I'm taking a break next week because I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. Then, I will work on editing!  I hope to get draft 3 of Dark Fire book 1 done in May! ~CH~

Sorry that I haven't written a post in a while. Life has been busy. I've been writing and doing science. I've also applied to and been accepted at Heritage college & seminary. So, I will most likely be going there in the fall. I've also started to work on another costume. I might be going to Fan Expo in September and I've been trying to figure out which costume to make. I thought it would be cool to make armor, so I have finally decided to try my hand at making an elf costume. One of the ones that goes to Helm's Deep in the Two Towers. There are many different ways of making armor but I decided to try using craft foam. It's pretty cheap and seems easy to work with. I found  this tutorial pretty helpful though there are a few times when I had to guess and tweak my pattern.  I printed out the pattern from the tutorial. The pieces were very small, not at all to scale. So I had to trace the correct size onto the Bristol board. Once...

Happy New Year everyone!! A couple days ago I finished writing the second draft of Dark Fire book 1!! Now I need to finish the first draft of book 2. I have written about 14,000 words out of 35,000.  But I really don't feel like finishing it right now. Writing is hard and I'm lazy! I especially find the middle of the book hard to write because it's not the excitement of starting nor does it contain the conflict and conclusion of the ending. I know stuff needs to happen, but I don't know what! Anyway, here's a few writing quotes for encouragement: When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone...

  The Shards of Ailevon is finally available  in print form!!!!! :D :D It is available from Amazon or CreatSpace . I would love it if you bought one or told your friends about it! ~CH~

Happy December everyone!! Christmas is almost here and NaNoWriMo is done!!! So, I didn't write all of the first draft of Dark Fire Book 2 this month. I was away for a couple of weeks. But I was able to write 12,000 words out of the 35,000. That's the most words I have ever written in a month! I will try and finish this draft by Christmas. We will see how that goes :) Have a great week and enjoy the last month of the year!    ~CH~

Sorry that I haven't written a post in a while, life has been busy. I mentioned in my last post how I have been editing. Not just revising, but totally re-writing my book. That has occupied a lot of time.  I have a love/hate relationship with editing (actually, with writing in general). It's hard work and I procrastinate at lot. But it's also amazing and fun. I get to take my first draft, which is a poorly written version of my story, and make it what I meant it to be. I get to leave out all the annoying and weird things that I first wrote and make it way better. It's awesome. I haven't finished editing Dark Fire book 1 yet, but I am about three quarters finished. I will hopefully finish the second draft in December, since this month I will be busy writing the second book of the Dark Fire trilogy. Today is my first day of NaNoWriMo!! I have never written an entire first draft in a month, so we'll see how it works! I intend for Dark Fire book 2 to be around...

So, after my lovely break from writing in August, I have now begun to edit my fantasy novel! Instead of going through and cutting words and rearranging sentences like I did with my last book, I have decided to just rewrite my entire book. It sounds like a daunting task, but so far, it's actually really fun and freeing. On another note, an exciting package arrived in the mail today. The proof of The Shards of Ailevon! So, now I need to read through it and see if there are any things that I need to fix (I've already found a few), and then I will be able to make The Shards of Ailevon available in print form!! I was rather excited!! :D ~CH~