I've finished chapter 33 of the second draft of Exile and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
And at last I'm back on track with work on Exile. This chapter had a few paragraphs and sentances here and there that got carried over from the first draft to the second, but for the most part it was completely rewritten. I've done a lot more of dragging Mal through the coals in this draft so he had a lot more to think about on his way down to the Oracle's chamber. Also, he's a lot smarter than I gave him credit for in the first draft and he's realized that the Oracle has been trying to manipulate him, so he's pissed off at her rather than civil and asking her questions that serve no purpose but to move the plot along like in the first draft. Also, the Dark God has given a couple hints as to why he hates humans so much. That was one of the difficulties in writing this chapter, I didn't want to give too much of that away, because there is a big scene later on where Mal and the Dark God fight each other face to face that I'm adding to this draft, where the Dark God tells the whole story. So I didn't want to give away too much, but enough for you to know that he once loved someone, and something horrible happened to her, and because of that he has vowed to destroy all of humanity.
The first draft of this story ended at 117,352 words.
The second draft is currently at 199,551 words.
I've just about hit the 200k word mark, which if you didn't know, is usually the cut off point where an editor will tell a writer that it is too long and needs to be cut down to size or split into multiple volumes. My final draft will get cut down by quite a bit, I cut nearly 100k words from Beyond the Lost Horizon in the final draft, so I'm pretty sure that I can end up below the 200k mark with the finished manuscript, but for now it's going to balloon up to giganto-size.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Spires of Infinity Artwork
So I have a friend (actually the one that tried to readdict me to Final Fantasy XI) who drew me a picture of Kari from Spires of Infinity (his favorite character). He's a super anime fan and you can definitely see it in his artwork, she looks like an anime character, and is wearing japanese clothing etc. Anyway, he says he's going to draw me pictures of the other characters too, but it took him about a month to draw this one so it may take quite a while.
Click the picture for a larger image =)
I linked to his photobucket of it, because I don't have my own and an kinda too lazy to set up an account right now.
It's pretty good in my opinion, just a few mistakes (her eyes are purple and the tips of her tails are supposed to be white) that are understandable because I normally don't have much in the way of description in the first drafts of my stories. If ever I get published I may ask him to draw my covers, he's got some other pretty good artwork. I like how he got her hair and ears, those are dead on ^^V.
Click the picture for a larger image =)
I linked to his photobucket of it, because I don't have my own and an kinda too lazy to set up an account right now.
It's pretty good in my opinion, just a few mistakes (her eyes are purple and the tips of her tails are supposed to be white) that are understandable because I normally don't have much in the way of description in the first drafts of my stories. If ever I get published I may ask him to draw my covers, he's got some other pretty good artwork. I like how he got her hair and ears, those are dead on ^^V.
Back to writing
Soooo, after taking the weekend to remember what the heck I was doing after my week of being dragged back into Final Fantasy XI hell, I'm back to writing again today. I'll probably start posting chapters again either later today or tomorrow. I'm getting close to the end of Exile, and should be finishing it within the month (July, not June haha) This had taken FAR longer than I thought it would. I didn't realize how much work this story really needed, how much material would need to be added, and how much of the manuscript would have to be completely rewritten.
I've also decided on a storyline for Spires of Infinity 2 over the weekend. This story will be in the same format as Spires of Infinity, with a bunch of little side stories with one main storyline going on in the background until all of the characters come together. I've decided on the main storyline, not all of the little side stories, I think I'll do that like I did the first book. I put the titles of al of my short stories in a hat and then I drew them out when I needed something new to happen. It kept things random, and made it pretty fun to write. I'm calling this story The Path. The title is significant as it ties in to religious beliefs of a new character that I'm going to be adding. I won't say what it's about, but let's just say I put a whole bunch of genres into a blender like in Spires, and hit puree. This one will be more on the fantasy side rather than sci-fi, and will involve pirates, magic, gods, an immortal king with the powers of the gods, cool sea battles, sea monsters, a quest into the unknown mysteries of the islands scattered about the sea, and a revolution.
It'll take me quite a while to really work out what's going to happen and all, so don't expect me to start writing The Path for a pretty long time. I still have to finish Exile and Spires of Infinity before I can even think of starting another project. I also want to write Splitplane Saga (maybe Splitplane Chronicles, or The War of Echoes, still haven't decided on a title yet) sometime too, and it's starting to become a pretty awesome story the more I think about it. I'm pretty sure it's something that has never been done before, which is pretty much the holy grail of writing, because seriously, EVERYTHING has already been done before. Trying to come up with a truly original idea these days is like jumping into a lake without getting wet. I can sum it up in 3 words, but I won't, because I wanna keep this one SUPER secret until I'm done with it BWAAHAAHAA.
Anyway, back to focusing on the project at hand. I really want to finish Exile before the end of july so I can get back to Spires, which, to me, is the more interesting of the two. I hate leaving things unfinished, and the longer I take with Exile, the longer Spires remains unfinished.
I've also decided on a storyline for Spires of Infinity 2 over the weekend. This story will be in the same format as Spires of Infinity, with a bunch of little side stories with one main storyline going on in the background until all of the characters come together. I've decided on the main storyline, not all of the little side stories, I think I'll do that like I did the first book. I put the titles of al of my short stories in a hat and then I drew them out when I needed something new to happen. It kept things random, and made it pretty fun to write. I'm calling this story The Path. The title is significant as it ties in to religious beliefs of a new character that I'm going to be adding. I won't say what it's about, but let's just say I put a whole bunch of genres into a blender like in Spires, and hit puree. This one will be more on the fantasy side rather than sci-fi, and will involve pirates, magic, gods, an immortal king with the powers of the gods, cool sea battles, sea monsters, a quest into the unknown mysteries of the islands scattered about the sea, and a revolution.
It'll take me quite a while to really work out what's going to happen and all, so don't expect me to start writing The Path for a pretty long time. I still have to finish Exile and Spires of Infinity before I can even think of starting another project. I also want to write Splitplane Saga (maybe Splitplane Chronicles, or The War of Echoes, still haven't decided on a title yet) sometime too, and it's starting to become a pretty awesome story the more I think about it. I'm pretty sure it's something that has never been done before, which is pretty much the holy grail of writing, because seriously, EVERYTHING has already been done before. Trying to come up with a truly original idea these days is like jumping into a lake without getting wet. I can sum it up in 3 words, but I won't, because I wanna keep this one SUPER secret until I'm done with it BWAAHAAHAA.
Anyway, back to focusing on the project at hand. I really want to finish Exile before the end of july so I can get back to Spires, which, to me, is the more interesting of the two. I hate leaving things unfinished, and the longer I take with Exile, the longer Spires remains unfinished.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Where I've been...
So, several years ago an MMORPG came out called Final Fantasy XI. As a fan of the Final Fantasy series, I bought this game, and became extremely addicted to it. Once I finally managed to make myself quit I found that I'd basically wasted an entire year of my life that i would never get back.
Anyway, a fried managed to convince me to come back on a more casual basis, even though I'd sold my character on ebay so that I would never be able to log onto it again. I had forgotten what FFXI was like. I remember now why it is that I made myself stop playing it and why I will never play it again. It's an evil soul sucking vortex of doom that completely and utterly destroys your life if you let it. I've done little else this week but play that stupid game and when I looked back and saw how I'd wasted an entire perfectly good week I immediately uninstalled the game, told the friend thanks but no thanks, and promptly threw out the game discs so as to remove the temptation to ever reinstall it again. I will admit that I had a very major addiction to that game, and though I have not played it in quite some time before this last week, I see now that the addiction is still there, and probably always will be. I thought I had managed to claw my way out of it by focusing on other things like my writing, but then I let it suck me back in. Well, that's never going to happen again.
Anyway, one good thing did come out of this week. Whilst my brain was rotting away during countless hours of pointless character leveling up I came up with the idea for what I think is going to be a very good story. I'm still in early brainstorming stages with it, but I think it might become my next project after I complete Exile and Spires of Infinity. At the moment I've given it the name Splitplane Saga, but that will likely change as I get more into it. It's really kind of hard to briefly explain what it' about, so I won't. PLus there's the fact that I think this is a truly original idea for a story, and I'd like it to stay that way until I have a chance to actually write it. So i think I'll just keep it a secret until then ~_^ I will say that there is a war on epic scales in this story, but the story is not necessarily about the war.
Anyway, a fried managed to convince me to come back on a more casual basis, even though I'd sold my character on ebay so that I would never be able to log onto it again. I had forgotten what FFXI was like. I remember now why it is that I made myself stop playing it and why I will never play it again. It's an evil soul sucking vortex of doom that completely and utterly destroys your life if you let it. I've done little else this week but play that stupid game and when I looked back and saw how I'd wasted an entire perfectly good week I immediately uninstalled the game, told the friend thanks but no thanks, and promptly threw out the game discs so as to remove the temptation to ever reinstall it again. I will admit that I had a very major addiction to that game, and though I have not played it in quite some time before this last week, I see now that the addiction is still there, and probably always will be. I thought I had managed to claw my way out of it by focusing on other things like my writing, but then I let it suck me back in. Well, that's never going to happen again.
Anyway, one good thing did come out of this week. Whilst my brain was rotting away during countless hours of pointless character leveling up I came up with the idea for what I think is going to be a very good story. I'm still in early brainstorming stages with it, but I think it might become my next project after I complete Exile and Spires of Infinity. At the moment I've given it the name Splitplane Saga, but that will likely change as I get more into it. It's really kind of hard to briefly explain what it' about, so I won't. PLus there's the fact that I think this is a truly original idea for a story, and I'd like it to stay that way until I have a chance to actually write it. So i think I'll just keep it a secret until then ~_^ I will say that there is a war on epic scales in this story, but the story is not necessarily about the war.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Exile Chater 32 rewrites
I've finished chapter 32 of the second draft of Exile and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
This chapter is made up of completely new material, and is basically the beginning of my completely new ending. The antagonist, Fayt Nightfang, makes his first real appearance, and reveals his true identity. I call this plot twist #2. Plot twist #1 being that Fayt Stain has been after Silmera all this time, not Malcolm. It's really not much as plot twists go, but there's some better ones coming up.
Fayt Nightfang takes this time to gloat and brag to Silmera about his plans, though he does not reveal his true objective or how he plans to complete it, only that he needs Silmera, Avalon, and Malcolm's success in fulfilling the prophecy to do it.
This story has been something of a nightmare to plan through, because normally you have your antagonist introduced early on, and he's there making your protagonist's life miserable throughout the story. This antagonist, though spoken of several times, has not had much of a direct hand in the events of the story up until this poing. He sends out his minions, and has kept his presense and plans mostly to himself. This makes it a little hard to keep things interesting, and to keep events moving an focused. it can also be a little confusing to readers and make them feel as though you're just dropping everything on them at once, which is usually a bit of a no no.
This chapter was added to the story in order to introduce him to you as early as possible, and give a taste of what's to come in hte ending. I literally could not bring him into the story any earlier than this, because I'm trying really hard to keep the ending a bit of a secret, so it hits you with more force than it normally would have had he been twirling his mustaches and spilling his guts througout the story like a bond villain. I want what happens at the end to come as a surprise, something that no one could have possibly seen coming. A good ending can make a crappy book great, a good book awesome and an awesome book spectacular. I'm not quite sure whether people will think of this book as crappy, good or awesome, but the ending is really going to make a lasting impression to those that read it, or at least I hope it is. In my opinion it's a pretty awesome end that better fulfills the promises I made at the beginning of the book than the original ending that I wrote for this story.
The first draft of this story ended at 117,352 words.
The second draft is currently at 198,577 words, which is a difference of over 81,000 words.
This chapter is made up of completely new material, and is basically the beginning of my completely new ending. The antagonist, Fayt Nightfang, makes his first real appearance, and reveals his true identity. I call this plot twist #2. Plot twist #1 being that Fayt Stain has been after Silmera all this time, not Malcolm. It's really not much as plot twists go, but there's some better ones coming up.
Fayt Nightfang takes this time to gloat and brag to Silmera about his plans, though he does not reveal his true objective or how he plans to complete it, only that he needs Silmera, Avalon, and Malcolm's success in fulfilling the prophecy to do it.
This story has been something of a nightmare to plan through, because normally you have your antagonist introduced early on, and he's there making your protagonist's life miserable throughout the story. This antagonist, though spoken of several times, has not had much of a direct hand in the events of the story up until this poing. He sends out his minions, and has kept his presense and plans mostly to himself. This makes it a little hard to keep things interesting, and to keep events moving an focused. it can also be a little confusing to readers and make them feel as though you're just dropping everything on them at once, which is usually a bit of a no no.
This chapter was added to the story in order to introduce him to you as early as possible, and give a taste of what's to come in hte ending. I literally could not bring him into the story any earlier than this, because I'm trying really hard to keep the ending a bit of a secret, so it hits you with more force than it normally would have had he been twirling his mustaches and spilling his guts througout the story like a bond villain. I want what happens at the end to come as a surprise, something that no one could have possibly seen coming. A good ending can make a crappy book great, a good book awesome and an awesome book spectacular. I'm not quite sure whether people will think of this book as crappy, good or awesome, but the ending is really going to make a lasting impression to those that read it, or at least I hope it is. In my opinion it's a pretty awesome end that better fulfills the promises I made at the beginning of the book than the original ending that I wrote for this story.
The first draft of this story ended at 117,352 words.
The second draft is currently at 198,577 words, which is a difference of over 81,000 words.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Exile Chapter 30 & 31 rewrites
I've finished chaters 30 and 31 of the second draft of Exile and they can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
There's a lot going on in these two chapters, without much actually happening. Mostly they deal with what's going on in Mal's mind and his heart. Mal has got so much going on inside of him, that he really just needs to take a break, sit down and deal with some of the emo, before he can really move on and do anything else, or he's just going to be completely useless. He sits down, goes over his options, and comes up with a goal that he hopes will fix at least some of his problems so taht he doesn't have to deal with them anymore.
Mal also has to deal with his questions of who he loves, what he wants out of a relationship with a woman, and whether his marrying Lilia is the right things to do for both of them. Now, love, for me has been a bit of a touchy subject for several years. I dated someone for almost three years, and I was deeply in love with her. Unfortunately, for me, on the night I had planned to propose to her, I saw her kissing another man, whom she had been dating almost the entire time she'd been dating me, and decided to move away to alaska with. Mal's feelings for Silmera are much like what I remember feeling before she ripped out my heart and squashed it under her heels. A feeling like being warm, when everything else is cold. Anyway, ever since that messy and painful breakup I've found that I have a really hard time writing about love between my character, as I've also had trouble even finding the desire to go back out and look for someone else in my own life. I've only recently started dating again, with mixed results, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job of facing a pretty big dilema in the love life of this character. Mal deals with the problem much like many people probably would, he puts it off until later, because he's really got way too much going on to even bother thinking about what he's going to do.
Silmera also takes the opportunity to let Aaron know she's been the one wearing the pants all along, and he's basically been her prison bitch the whole time, dancing on her strings to give her everything she wanted from him. Of course, if he wasn't such an idiot, and prone to breaking his word so often, he might have avoided it.
The first draft of this story ended at 117,352 words.
The second draft is currently at 195,282 words.
There's a lot going on in these two chapters, without much actually happening. Mostly they deal with what's going on in Mal's mind and his heart. Mal has got so much going on inside of him, that he really just needs to take a break, sit down and deal with some of the emo, before he can really move on and do anything else, or he's just going to be completely useless. He sits down, goes over his options, and comes up with a goal that he hopes will fix at least some of his problems so taht he doesn't have to deal with them anymore.
Mal also has to deal with his questions of who he loves, what he wants out of a relationship with a woman, and whether his marrying Lilia is the right things to do for both of them. Now, love, for me has been a bit of a touchy subject for several years. I dated someone for almost three years, and I was deeply in love with her. Unfortunately, for me, on the night I had planned to propose to her, I saw her kissing another man, whom she had been dating almost the entire time she'd been dating me, and decided to move away to alaska with. Mal's feelings for Silmera are much like what I remember feeling before she ripped out my heart and squashed it under her heels. A feeling like being warm, when everything else is cold. Anyway, ever since that messy and painful breakup I've found that I have a really hard time writing about love between my character, as I've also had trouble even finding the desire to go back out and look for someone else in my own life. I've only recently started dating again, with mixed results, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job of facing a pretty big dilema in the love life of this character. Mal deals with the problem much like many people probably would, he puts it off until later, because he's really got way too much going on to even bother thinking about what he's going to do.
Silmera also takes the opportunity to let Aaron know she's been the one wearing the pants all along, and he's basically been her prison bitch the whole time, dancing on her strings to give her everything she wanted from him. Of course, if he wasn't such an idiot, and prone to breaking his word so often, he might have avoided it.
The first draft of this story ended at 117,352 words.
The second draft is currently at 195,282 words.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Exile Chapter 29 Rewrites
I've finished chapter 29 of the second draft of Exile and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page
Most of this chapter remained true to the first draft, needing surprisingly little in the way of editing. A few changes were made to sentance and paragraph structure, and there were a few more changes in the end of the chapter to account for some major changes in the plot between the two drafts.
So, anyway, Mal has become what he has been taught to hate his entire life, and there is no way that Aaron knows for him to become human again. And as if he wasn't suffering already from that, as well as everything else that has happened to him, one of the few friends that he has left has decided that it is time to take her leave. An important thing to note in this chapter is the feeling's Mal is beginning to realize that he has for Silmera. Lilia is one of his best friends, and she will always be, but he has never loved her like everyone is expecting of him. His conflicting emotions between the woman he is coming to love, and the woman he is supposed to marry are just one more thing pressing down on top of him. He can't take much more punishment, but too bad, because I'm not through dragging him through the coals just yet.
The first draft of this story ended at 117,352 words.
The second draft is currently at 192,162 words, which is a difference of almost 75,000 words.
Most of this chapter remained true to the first draft, needing surprisingly little in the way of editing. A few changes were made to sentance and paragraph structure, and there were a few more changes in the end of the chapter to account for some major changes in the plot between the two drafts.
So, anyway, Mal has become what he has been taught to hate his entire life, and there is no way that Aaron knows for him to become human again. And as if he wasn't suffering already from that, as well as everything else that has happened to him, one of the few friends that he has left has decided that it is time to take her leave. An important thing to note in this chapter is the feeling's Mal is beginning to realize that he has for Silmera. Lilia is one of his best friends, and she will always be, but he has never loved her like everyone is expecting of him. His conflicting emotions between the woman he is coming to love, and the woman he is supposed to marry are just one more thing pressing down on top of him. He can't take much more punishment, but too bad, because I'm not through dragging him through the coals just yet.
The first draft of this story ended at 117,352 words.
The second draft is currently at 192,162 words, which is a difference of almost 75,000 words.
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