New Post Your Progress Thread

Just posted this at end of last thread so reposting here. It has been tough to remain creative during lockdown but I think stories and storytelling are one of the ways we all can connect despite the pandemic. Keep writing!

Working on a couple of projects at the moment ~ The second Zoology book & a project started almost by accident as a twitter prompt. You can follow The Amulet of Tears, a science fiction fantasy tale, on my twitter account @TearsAmulet. Quite a fun way to write & a good way to hone writing skills with the word count on each tweet.
(Also updated my profile image from 'Techanoid' from Zoology to 'Flying Lizard' from Amulet of Tears!)
 
Hobbit said:
Spring cleaning....

The last thread was 16 years old, and 236 pages long...so here's a new one.
Click to expand...
End of an era!

I'll share a little update of my activities - only a moderate amount of writing currently, but I am closing in on the release of another issue of my magazine, Mythaxis. The modernizing facelift is progressing well behind the scenes, it's going to be very pretty and device-friendly soon, and I've picked up a bunch of stories to distribute amongst two issues before the end of the year. Ten will go in the post-summer issue, and after that's released I'll reopen for submissions to fill out the winter issue to the same limit. Next year I'll start releasing it quarterly, though I'll make the issues a bit shorter, maybe seven or eight stories each.

It means lots of little jobs to do, even when submissions aren't coming in. This week, I've mostly been designing art to accompany each piece, hopefully I'll have those finished this weekend. Next week I'll begin transferring the content into a site-friendly format, so we can do some proper tests of the new design, look for problems, etc. Fortunately I have someone far more tech-competent than myself to help with that stuff!
 
Looky! A new one page strip from me:

4.jpg

Spot the Kirby swipes
 
I wondered where the notifications had gone!

I've not been writing fiction as such. Editing various books, writing a style guide and writing and ideas to ebook and/or paper guide.
 
I finished up the third book of my Solomon trilogy. It's with the beta readers now, then I'll finish cleaning it up and getting it out there. In the meantime, I just finished the second Lilly the Necromancer book. That will be edited, out to the beta's and then released, hopefully in early Sept. Just had Tales of a Nuisance Man release on audio with an amazing narrator, and am almost done listening to Death Lessons to send a few changes back to the narrator of that one. And finally, started on a new book, for a new series, that I've yet to come up with a title for. Having fun!
 
Taken a break from editing and proofing my work and others to write a bit more on the current main WIP. I've actually almost polished two books in the series that are later and there are four books before it in the series not yet published.
I often don't write the series or the parts in a book purely sequentially. As long as stuff isn't published no-one will know you ret-conned, in a sense.
 
Just completed the first two parts of my new epic/high fantasy opus (as yet still untitled) and now into the editing phase. Very very impressed by Grammarly.

I'm aiming for two books up to around 600 pages long in the 8" x 5" paperback size. The same size as my old dog-eared copy of Lord of the Rings:

LOTR.jpg


I only recently discovered that I have something in common with JRR himself. LOTR was written as one book and split up only when the publisher said it was too long. My Novel has been written as one piece - approx 420k words, which I'm splitting into two due to publishing restrictions.

Next up:

  • Formatting
  • Digitising the map
  • Cover design - hopefully by Damonza
Cheers for now,

John H.
 
I wondered why the notifications stopped coming up.

I think at my last progress update I was working on Project Ice. I started this draft back in July; it's word count is currently encroaching on 50k. I'm half way through drafting the second act. So it's going well. Aiming to finish the draft by end of October.

I have also outline two new ideas; one for a novella and another for a series of short stories.

Work has resumed now so my available writing time each week has just decreased dramatically. But you know, gotta make some money. On the plus side will hopefully be heading back to China in September, so more normalcy will resume.
 
Busy proofing a colleague's book, doing a little on my own "Watching the Watchers", writing a sort of Style Guide as most of those and books on punctuation or grammar are weak on book structure (not story/plot) and dialogue structure / punctuation.
Also reading the Miss Silver stories.
Corvids Press is also looking at bringing out all the ebooks in three paperback sizes, a hardback and also large print in paperback and hardback. Something trad publishers only doing print runs won't do.
Other author, "But all the formats other than 6" x 9" paperback are more expensive or much more expensive."
Quoth the Rook, "It gives readers choice. They can ruin their eyesight on a pocket sized edition or their wrists on the large size hardback with large print. Or get the intermediate paperback or ordinary hardback to suit their library. Most people will still buy the ebooks and read them on phones."
 
Rather foolishly I'm currently slogging away at a 64 panel strip (all on one page most of them with no dialogue) leading up to what is looking more and more like the weakest joke I have ever written - just because I want to see if I can get people to look the wrong way on a piece of paper for a moment. I think I may have got a minor attack of 'art'. I'll get over it.
 
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I pursuit of this goal I have just spent several HOURS looking for my backup scanner after my big old Epson perfection threw one of its periodic sulks - I left it switched on too long. (I'll have to leave it at least overnight before it will talk to the computer.) I really can't work out how it took me so long to find my spare. My 'office' is only about 2.5 meters by 2.5 and most of that is bookcase. It finally turned up under two boxes of 1970s SF magazines that I could have sworn I hadn't touched in years.
 
The lockdown actually helps me write. I am feverishly typing "The God's Bracelet: Double Hazard", book 2 of the trilogy. Just added a new section of 30 something pages.
 
Well, I scrolled.

I'm not sure I get it, unless the "oho" is to say that John Carter (I assume) has found his way in via a door stupidly left open and unguarded by the guards, and that this happens in every book? [Y/N?]

I like the style, but I agree it doesn't feel like sufficient pay-off.
 
Yes it does. All the time. In one book John Carter falls asleep in a chandelier and wakes up as two guards stop to have a chat, not unlike that one, right underneath him before wandering off again. Like I said. I enjoyed drawing it and assembling it (the number of layers I had open!) but in the end - meh! It happens.
 
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For some reason, I got totally stuck, after writing two more sections of Double Hazard. I have to write no more than 20 more pages, and there my brain just went blank. But after spontaneously adding 20 or so pages to its already completed sequel The Mute Eye, I just as spontaneously switched to a new novel. It is a spy thriller The Things I Hate in which I am making good progress. Being a new writer, I am discovering these mood swings, and they amuse and annoy me at the same time. Do all writers jump from one title to another at times?
 
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