This is going to be more about the future than the past since we’re coming to the end of September. I’ll be sectioning things off to make it easier too. Might make that the new format too since the old one may have been too messy.
OCTOBER FUN!
Thursday is October 1st, which means we’re stepping into the month of Monsters! All of the new creations have been scheduled for Fridays and I wrote up stuff on the top 8-9 monsters from the poll. So October will be stuffed full of fun . . . and then there’s Raven’s Hold.
For those unaware, this is the paranormal thriller I wrote earlier in the year and never knew what to do with. Couldn’t even bring myself to edit it because it really drained me emotionally. I go more into this on Thursday. This was originally going to be a ‘Tuesday Only’ thing until I saw something that made me want to keep it in October. So Raven’s Hold will be posted section by section from October 2-30 at 11:55 PM EST. For some reason the scheduler wasn’t letting me do midnight. This means October 1st will be an intro and October 31st will be a discussion or ‘what do you think?’ Again, this is probably never going to go beyond the blog. Not unless I get a sudden urge to tinker and challenge it again. So it’s a special gift for all of my followers.
Due to the structure, the sections have a wide range of word counts. Sorry, but I couldn’t find any better breaks without damaging the flow and I was told that suspense and tension are necessary for the genre.
Crossing Bedlam News
I should be finishing this up by the middle or end of this week. Then comes a week of resting with some outlining and making a list of potential tales for Cassidy & Lloyd. This has been a fun ride, which I’m hoping my alpha reader (maybe 2 of those) enjoy and give me good feedback on. Not sure when it will be released since I’m trying to decide on how to do the editing part of this. Do I use beta readers? Do I do it with alphas, myself, and, if she has the time, my editor? Why is this such a difficult thing to figure out?
Well the issue comes down to Lloyd Tenay and his ‘4th Wall Breaking’. This appears to be a very sensitive topic where people either love or hate it, which could be a problem. What do you do if a beta reader simply hates the tactic and that colors their entire experience? It also doesn’t help that Lloyd doesn’t REALLY do 4th Wall Breaking. Not directly. This is explained in the book, but he never actually talks to the audience like Deadpool, Shakespeare asides, or Family Guy. He comes off more as delusional than actually aware of being a book character, which is something I might play into in later books. So originally claiming he broke the 4th Wall might have been a mistake since he spends more time alluding to comic books, movies, tv shows, and other pop culture things.
This brings up another question: Should I have openly stated that he would do stuff like this? If you read the book and didn’t expect him to break the 4th wall, would you react the same to when Lloyd claims that a scene is boring the audience?
A final part on this topic: I’m trying to figure out ways to find stories for these characters and have a few in my head. Someone suggested once to ask readers what areas of the Shattered States of America they want Cassidy and Lloyd to travel to. Working off an old idea where I already gave each state a resource, culture, and issues, I have a lot of groundwork for a ton of stories. Yet, I don’t know if I really want to try this because people are most inclined to choose their own state. Also Hawaii and Alaska are kind of out of action for now.
GOALS (Probably cover next 2 weeks)!
- Finish writing Crossing Bedlam and give to 1-3 alpha readers. These are already chosen.
- Make a list of potential ‘Bedlam’ stories.
- Make a list of future Ichabod Brooks adventures and do a brief outline of one for next summer’s release.
- Write blurbs for The Mercenary Prince and maybe even Crossing Bedlam.
- Work on November posts. 10 days left to cover since I moved a few extras into the first week along with a spontaneous poem.
- Do more work on the notebook stuff for Sin.
- Mentally prepare to return to Windemere and tackle The Spirit Well. This will put me at 4/5 completion for the series in terms of first drafts. After this comes the final stretch with Ritual of the Lost Lamb, Path of the Traitors, and Dawn of the Frozen Baron. Not sure about that last one. I actually had a great title for the final book, which I lost during the computer crash.
- Play a little God of War 2 when needing a break.
