This week has been another busy week here at A’mara Books.
The reality of writing at home with a husband who has a weird schedule and homeschooled children is that it’s very easy to get distracted, and some days I have to work hard to just get 500 words written. Those are the days I get frustrated, but then there are days where I crank out 3000 words in the matter of a couple of hours. Thankfully, they balance out a bit.
Over 9,000 new words
This week, those 9,000 words were split between four different novellas.
Rebound of Power received the first addition of 1000 words as I worked to get the next section done – the one to be shared after Courage to Trust is finished.
Building on Promise also received 800 words as I work on lengthening and detailing this developing story. It currently stands at almost 15,000 words – I expect it to gain another 5-10k before it is done. It is actually the sequel for Elect to Change which will begin soon after Courage finishes. As such, it is getting a lower priority at the moment than its prequel book.
Acting the Part is the binding story for the 851 T.C.E. collection – and will have the first hints at the end of the final section of Rebound of Power. I’ve been having fun with this one – hopefully you’ll love it too when we get there. It received 1500 words this week.
Elect to Change is the story that’s been getting the bulk of my attention this past week. It gained almost 5000 words this week after I split chapters up to fix the Steemit/Dbooks set-up better. It currently sits at over 20,000 words with an anticipated gain of another 3-5k before it’s ready for you.
Note: As I give you 1000-1500 words every day at the moment, I have to write at least that much every day just to keep ahead! (And I’m actually trying to keep quite a bit ahead in case I suddenly find I need some time off!)
Other tasks
Editing – as usual, proofreading/editing and even splitting of older chapters takes up a lot of time.
Plot sketching – I’ve know for awhile that the sequel to Courage will need to be in the 851 T.C.E. and that it will tell more of Zara’s story (hopefully you’re beginning to like her spunk and mischievous streak.) New characters had to be created so that the right one can come into her life at the right time. Catalia also has a bit of a story to be told.
Town maps – This week, I was working on the Gaskarii capital of Loxos (from Elect to Change and Building on Promise), but I have this minor problem that I don’t have the artistic skills needed to design them well enough to add to the Prologues of the novellas – neither can I afford any good software to do it for me. So, I’m at a bit of an impasse there – I can do it well enough to keep track of where things are for consistency sake, but that’s about it. I really need to start working on a map of Irola, but that really will take a lot of work because of the extra 3D quality of that city-state!
Character lists – With a wide variety of locations, ages and only slightly-connected stories, deaths of characters plus the minor detail that I’m trying to marry off characters with regularity, I have to keep creating new characters. This requires keeping my characters extremely well-organized. It also requires multiple files which must be updated fairly regularly as new stories developed.
One file is a spreadsheet with the characters listed alphabetically with their basic type (A’mara, Neví, Balan, etc,) origin, life-span and the age and location(s) each person is in a particular collection. This is very useful when I find myself needing a character in a certain location. I can just go down the list and see if I have anyone available or whether I need to create a new character.
The other main file is a document with the characters listed by birth-year. This is where I make all important notes about their characters. Any physical characteristics, relationships to other characters, children/caballus (in Marc’la’s case.) I also make note of which stories they are in along with age and location (as with the spreadsheet.)
Unsurprisingly, some of my bit-parts such as the Neví “fall guy” characters in Friendship have only a single line for each of them right now Whereas some of my frequently-appearing characters such as Saraca and Ja’tel end up with quite a few notes.
So far, the longest “profile” has been logged about the mysterious Zilan. I have lengthy notes about who he really is, where he was at certain key points in recent Terrenden history giving insight into why he acts the way he does. But I can’t say much more without giving away too many spoilers. He really is an interesting character!
In addition to the spreadsheet and the chronological index, I so have a further file reminding me of who is abári in which country and when… (and whether that abári has a spouse or not) as well as a simple file of which characters are in a particular story – in case I ever get lost!
Concluding remarks
Don’t forget that I am offering 1 share of Steem Basic Income for any newbie (less than 100 SP) who asks me a question that prompts an Ask the Author post!
If you aren’t caught up on the A’mara books series, catch up at Dbooks!
As well as the Terrenden Encyclopedia
Additionally, this week, I’ve been working on my Spirit of Stonehenge photographic tour, also available at Dbooks. This book is nearly done now, including a visit to the inner circle for a druidic solstice ritual. My druidic experiences have been instrumental in my development of the fictitious Faldur religion as mentioned periodically in my novellas.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to this week. Now, off to write another 1500 words…
(Base image from Pexels; Shaze graphic based on a katana and edited by myself.)
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Although the penalty of knowing me in real life is that you will influence the creation of my characters; any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Writing and artwork copyright myself 2005-2018 – all rights reserved.
If you are interested in helping me publish these works, please contact me on Facebook or Discord, viking-ventures#2883.
Lori Svensen – A'mara Books & Viking Visual
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