Lots of personal updates for me lately.
September-November of this year has easily been the most prolific writing period for me, and it's led to a lot of exciting work.
To begin with, I completed the first draft of
The Rose and Honey Soul. This started life about 2.5 years ago as a short story inspired by Dark Souls. It's set in a perpetually dark world and features a main character who fights in enormous armour. I wrote about 5,000 words, which I liked, but something wasn't clicking. So, I set it aside for a long time as I worked on other short stories/novelettes/etc., and then earlier this year, something clicked: it wasn't a short story, it was a novella. With this in mind, I took what I already had, and expanded it into a full, multi-chapter outline in Scrivener (I'd previously just been writing in Google Docs).
I finished The Rose and Honey Soul a week-and-a-half ago. Clocked in at a (dubious) 45k words. So, technically a short novel, but more likely sold as a novella. I'm very happy with how it turned out, though, due to the big gap in writing, it's going to need a lot of smoothing over between the first and second draft to catch all the continuity and world building contradictions. It's one of the darker things I've written, but at its centre is a hopeful story about love.
Here's the little logline I wrote for it:
In a dangerous world drenched in darkness, "The Rose and Honey Soul" explores how far a person will go to find a missing loved one. The world of "The Rose and Honey Soul" is full of great fungal-powered generators, darkblades, Guilds, nightborne, dragon gods, and a city under siege. As she searches for answers about her lover's disappearance, an Asher named Teoh will find answers that will change the world. Inspired by Dark Souls, "The Rose and Honey Soul" is a story about courage and perseverance, love, and making light when the night is darkest.
I also
go into a bit more depth about the story and the writing process on my blog.
At this point, I've had a (good, legitimate) agent and an editor at Tor.com Publishing ask to see a manuscript once it's ready. So, that's cool.
Having finished that, I've now rolled into working solely on my novel,
The Thousand Shattered Gods. Like The Rose and Honey Soul, I started writing this novel (which didn't have a title at the time) several years ago, but after about 20k words it faltered and I couldn't figure out exactly what was wrong. Fast-forward to late this summer,
after an errant conversation about epic fantasy between me, an agent, and an editor at Orbit Books, and everything fell into place. I re-outlined the novel and suddenly had something that WORKED. What I realized is that before I was chasing the market—trying to write something that was labyrinthine and political, appealing to the post-GRRM market—rather than the story I REALLY wanted to tell, which was more colourful and adventurous, full of magic, beautiful set pieces, fun characters, something in the style of '90s epic fantasy.
Last week I had holidays, and devoted a ton of time each day to writing. At this point, I'm now 10k deep into the new draft (having ditched most of the 20k I'd previously written, outside a few passages and descriptive paragraphs here and there), and it feels GOOD.
My goal at this point is to continue working on The Thousand Shattered Gods, and get through the first draft in a reasonable amount of time. One thing I've found is that the more frequently/regularly I write, the more efficient I get. My daily word count goes up, and the words come easier. I haven't written 10k words of fiction in a week in... forever?
The Rose and Honey Soul is currently with some beta readers, and I'll be getting it back in the new year. At that point I'll step away from the novel to work on revisions and then, fingers crossed, find an agent and a home for The Rose and Honey Soul, while continuing to work on the first draft of The Thousand Shattered Gods.
*phew*
