Seven weeks in and things are coming together, finally.

One more week completed of #onemillionwords 2021. For those who don’t know what this click here to read my very first #onemillionword update where I explain it all.
As stated above, things are finally starting to come together.

In the beginning, all my projects were completely disorganized, words slapped together just to hit the goal. Now after finding my stride, things are coming together. There is a point in constructing a story where it takes shape and isn’t just fragments, or beginnings, or introductions, but actual stories. I’ve hit that point on some of mine. Not all of my projects since some are sitting pretty in the problem project piles, but that’s okay. The few that have started to morph into actual stories and novels are still cause for celebration.

Let me do a deep dive into each project.

Chained Heavens – I’m at a little over 30k words. According to my charts- that sounds so nerdy, I love it- my word count for this project is supposed to be 55,743 words as of today. As you can see I’m a bit behind and I’m trying not to let it get me down. I love writing this character and this world. It’s been a very long time since I had down anything in a High Fantasy setting. It’s been a lot of fun to just build a world from scratch, with a few nods to DnD 5e here and there.

The big thing about this project is it’s a collection of short stories and I’ve now completed two of them. The completion of the stories has been huge since I’ve been working with this character on and off, getting her just right, going on almost five years yet I have never completed one of her short stories. That’s my whole problem no matter what the project is; seeing it through. I have a few completed manuscripts and a dozen or so short stories under my belt. I had completed the original Merranyssa trilogy a few years ago only to realize it was all wrong and had to start again but for all the years I’ve been writing, it’s not a lot. Or, to be honest, not as much as I’d like to show for it all.

This time around, not even two months in, I have things to show for it. Two completed stories totaling almost 15k words with a third one less than 500 words away from being done. That’s what I have to show after seven weeks of writing and that’s amazing to me.

What’s my plan for these two short stories? Well, once I have at least five stories completed, I plan on taking time off from the general word count to revise and edit. I know both are rough right now but if I get all five done and edited then I have a full first volume of stories.

VeL Posts – I wish I could say these were coming together as well since blogging has always been hard for me. After finishing this post, I’m at 11,429 words but the number I should be at is 20910. At some point my hope to get caught up with a mad stroke of genius, pumping out great blog posts one right after the other. Realistically, that probably won’t happen but at least these updates will be helping. I do find writing each update has helped make blogging just a little bit easier for me. By the end of the year, I hope to get better at it. I used to write editorials all the time for my college paper and even got a degree in journalism but I wasn’t willing to work in the field after being confronted with some cold hard truths about the industry. Funny that I’m not trying it all over again ten years later.

My plan to improve these roadblocks is to spend some time at the end of the month to just plot and plan out actual article topics ahead of time. I’ll start back up with the book reviews as well as maybe a bi-monthly post of writing advice I’ve found helpful. If any of my readers would like to see anything else specific whether it be about books or writing or even geek culture, comment below.

Cloaked Rites – This has been one of the projects that have been hopping back in forth from good to a problem. As of today, I am a little over half what I should be at but I have almost 11k words written in it. Again, I’m not where I should be but I’m a lot better than if I had never started this. At 11k words in, I’ve barely got past the introduction of the world but we’re getting there. Part of the reason why I think this one has been hopping back and forth is that I might have to do that dreaded outline for this one.

I’m the worst at outlining but it has to happen. I’ve known this for a while so I started watching tutorials on the Snowflake Method. Don’t know what that is? Click this link here and it’ll take you to the blog post of the guy who created it. Or if you work better off videos, like me, click here for a great breakdown of the method.
I plan on sitting down, hopefully, this weekend, and spending the day outlining Cloaked Rites with this method. I’ll let you all know next week if a. I even did it. and b. how it went.

The Stormbloods Saga – This is the only project that is actually on track with the overall word goal. I’m even ahead by a bit. I’m just shy of 15k in this project yet the word goal for today is only 13,700. The goal for this project at the end of the year was to have 3-4 novellas finished. This whole story is being structured like a multi-season show but instead of 48 minutes on the CW, there’ll be a novella published every 3-4 months and every calendar year would be seen as a completed season. This one because the structure is so different will be a bit challenging in the editing stages which makes my progress look so much better.

I hope that we can complete the first season this year and have the first ‘episode’ published in January 2022 under VeL.

DLPSW – This project, I’ve realized would probably also benefit from outlining. It’s a little behind on its word count coming in at just under 10k when I should be at 13,700. This is probably one of the shortest gaps of all my projects that are behind but this is also the project that sits just right outside my comfort zone. I have huge appreciation and respect for those that write romance and write it well. I have never been one of those people. Hell, I wasn’t even into the genre as a whole until a few years ago. Mostly because I do like supernatural and fantasy elements in my story almost exclusively. In the last handful of years, the genre of paranormal romance has exploded, from what I’ve noticed.

There are now more and more romance stories that are more up my alley. We’re even getting a whole new wave of queer paranormal romance. I am in love and have added a bunch to my TPR over the last year or two.

The goal going forward, sit down and do the same as Cloaked Rites. Both need a plan moving forward. I am just about finished with the beginning parts of both and will need that outline once I dive deep into the actual plot.

The Keeper Chronicles – It seems this is my most forgotten and hardest project of them all. It’s also supposed to be a series of short stories but lately, I’ve been thinking if it also wouldn’t be a bad idea to throw in a few full-length novels to this series and if that’s the case, what will I do for the plots? As of now, the current word count stands at 5268 and the goal as of today is 13,700. Not much to report on this one since I’ve barely been able to get any done in it.

My goal going forward is to decide what to do with it. Originally it was supposed to be a series of short stories that were posted on our companies patron weekly. Possibly even broken up into parts, depending on story length and I still like that idea but thinking up short story ideas is hard enough with one project, doubling that makes it seem almost impossible. I think, for the time being, I’ll keep trying to produce short stories in this universe. Maybe even sit down and plan some out ahead of time.
Seems I have a lot of planning to do. Guess I should start doing that now.

Happy writing!

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