Books Update!

 Dear Reader,

I know that you've been patiently waiting for my next book to hop off the editing bench and into the publication process. It's been an arduous process trying to edit while I have been trying to keep up with everything here. 2020 was a brutal year that threw off all of my plans, as I am sure it has for you.

This year, I'm taking my playbook from January 2020 and putting it into effect. I'm giving myself a bit of leeway on my scheduling incase we wind up going remote learning for an extended period of time. The tentative date for editing to wrap up on book six of the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar is late August. It is my hope to get it out for publication by the end of September. All of this depends on things being semi-normal. Gods only know what 2021 holds for us but I'm hoping it is good things.

Book seven is on hold as I finish up two other unrelated books. There will be an announcement coming soon regarding one of these other projects. If you enjoy fantasy of all stripes and are a little bit of a nerd who occasionally dabbles in off-line RPGs, I think you're going to find my news interesting. You have to wait until late February for the details, however.

Locales: Generating Place Names

 Dear Reader,

It is possible to spend hours on developing language for your work. If you find this relaxing and productive, go for it. I'm still finding my footing in that arena. You don't, however, have to come up with your own language to name places. If you take a moment to look at the naming of places in the real world, you'll come to realize that some of the names are pretty dumb once you translate them out of the language they're written in.

For example, in England, there are many rivers named 'Avon' or have the name 'Avon' in them. This is because of the Romans and Celts having some communication difficulties. Avon, in the ancient Celtic dialect spoken in those regions of England, simply means river. Thus the Avon river is literally River-river. 'Tor' is another one from the Celts which simply means a high place. So, it's possible that exotic sounding name you were thinking would sound really cool as you mash together things from two different languages translates to something really simple, possibly dumb.

If you focus on landmarks and historical events, you find it easier to name places. For example, there's a river in the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar that is known as the White River because it has many rapids in it, hence a good deal of white water. I've taken that and translated it (roughly) into Gaelic to use as the place name. Why Gaelic? Because the people of that region are based on the Gaels and I've decided that their language is in many ways parallel to Gaelic. Google translate isn't the best source for translations, I will be honest, but when you lack a dictionary between the two languages it works in a pinch.

There are place name generators on the internet. I've used them a few times when I have gotten stumped. Just remember to keep a log of your place names and a rough description of the location. Nothing's worse then having to rewrite an entire chapter because you messed up the setting details. (Not that I have ever had to do that before. ;) )

Regarding Serial Stories

 Dear Reader,

As you may know, I have some serial stories going on here. Dacia's War and the Iron Lily are the ones that are currently (in)active. I am working on getting things ironed out for when I will be posting updates. Unlike before, I will not be updating the serial stories on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It will only be on Tuesdays.

The first and third Tuesday of the month, I will be updating Dacia's War. On the second and fourth Tuesday of the month, I will be updating the Iron Lily. This is to allow me enough time to pay enough attention to all the details of these stories so that you have a better reading experience. As I begin to draw near to the conclusion of these serial stories (not happening anytime soon, but sometime later this year), I will be organizing them into e-books to make your reading experience easier.

When they are in e-book format, you may note some differences from how they were originally posted. Some of this is going to be cleaning up grammar and related matters because usually I just whip them off with minimal editing. Some of this will be filling in backstory and adding more detail to transitional scenes between major action sequences in the story. I promise you, you'll enjoy the extra content. There may even be a few 'new' characters for you to enjoy (or hate, depending on how they strike you).

Keep a log of important setting details (including interesting items and creatures).

  Dear Reader,

If you're in a position like I am and you're working on multiple books, it is good to keep a log of the things you invent and introduce into your books. My log is a disaster and spread across multiple notebooks. I'm trying to fix that, it's not working so great. But, there are others out there with wonderfully detailed notes. In your log, it is good to note the description and pertinent qualities of your special things. It is also good practice to note where it shows up in your story and under what conditions it arises. This helps prevent you from having your flaming brass dragon turn into a flaming glass dragon (unless that is a planned plot twist).

Keeping a log of major setting details helps when you are choosing what elements from previous books to incorporate and carry forward into the next books. We've all read books that were a bit cavalier about this and are confused by how these things happened to change between books. If you keep a log, you can reference it at any time you are working to add details, note influence on plot arcs, and generally keep your information about the setting details up to date as you are working.

Just don't do it across a four inch stack of notebooks, please. I'm still sorting out that mess. Ah, life before computers. When everything went into notebooks. Now I'm working to consolidate it into one source. It's not going so great because it's a jumbled mess. I might wind up using Camp NaNoWriMo this year to work on fixing that mess.

Craft of Writing: Plan like you're going to storm Normandy.

 Dear Reader,

This was a bit of advice that my Grandfather gave me as I was struggling with how to write a huge paper in college. He looked over my notes, which were in disorganized piles, and made that statement before walking off. I then looked at my outline and back at my notes. With a measure of despair, I tried to match the piles of notes to the outline.

It wasn't working so well. And then something clicked in my brain. My outline was too vague. So, I sat down and drafted up another outline in greater detail, drawing from some crucial notecards in the messy pile before me. I repeated the process until my notecards were in a stack and my final outline was essentially my paper in bullet points.

I had some people in my life at the time who felt that they knew more about what I was writing on than I did. They had tried earlier to interfere with my efforts to plan out this paper. It was part of the reason why my notes were chaos and my outline was really about as cohesive as cheap washi tape. (You know, the pretty ribbon tape that sticks to nothing but itself, and it even does that badly.) At my Grandfather's advice, I worked in silence and (to a degree) secrecy on this paper. By the time I had that final outline done and it was time to write, I was well away from the persons who were trying to dictate from their assumptions the facts of my paper.

I've since taken that approach to big projects. Do the organizational work on my own, in privacy. Don't allow anyone not directly involved in the project access to it. Don't encourage commentary on your work habits except from persons you trust completely to give you reliable input. If it worked in the storming of Normandy, it will work for the Great Work that you're trying to complete, whatever it may be.

Placeholder for future content!

 Dear Reader,

I survived the holidays despite how hectic it was. I am presently in the midst of making some major changes to my schedule and my approach to things like blogging. It's been difficult to get back into the groove of daily blog posts because of all the stuff that's been going on. I feel like I've got a bit of 2020 stuck to the bottom of my shoe and I can't scrape it off with a stick.

Look for new material and updates to my serial stories in two weeks. I have some planning to do and a few irons in the fire that I have to finish up. I have a big project that I'm desperately attempting to finish with the limited time that I have to work on it. As I said, it is going to be approximately two weeks before the dust settles around here and I can jump back into the saddle.

Thank you for sticking with me this far. I will update you soon on what changes are coming to the blog and just what the hell is going on with The Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar. (Spoiler alert: My characters are finally beginning to cooperate with the plot on the book I've been stalled on.)

Personal Note: I am SO behind on EVERYTHING!

 Dear Reader,

I made the mistake of looking at the writing calendar I set up way back in January of this year. It is a brutal reminder of just how much my writing schedule got destroyed by the effects of Covid-19 on my community. Distance learning was a big thing for the first half of the year. Theoretically, that meant that the kids were working on their laptops and I could be working on mine. In actual practice, that meant that I had to sit and active monitor their work so that they weren't spending school time looking at cat videos and listening to fart sound effects. (It was a daily battle with one child because he finds these things hilarious and will sneak around to watch/listen to them.)

I have a list of projects that are all stuck in a holding pattern because I just haven't had the time or the energy to work on them. Camp NaNoWriMo was supposed to be my "finish last year's NaNoWriMo project" and it was spent focusing on distance learning with the kids. It was frustrating but we got through it. I thought that maybe the summer session of Camp NaNoWriMo would go better, it didn't because then the kids had distance learning summer school.

My editing time has been eaten up by household chores and depression. I'm still to some extent reeling from spending half a year acting as a teaching assistant for both of my boys who are learning disabled. The rapid switching between grade level work and different needs was exhausting. I used to be able to do this fairly well but ever since I became disabled, it's gotten a lot harder. Thus, when the time came to consider if we were going to risk sending them into school or continue distance learning, we chose to send the boys into school.

The school has been taking safety precautions very seriously and making sure that everyone follows them. The boys are in a classroom with the academic support that they need. And their grades are doing well. My youngest boy has taken to trying to write his own books in his free time. I am entirely unsurprised by this as he's become hyperfocused on the Captain Underpants books. We might be writing the author a letter and sending him some fan art in the near future. In the meantime, I have been attempting to provide gentle guidance in the art of writing a manuscript. While this has been taking time away from my working on my manuscripts, he is getting better at organizing his writing which is helping his grades go up.

With the kids going to school, we have settled into a routine that is allowing me to get some writing done. Currently, I am trying to finish my third NaNoWriMo project from this year. The projects for NaNoWriMo are focused on a casual book offer that came from an associate of mine. I originally wrote about two novels worth of fan fiction for his Live Action Role Play game system. I sent it to him with a note to use it as he wished. Next thing I know, I'm being asked to create some fiction that is set in that universe to help give some flavor to the game system. This turned NaNoWriMo into my writing like I was on fire. (I think this was assisted by a hypomanic episode, because I turned out two books in two weeks, one 50k and one 60k words.)

Now it is December and I'm trying to do multiple things at the same time. I have the crafting of yule presents (I'm almost a third of the way through my list. I started late this year.), cleaning up the apartment so we can decorate for the kids, the act of decorating, and my holiday baking. In the midst of all this, I'm still trying to do my daily writing in my journals and my creative writing (like finishing the 3rd NaNoWriMo project in short order). Blogging keeps falling a bit low on my list of things to do because I'm a bit disorganized right now.

December has always been a chaotic month for me in the form of getting things done. It always arrives with a hefty dose of Seasonal Affective Disorder, Bipolar II related depression, and a laundry list of trauma anniversaries. As such, it's really hard to get into the holiday spirit because almost everything about "holiday cheer" triggers revulsion and a powerful aversion to it all. So, I have to push through that to get the holiday stuff for the kids done. Because we're a heathen oriented household, yule isn't just one day like christmas. We observe it for thirteen days, starting around christmas for the convenience of the rest of the extended family. During yule, I take my time off from 'work' which means my blogs tend to go quiet and my manuscripts languish as I focus on relaxing and spending time with my family.

I confess, I am tempted to spend yule working on back work. I'm not going to do it because it will shoot my stress levels up through the roof, but I am tempted.