Elysae Shar's Blog, page 8

A Title, At Last

I’m officially calling Ash Manor 3 Unveiled now. It doesn’t matched the title of the other two, but it fits the book’s content.It’s gonna be a while before I get around to writing it, because I want to wrap up Ash’s story with this one. So, I’m actually doing some extensive planning for this one. I also want to leave a couple of leads in there for me to pick up, if I want to play some more in the universe. And I have to do it in a way that doesn’t matter, if it takes me a year to get around to it.

Meanwhile, I’m writing a fantasy story about a thief who sets out to steal the religious rulers’ most precious artifact and ends up forced into their ranks only to realize that everything he thought he knew about them, is wrong. But that doesn’t make them good people, and now he has to find a way out of the compound and rescue his beloved dagger along the way.

That’s probably a pretty bad summary, but those have always been a shortcoming of mine. It’s fun to write, though and it’s based on a short story, I found hiding on my hard drive.

Depending on how long it takes me to finish, I’ll release that before I start Unveiled.

Those Harpers Can Hide

I’m still making my way through baldur’s Gate 2, though Shadows of Amn is taking a lot longer to complete than BG 1. It’s not a breathe through and be done kind of game. I’ve been playing for about a month and I haven’t even really touched any of the mod contents yet.  I can definitely see why this game’s still alive. I don’t buy a lot of games, but when I do, I’m usually done with them in a week and I never come back.

Anyway, I picked up Jaheira. Figured I’d do some of her quest while waiting for Edwin to turn back. Reviane (?) caught up with us in Trademeet and went down easy enough. Only, I couldn’t find her mage’s loot.After searching the area and resting, I figured there’d never been a mage and went to take care of the rakshasa. Did a few other things, too and came back a good week later.

Lo and behold, there’s the mage, sitting outside the mayor’s mansion. He must have dodged all my attempts to get rid of his invisibility. Without his meatshields, the poor guy stood no chance.

Off to Spellhold now.

So, I Broke My KENPC

Yesterday, I got it into my head to switch one of my books from Word to Sigil. Took me all day to figure that one out (and to realize I’d gotten an ancient version of Sigil, but let’s not mention that).

Of course, I didn’t try it on John, which I’d declared  my test subject  the day I published it, but on Beyond the Wall. Checked the file on Calibre, converted it and checked it on two kindles, then checked the previews. All looked fine and ready to go. So, I hit publish. When it got through, I checked KENPC first–just in case it had done horrid things to it. It h had. Beyond the Wall dropped from over 100 KENPC to 1.

I figured I’d let it sit for a day. See if it rights itself then contact Amazon and went to check out the Look Inside. And it was wrecked. Every single line after the first paragraph was indented…

Now, I kinda freaked. Not knowing much beyond very basic html, I had no idea what went wrong and where. So, I fiddled with the file for a bit, uploaded the new file, crossed my fingers, and went to bed.

Fortunately, the Look Inside is is now. KENPC’s still 1, though. That leaves me with a bit of a logical issue. I haven’t learned my lesson and still plan to switch all my files over. So, there’s little point in reporting this now. When I might have another four books with the same issue next week.

Free Book Promtion

What Lies Within is free until Friday.

 

With no memories beyond the last ten years, Ash seeks out the house he grew up in, hoping to find, not only clues to his identity, but also a way to stop the gnawing he hears whenever the world around him gets too quiet. Instead he finds the place abandoned and ready to collapse in on itself. Taunted by the voice in his head and unwilling to fail after he’s finally overcome his fear of this place, he braves the danger, but things only get worse once inside. And the two ghosts, who seem to blame him for the state of the house, aren’t even the biggest problem.

What Ash learns from them and the sudden onslaught of visions from a time he couldn’t possibly remember, puts him in front of a decision that will alter his life forever. Can Ash muster the courage to enter the hidden dimension at the house’s core and face the creature residing there before it’s too late for all of them?

Follow Ash on his journey to a world just beyond our own. Where nothing is as it seems to be.

 

Get it here.

Beyond the Wall

With a ~10 day selay, Beyond the Wall is now available here.

 

Forced to stay in Morson a while longer, Ash takes a job at the local movie theater. Something about the place seems off from the get go, but curiosity drives him to stay and, for a while life seems great. Then Ash finds something carved into the floor under the carpet at the theater.

Things spiral out of control, when that voice decides to pay him a visit, letting him know that it’s not over. And that voice isn’t the only thing to survive and cross over into reality.

Can Ash figure out what’s going on in time to safe a friend? A building? And most importantly himself?

Find out in Beyond the Wall Part 2 of the Ash Manor Series.

Novelette to Novella

I Just finished revisions on  Beyond the Wall. And I’m only about a week past my deadline (Why do I still give myself these?). Still gotta do spellcheck, but other than that it’s good to go.  There’s, of course, always that conviction that it’s the worst thing I ever wrote…

At some point, I got worried that I couldn’t push it to 20k. Then a 900 word scene exploded into a 2k one, and the one after did the same. Let’s just say, there was a lot of detail missing toward the end. Somewhere around page forty, I started to gain anywhere from half a page to two per page I revised. Good for length, but bad for moral when you start at fifteen pages to go and end on seventeen. For several days I couldn’t crack ten, because I kept bouncing up.

In the end 17.7k words became 25.5k. I’d say, I hit my target. So, beyond the Wall will be out next week, if it kills me. I’ve started book 3 now, too. Got the cover pretty much figured out and the first few pages written, but still no title.

I’ve also finished Baldur’s Gate twice since, because I wrecked my safe, when Davaeorn fled up the stair and vanished into the mines. I ended up not killing him, which meant I had to cheat to continue upon reaching Baldur’s Gate. So I made a new BiG install and started over, because I didn’t trust the save I copied over.

Now, I’m in Athkatla, with Anomen whining at me to finish Windspear Hills. I will, at some point, but right now: Big, fat dragons = scary. If he runs off, I’ll take Korgan instead. No Keldorn, because I’ve nver done the Bohdi path.

 

What Not to Do While Revising

On Monday, I had the marvelous idea to start another run of Baldur’s Gate, because one of these days I’ll actually finish the entire saga. I’ve finished Bg I + II plenty of times but never TOB. Unfortunately, despite (or maybe because of) being ancient, Baldur’s Gate is still far more entertaining than revision. So I’ve revised a grant total of two pages since then. Just flattened the Bandit Camp with Fireballs, though…

I’m playing a BWP install from 2014. As such, I@ve no idea what mods I got install. I could check, but where’s the fun in that? I know I got Finch, who stole my kill in Beregost and SCS. Oh, and an item randomizer, because no Ring of Wizadry!

To think I hated this game  the first time I played it, and now I break it out at least once a year. Don’t judge! I need to take revenge on Tarnesh and that ogre for all the times they slaughtered me back then.

I do need to stop being lazy, though, and get back to work, or my January release might just turn into a January 2017 release. Not really, but… I’d just found my stride with revising, too.

I’m painfully slow when it comes to revising, too. If I put my mind to it, I can write 10k a day, but I tank at about three pages when it comes to revising. I’ve got about another 19 pages to go before I get to spellcheck. Very little chance of me making the 25th as I’d hoped and I’ve got only myself to blame.

At least Beyond the Wall isn’t anywhere near as big a mess as What Lies Within was . So far it’s only required some fleshing out and no major rewrites.

 

What Past Me Knew

 

About 2/3rds into Beyond the Wall, the story finally “told” me how it wanted to end. So, I pretty much spent the final act coming up with a least of things to add to previous chapters to bring the story together. And I was all excited about implementing these changes, too.  Only  now, every time, I reach one of the items on my list, it’s already there.  They all needed various degrees of fleshing out, but at least a hint of the concept is there.

I’m not really sure what to think of this. None of my other first drafts have this. Level up perhaps? It’s disappointing and exciting at the same time. This knowing that I wrote those words, yet I know, at best, half of what occurs in the story. The rest, I’m discovering as I go through. I used to think people, who claimed their stories wrote themselves, insane. Guess that’d make me insane, too.

That said. I’m also (re-)discovering  that revision goes so much easier when I don’t hate the story I’m revising. Of course, I’m also still convinced my writing should never see the light of day… But since random strangers disagree with that, who am I to judge?

Mount Typo is Just a Hill…

…or why I love yWriter.

I’ve always had this thing with reading out loud. I tend to stop in the middle of a sentence and not notice until pages later. So, finding typos that way was always impossible for me. For a while I used Natural Reader free to overcome the issue, but the Buy Now or  wait X seconds gets annoying when yo gotta get through several thousand words., and I’m not a big enough fan of the software to buy it. Call me weird, but I like Microsoft Sam. Where’s he gone off to anyway?

Then I misplaced my old Kindle Keyboard. I’m sure it’ around here somewhere, but I can’t use it and the batteries probably fried by now anyway; I haven’t seen the thing in months. Since then, I’ve spent copious amounts of energy on convincing myself that my titles are littered with typos, I can’t see.

Yesterday, I found the solution to my problem. yWriter has build in text to speech. So far, I’ve run  a few chapters of Beyond the Wall through it, and found surprisingly little typos. More than I’d like to find once its published, but far fewer than I feared. It’s one every three or so pages, when I expected vice versa.

My real issue seems to be doubled up words though. Within chapter one Ash’s had perpetual perpetual headaches, been in pain pain, and gone back back.

So, just to make sure, I’ll give everything I’ve published so far the yWriter treatment, with What Lies Within getting the first slot, so it’s all neat and tidy for Beyond the Wall‘s release. Gotta update the backmatter anyway…

Beyond the Wall Prologue & Cover

Beyond the Wall started its life without a prologue, bu I’m not sure  the start of chapter one is a strong enough hook, and I wanted to bridge the gap between What Lies Within and Beyond the Wall.

I originally intended this yo be a short story in its own right, but it came out way too short for that. So, a prologue it became.

It’s also a bit of a risk, because I gave Heart a point f view and there’s a decent chance people will find him annoying. I also couldn’t get him to work in anything other than 1st person present tense while Ash balks at everything that isn’t 3rd person past tense. You gotta love when characters dictate stuff. Right?

Anyway, enough rambling. Here’s Beyond the Wall’s Prologue

————————————————————

Into the Dark

The moment that overgrown immobile termite took her last breath, Bo—Ash waltzed out of the house without so much as a by your leave, abandoning us…again. It really is what he does best, I guess. And though I have to admit that he did look more than a little worse for wear, I hate him for it; with a passion that has little to do with me being raw emotion. He can leave, have a life, while Brains and I are stuck here in this empty shell of a house.

I kick the wall, or try to at least. My foot goes straight through, vanishing into the disgusting goo, coating the sorry excuse for walls, without disturbing it, which, in hindsight, is good. Not like I’ve got spare clothes to change into, or the ability to wash stuff off. Times like these, the whole manifestation thing sucks.

“Come on, let’s at least get out of here,” I say, sick of hanging around my enemies—former, mind you—home while, upstairs, the last hours of my existence ticks by.

No answer.

“Brains?” I turn slowly, afraid of what I’ll find. Maybe he’s left, too, but no he’s just standing there staring at her corpse as if he wants to dissect the thing. “Hell, no!” I stomp over to him, finally able to vent some of that pent up anger, and swing my arm through his midsection—the closest thing to touching we’ll ever get. He jumps and pins me with a glare.

“What?”

“Out of here. Now.”

He hesitates, eyes drifting back to the corpse. I don’t like it. He may be older in body, but I existed first, and before Ash came back, I used to be the boss. It’s going to be that way again, and he better get used to it right quick. “Move it.”

And still he doesn’t comply. “But I—”

“No.” I hover my hands near my hips and tap my foot against the ground. My toes dip out of sight, and I can almost feel the cold slime soak them, but I don’t care; it’s that or stomp my foot like a child. Sometimes, I regret choosing a form this young. It came with all the emotional pitfalls of puberty and some childish urges on top.

“I…” He moves his hands, looking at them as if he’d never seen them before. He’s caving—I hope. If he isn’t, I’ll have to force my will on him. I can do that, but I’d rather not. It’s exhilarating and feels so wrong. “You want to be down here when they start tearing us to shreds? Get no warning?”

He does. I can tell from the way he’s looking everywhere but at me. He’s scared, same as me. “I don’t, and I don’t want to be alone either. Please?” It’s a bit low, I admit, but it does the trick. Brains casts one last longing look at the corpse—he really does want to cut her open—then nods. “Okay.”

We’re late when we leave the hive. The sun is up, casting mockingly cheerful patterns on the broken floor. “Could have warned me.” How long since Ash buzzed off? Too long, I figure.

Instead of defending himself, Brains stops and says, “Fade.”

At first, I think it’s just a trick, so he can run back into the hive, but then I see them, too. A good dozen people crawling all over our lawn, and huge machines, the likes of which I’ve never seen before, rolling up the slope. One of them carries a massive hammer thing.

I move to the window, driven by morbid curiosity, a desire to face my foes, or just plain old stupidity…probably all of the above. Despite everything happening outside, I can’t tear my eyes from the hammer. I know what that one does.

Though we can’t see each other anymore, I can feel Brains close behind. “You think we’re actually going to die?” I ask, using our mental connection, Ash somehow no longer shares.

Brains shifts beside me before answering in the same manner. “I don’t know.” He might as well have said yes for all the reassurance his quavery voice offers.

Hammer guy walks around the lawn, stopping occasionally to stare in our direction. He has a sketchpad tucked into his breast pocket, which he keeps flipping through as he mutters to himself. “Why aren’t they starting?”

“Taking m—”

Pain shoots through every fiber of my being, drowning out whatever Brains was going to say. They’re tearing me apart atom by atom. One of us is screaming. I think it’s Brains, but I feel it’s me, maybe it’s both of us. The world goes dark, but my consciousness doesn’t fade just yet. Instead, I’m falling or floating.

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

Something brushes against me, and I know no more.