Nils Ödlund's Blog, page 4

Maps

Every fantasy world needs a map.
Right?
Right!
There, that’s that settled. Now, here’s a map. Well, two maps actually.
The first one, is the map I’ve included in Betrayals, the omnibus edition containing the first five books in the Lost Dogs series. Unfortunately, it’s coming out real small in the ebook version, and I’ve not been able to reliably fix this.
It works, but that’s about it. So I’m setting up a page here on the website to show off the maps I’ve drawn so far.
One is the one from th...

Emma, One Year

[image error]Tomorrow, the second of February, marks the one year anniversary of the release of my debut novella, Emma’s Story. I wrote a post about it on my personal blog, here. To celebrate the anniversary, I’m making the book available at a reduced price ($/£ 0.99) this weekend. You’ll be able to take advantage of the offer here.

Emma’s Story is a fantasy fairytale story. It takes place in the same settings as the Lost Dogs stories, but in a very different part of it. The entire story plays out over a...

A Change of Pace, and a Change of Face

It’s been three weeks since I left my old job and walked out of the office for the last time. It feels like it’s been a lot longer, and it feels like it’s just been a few days. Time is slipping by, life goes on, and the world does not wait.

I’ve had a great three weeks.

[image error]Lost Dogs #4: Lost Naked Furious is now available in paperback. It’s noticeably thicker than the previous ones. It’s also in a different colour.

I finished the third draft of Lost Dogs #5, and I finished the second draft of Lo...

Changes

It’s been a while since I last posted, and there have been a few changes in my life. Well, really, there’s this one big change, and it dwarves everything else.

I quit my job, and I’m now a full time writer.

I still don’t make anywhere near enough money to make a living from my writing, but I quit anyway. Fortune smiled at me, and she gave me an opportunity too good to pass up.
It’s been quite a while that I’ve been dreaming of leaving the job to just write. I’ve not dared. It’s felt risky and...

Silver Skin – progress update

Things have been a bit slow here since Lost Naked Furious went live. I began tinkering with the next part in the series, Silver Skin, but it’s only over the last few days the story has really begun to pick up pace.

Changing my mindset from writing about Alene, to writing about Roy, was more of a challenge than I’d expected. I knew it would be tricky, but not that it’d be this bad. Writing about Alene (and the beast) eventually became rather intense, as she’s a very intense characters. I’m not...

New Covers

Last week i showed off the new cover I’d made for Lost Dogs #4: Lost Naked Furious. I created it myself, and it worked out a whole lot better than I’d expected – plus it was a lot of fun.

As such, I decided to update the covers for the previous books too.

Overall, I’m happy with the result. Have a look:

 

In the final version, the text on book #1 is a bit more greyed out, and the same with book #3, but other than that, these are the final images.

As you can see, the fourth one doesn’t rea...

Lost Naked Furious Cover Reveal

Okay, so, first things first. Here’s the new cover image:

[image error]

Apart from the first book in the series, I’ve not really done much with the covers for the Lost Dogs books. A friend of mine drew the cover image for book #1, and then I used a part of that image for book #2.

Book #3 is an inverted photo of the moon in a forest at night, with some text added on top of it. It’s basic, but it works.

This now, for book #4, is the first time I feel like I’m really trying myself.

I had an idea, I got some...

Recent Reading

As a writer, you’re supposed to read. I keep hearing that it’s one of the best ways to become a better writer. There’s almost definitely truth in this. I believe in it.

Even then, I don’t read very much. I read slowly, and I don’t often take the time to do it. I’ve got excuses. As far as excuses go, they’re not very good, and I really could be reading a lot more. I like the idea of it, and once I sit (or lie) down to read, I usually enjoy it. I just don’t get around to it because other things...

Nightmare

It’s been a long and unusual week since my last post. The renovation of my apartment got pushed ahead and started on Tuesday already. I spent a few hectic days packing up everything I own and carrying it down to an empty apartment on the floor below mine.

Moving just downstairs sounds like it’s no big deal, but it’s still moving. The amount of crap I’ve collected since I moved in, nine years ago, is just stupid. At least I got some use out of my habit of never throwing away shopping bags.

So,...

Weekly Update

It’s Friday Morning, and I’m at Soma here in Cork, putting the finishing touches on the 8th chapter of Lost Dogs #4. In the previous version, this was the 5th chapter. There’s been some new additions to the story to try and give a better impression of Alene’s struggles during the first half of the book. The previous draft kind of glossed this over, and I made it too easy for her.

It’s not meant to be easy. Alene’s meant to be in a shitty situation. I just wasn’t quite sure how to show that, b...