Lani Lenore's Blog, page 10

Forsaken Dreamscape – First Look – The Asylum

Ahhh October. Since I’ve got my eye on February 11th as a release date, that means there’s only 4 months to go!

So I’m pleased to announce the first excerpt of Forsaken Dreamscape!  I chose this one for the first look a while ago. I wanted to reveal something that was completely new, and yet wanted to do something close to the beginning of the story.

If you’ve read it before, or if you’ve read the description, you know about the turn Wren’s life took when she left Nevermor at the end of the first book. She’s spent a bit of time in a London asylum, much like Bedlam. If you’ve read it before, you know that the asylum scene was only about a chapter long. Well I’ve changed that, extending it to be much more involved to give a better glimpse of what Wren’s life there has really been like.   As with the factory and orphanage in the last book, I did some research and tried to give it an accurate historical feeling.

Here’s your first glimpse of what’s in store! This excerpt comes from Chapter Two.  Enjoy!

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Wren peered into the cage, watching the birds hop from perch to perch.  They seemed content enough, even though they were locked away behind steel bars that would not let them soar.

Yet if they were free, there would be dangers for them, Wren knew.  Perhaps it is best that they are caged.  Behind these bars, they are protected.

The inmates were allowed to enjoy the birds, but were quickly chastised if they tried to open the cage doors.  Still, Wren often reached her fingers through the bars to feel the soft feathers as their warm little bodies darted past.  They were flickers of life in this colorless place.  The birds talked happily together and none of it was directed at her.  She didn’t have to respond.

Two years, she reflected.  Two years in this cage.  The irony of her name had made her sigh helplessly on more than one occasion.

Wren stared at the birds now, absently watching the blur of their colors as they swooped by.  Across the room, a few female patients were staring into adjacent cages – some muttering quietly, some licking their chapped lips.  Sometimes they tried to open the doors and grab the birds inside, but there were always nurses nearby to scold them.  They were constantly supervised as if they were children.

We are not children.  We are like the birds, Wren mused.  All of us are birds, cooped up together.

Wren lifted her eyes through the cage to peer across the room, observing those who shared the ward with her.  The girls housed at the asylum were of different kinds and from different places, with assorted coloring and breeding.

Some of them had been normal in the beginning, but years of confinement had broken them, and even the improvements to treatment had not been able to fix their tangled minds.  Others were just on the verge of slipping away – like herself – while a handful or two were complete, raving lunatics.

There was Trudy, for example, who screamed every night about the wolves in the walls – who had tried to cut into another girl with a razor to expose the secret monster inside her.  Trudy had always been that way, since her first day here.  She was no worse, but not yet improved.  There were a few others like Trudy, but there were also more docile types that had never been meant for a place like this.

Clea, with her lovely red hair, had been married to an older man who’d been very jealous of her and had eventually become so paranoid of her flirting that he’d sent her here as punishment, claiming incurable promiscuity – at least, that was what Wren had heard the nurses say.

Yes, we are exactly like the birds.

Wren rested near the cage, her head on her arm and fingers outstretched through the bars.  A young cardinal hopped down and pecked at her finger before retreating.  She was languid now, wishing to drift away.  Through a dream fog in her mind, she saw the face of a boy, distant but emerging slowly in her memory.  She reached for him –

With a short gasp, Wren snapped awake, suddenly aware of a presence nearby.  She lifted her eyes to see that another girl had approached her, looming now like a crooked gargoyle on the eave of a cathedral.  Wren knew the girl’s face – pale and homely with the sunken eyes of the abused.  Her name was Adele, and though Wren had never spoken to her much, she knew something of the girl’s behavior.

Adele was of the sort that needed constant attention, and when she’d chosen a target, she would not relent until she got the acknowledgment she desired.  She often added the other patients’ problems to her own just for sport, and was an annoyance to most who dealt with her.

Seeing that she was being focused on, Wren tried to appease the girl with a short smile before averting her eyes, but she had known it would not work to send Adele away.

“You talk to the fairies,” Adele said, chirping as happily as the birds.  “I saw a fairy.”

Wren didn’t respond, unsure how she felt about the comment.  She had already talked about this once today for the sake of appearances, and she didn’t want to go into it again, yet Adele kept staring at her relentlessly with large, hollow eyes.

“It was in my room, the fairy was,” Adele went on, nodding furiously to confirm her tale. “It was black like a shadow, but it wasn’t.  It moved on its own.  It was a boy!”

She giggled deliriously at that, covering her mouth and looking about to see if a nurse had heard her, but Wren only wanted to tell her that it wasn’t a fairy she had seen.  She wanted to turn her face away and ignore the other girl, annoyed that she was being mocked.

But wait…  A shadow?  A boy?  Could Adele’s conversation be more than a cry for attention?  If she did see what she claimed, then…

“What did it look like exactly?” Wren asked lowly.  Adele seemed nearly overwhelmed to have gotten a reaction.  She was positively quivering with excitement.

“It was a boy,” Adele confirmed again, sticking a finger in her ear absently.  “He was hovering over my bed.  I watched him for a long time, but he didn’t move much.  Eventually, he went away.”

Wren rose up, interested now.  She moved closer to Adele, lowering her voice to a whisper in hopes that the nurses would not hear their conversation.

“And it was like a shadow?” Wren asked quietly, her heart beating faster.  “Did he say anything to you – this fairy?”

“No,” Adele said hesitantly, ashamed that she had to admit it, but she perked up again directly after, “but it did remind me of my dream!”

Wren felt her face grow hot, wondering what had brought on the flare until she realized that she was feeling the heat of jealousy.  Did this girl deserve to dream more than she did?  Was it possible that Adele had seen Nevermor when Wren could not find it?

“What dream?” she asked firmly, trying to keep her focus on the girl’s darting eyes.

Adele’s face lit with pleasure.  “I saw an ocean – it was a black ocean! – and I was walking along the shore.  I was alone, but then I saw someone and I went toward him…”

Adele hesitated, looking past Wren as a distant look came into her eyes.  Her chest began to heave with short, rapid breaths as she recalled it.

“He looked at me,” she said with a shuddering breath.  “His eyes were on fire!  They were on fire!”

The girl had become irate, a look of horror in her eyes as she professed this truth.  Before Wren could step away, Adele had gripped her arms, shaking her as if to punish her lack of understanding.

“Burning!” she screamed, her eyes like deep pools.  “They were burning!”

Wren tried to push Adele away from her, but the girl’s grip was viselike, her jagged nails scraping her flesh.  She did not find relief until a nurse and orderly came forward, taking the girl by the arms, talking her down.  Their voices managed to soothe her enough that Adele simply reverted to a state of bewilderment, as if she’d not remembered her outburst.  Wren, however, wanted no part of it.

She slipped away behind the cage, waiting for her heart to slow as Adele was led back to her cell.  What the girl had said troubled Wren more than the violent outburst.  Had she truly seen a shadow that was not attached to anything?  Was it the truth, or could she cast it off as the ranting of a lunatic?  Sadly, there was no way to know.  There never was here, but today Wren was left with a feeling that she’d never been willing to accommodate before.

Is that what I sound like to them? she wondered.

Everything she thought she had known about her life came back to her now and settled in her stomach, making her feel sick.  Around her, the birds continued to chirp, their lives undisturbed by the incident.  They were without care or concern.  Wren envied them.

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Well, there it was. :p  I’ve got a couple of friends currently beta-reading the new version, and one thing that I’ve been told more than once is that the new asylum beginning is entertaining and is one of their favorites parts as far as the changes. I plan to have some testimonials from them soon, and within the next couple of months, I will likely produce a preview of the first few chapters on Wattpad, but for now, I hope you enjoyed this little taste!

Born in the Wrong Reading/Writing Era – Gothic Book Challenge

Though I like to dabble in different genres, any one who is really familiar with me knows that my true reading passion is Gothic horror. Give me a female lead in a dark castle or mysterious manor, throw in some spooky happenings with an intricate plot and maybe a love interest, and I’m right where I want to be. This is not only true in reading, but in writing as well. Unfortunately, even though that’s true, I’ve never read too many of this sort of book!

I don’t know when I decided that I even liked this sort of thing. I can’t think of a book that drew me in, even though I grew up reading horror books, but before I knew it, I was writing Gothic horror myself – before I was aware of what label to put on it!  My explanation for writing has always been, ‘I write what I want to read’. Truth be told, I’m always on the lookout for Gothic stories (aside from vampires, please) but when I go hunting for books online and type in ‘Gothic’ nothing much comes up. I’ve tried to look up online lists for this sort of book, and while I did find out that this genre was most popular in the late 60s/early 70s, I couldn’t find any that were still in print.

Since I didn’t have any specific titles, I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for. I was lucky enough to unearth Angela Carter (The Magic Toyshop) and Shirley Jackson (We Have Always Lived in the Castle), but other than that, I was left searching for what I wanted in more recent books, and that was rare.

Not long ago, I was hunting for book lots on ebay and it suddenly occurred to me that I should just hammer in ‘Gothic book lot’ and see what came up. I actually got 2 really good hits for large lots of books, and they all looked like just what I’d love to read!

I was fortunate enough to snag a Lot of these books on ebay: 27 of them, to be exact.

(Just look at these books, and tell me they don’t look like me!)

Many of these books are not even on Goodreads or Wikipedia, and if they are, they have very few ratings, if any. It’s kind of a shame to me, and so in an effort to bring some attention back to this genre (since it is one I love to write in myself and will continue to) I’m going to periodically read and review these on the blog for the sake of helping bring out what I love and share some of these more obscure texts with others.

It’s not quite Nevermor related but it does have some relevance to me as a writer, to my other works, and will be something a little extra for the blog.

Forsaken Dreamscape Testimonial #1

Though I’m still working on book 2 in the Nevermor trilogy, Forsaken Dreamscape, I had decided early on that I needed to try out the new version on a few people before I went too far with it. Yes, I’ve had my concerns, and I’ve been working harder than I really expected to, simultaneously biting my nails in worry over whether or not fans would really accept the changes.  So, once I got it together (mostly) in its new form, I chose a few people that I thought might offer me good insight on the book and the way I handled the new version.

One of these friends is a fellow Wattpad writer, a big fan of the first version and someone I felt had really supported me in my decision to change the story. Her name is Janie (or otherwise known as Janie1617)  but while she was trying to be open-minded to my choice, she was certainly doubtful. Janie is a HUGE Peter Pan fan, and the story has had a big impact on her life. While she wanted to support my choice of changing it, she was still a bit worried whether or not she would still love it as much as she had before. I think this is an opinion that many of you can relate to.

After Janie read it, here is what she had to say:

Waiting for this book has been painful. I stumbled across Lani’s fanfic- Neverland: Forsaken Dreamscape nearly two years ago on Wattpad. While there are some talented writers on Wattpad, I had yet to come across a piece of work that completely captivated me – and one that was written so well.

 

I am a huge fan of the tale of Peter Pan, so instantly, I was drawn into this twisted world that Lani changed Neverland into. I had not once dreamt of Peter aging – or Wendy waiting, desperately, for Peter to return – while she suffered an unthinkable tragedy. But Lani pulled me in and made me a devoted fan of her many works.

              

When it was announced that Lani was taking the rocky road to publishing – I prayed the date would come soon.

              

Through Lani’s blog, I was able to follow her difficult road to get this piece ready for publishing. When it became clear that the Neverland element – along with Peter, Wendy and the other immortal, innocent souls that J.M. Barrie had created – would not be carrying over to the published work, I was upset. I was hurt and sad. What would this tale be without Peter & Wendy?

 

I had doubt. I didn’t want the story that I had fallen in love with to change. But I also had faith in Lani.

 

I could see that she had a plan – a dream. Her talent was without question – great. So, I did not turn my back on her. I heard her out, and followed her on her journey.

From the moment that I started reading the first chapter of Nevermor(vol 1) – the youthful faces of Peter and Wendy – faded from my mind – and dreams of Rifter and the tragic life of Wren and her orphaned brothers, Maxwell and Henry, came to life…  Her wolf-pack of charismatic boys: Nix, Sly, Finn, Mach, Mech and Toss, stole my heart. And embarrassingly, I must admit: I became just as enamored with the ageless boy, Rifter, as I am with my own dream boys…

Nevermor is beautifully-dark and exciting. An adventure that absorbed me well past the turn of its final page. Lani introduced a blond boy with fierce-blue eyes to my dreams. He is Rifter – the guardian of Nevermor – the boy that fights darkness with a smirk on his lips…

 

When I was finished – I was in awe. I simply could not believe that she had banished the timeless faces of Wendy & Peter… There was only Nevermor…

              

With Nevermor being the prequel to Forsaken Dreamscape – I knew after reading it that more than just the details of Peter, Wendy and Neverland would change. While I was now a fan of Nevermor and Rifter – I still wondered how the story that had such an enormous impact on me would pull through. Would I overlook the new world that Lani created? I still kept faith and was too absorbed with Nevermor now – that I had to find out what would change and would I still love the story that overtook all others.

 

Lani has become more than a favorite author of mine – she is my mentor and friend. When she told me that I would be able to get an early preview of Forsaken Dreamscape – I thought I read her message wrong. I honestly read it several times and had the biggest smile on my face. It was an true fangirl moment for me.

 

I read it in less than 2 days. If I had not been previously exhausted – I would have finished it sooner. She did it…

The question:  What would this tale be without Peter & Wendy? was put to an end…and while it didn’t even matter anymore…the answer was indeed – Fantastic.

 

Nevermor is what Forsaken Dreamscape was meant to be born from.

 

The characters that entertained us in Neverland: FD were mimics to a story that was already created – which made them instantly loved – but also left them lacking from the greatness that Lani had to offer.

 

I am happy and relieved to say: that Nevermor’s Forsaken Dreamscape was worth the risk of letting go of the loved classic and reaching for the top of the jagged cliffs of High Mountain where the Sco… Oops :X

 

Without giving any spoilers away – I will simply say that Lani was able to let her dreams and nightmares crawl across the page and come to life. There are changes – but they are towards genius. The characters are new – but they now have hearts and souls, and mainly, you love them and race behind them in their adventure.

 

Every bit of action has been amplified with more adrenalin. Every nightmarish creature is more fearsome – and every kiss is filled with more bliss and passion.

 

Do not have a closed mind. Books and stories are meant for us to open our minds and dream. This Forsaken Dreamscape should not be forgotten or abandoned. I had faith, and I trusted Lani’s vision – and now – they are forever a part of my dreams.

I really appreciate Janie writing out this blurb for me, and I was glad to head her praise as well. She did give me some insight on a few things I’m planning to give more thought to before I release the final version, but I was happy to hear that she was still pleased with it, even though she was skeptical before! And I hope that hearing what she had to say will put some of your own fears to rest.

Janie is the creator of her very own trilogy on Wattpad called Gods and Monsters, and she’s very diligent in posting and interactive with her fans. Check her out on Wattpad if you’re so inclined. Janie1617′s Wattpad profile

Forsaken Dreamscape Playlist

Music is a big part of my writing life, though not always while I’m writing. I do quite a bit of brainstorming during the process and it really helps to have music to match what I’m working on. It’s always a different sort of music for a different project – sometimes the words that inspire me, often just the beat. I have a few generic playlists that I can listen to for some of my Gothic-oriented works, but many of my books have individual playlists all their own.

Forsaken Dreamscape is no different. In fact, you’ve probably already seen my playlist for Nevermor, though I think I broke it down and moved some of those songs to this one. Since I originally wrote it a long time ago, some songs are older, since they’re the same ones that inspired me back then.

You can find and follow me on Spotify to see my playlists, but if not, here are some of my songs.

Breathe Into Me – Red

Radioactive – Imagine Dragons

It’s Not Over – Daughtry

Cold – Crossfade

Let Go – Red

Taking Over Me – Evanescence

The Mighty Fall – Fallout Boy

Codependence – Sixx: A.M.

Monster – Skillet

Whispers in the Dark – Skillet

So Cold – Breaking Benjamin

Animal I Have Become – Three Days Grace

Knights of Cydonia – Muse

The Phoenix – Fallout Boy

Somewhere – Within Temptation

Don’t Your Worry Child(Acoustic Version) – Swedish House Mafia

Immortal – Adema

Not Gonna Die – Skillet

Setting Sail, Coming Home – Darren Korb

Were there any songs that reminded you of Forsaken Dreamscape back when you read it in its first form? Or perhaps any that have reminded you of Nevermor since you read it? I’m always interested in checking out new music!

Dear Wendy – reworking a character

Forsaken Dreamscape rewrites have been going well, though slow and tedious at times, and now that I’m coming down to the final sections where I’ve had to rework so much, I’ll be turning to another important task: adjusting the main character and truly bringing her from the old Wendy to the new Wren.

It’s true that they are similar as I intended, but reading through it, even with the name changes, I can tell that there is still something wrong with her. So as I go back through it again, I’ll be examining her character and motives a bit more closely, and here are a few of the things that I feel the need to adjust:

She’s not crazy – During the course of editing Forsaken Dreamscape, not just this time but wayyyyy back since the beginning, Wendy/Wren has gone through many changes as far as her behavior and degree of sanity.  She’s always started out in an asylum, which was a big element that I wasn’t willing to change (somehow I always love dealing with mad people) and this is a detail that is important to fans, so it remains as it is.  In the beginning (2002 or something; it’s been a long time!) she went from having very childish behaviors, as if her time in the asylum had actually driven her insane and caused her to mentally stop aging because she didn’t want to grow up – and then I eventually took her to a point where she was faking her behaviors in order to keep herself in the asylum to wait for deliverance. This time, I’ve gone even further in that direction.

I’ve always been very interested in Victorian life – specifically asylums – and I’ve come to discover a few things that perhaps I didn’t know back then, the main of which is that a person (woman in many cases) did not necessarily have to be stark-raving mad to be admitted to an asylum.  In Wren’s case, it does make sense that she should belong there after what she is accused of (and blaming it on a fairy, no less) but Wren is fully aware of her circumstances. Perhaps she has been affected by her unfortunate life, but she is not crazy, and she is not a child.

She’s too weak sometimes; personality-wise – Because of events in Nevermor and the realizations she reached, her former helplessness and compliance seem to be out of place now. And what’s more, they are annoying. I think this has always annoyed me about her, but when she was Wendy, I felt I had more boundaries, needing to match her up to the way she was in the former Peter Pan stories. Now that she is my own character, I can watch her grow on her own.

It has been a theme in modern Peter Pan-related works to paint the female character (usually not Wendy, but sometimes) with a childish, but tougher female attitude. Like she has to be a tomboy to be able to hang with so many guys; she has to be willing to pick up a sword, etc. While I have never intended for my female lead to be a warrior, I was still unhappy with her because she never had the strength of mind that would make her more than a puppet in the whole scheme of things. I want to bring her out of that and improve her without turning her into Xena. (Please tell me you know Xena… Okay, without turning her into Katniss.)

She cries a lot! – And I mean A LOT! She’s always tearing up or feeling like crying or actually crying. In fact, the word ‘tear’ appears 33 times and the word ‘cry’ appears 34 times (though not always applying to Wren). Still, that’s too much crying! (There’s no crying in Nevermor!! Except on special occasions.)  I can appreciate the power of a good cry for a character, but not as much as she seems to bring out the waterworks. I’d rather her handle her misfortunes with a silent dignity. (But I haven’t hardened her or anything. She’s still a bit emotional, as well she should be.)

She relies too much on blind faith – While this will still come into play somewhat, I hated how she pushed so many problems from her mind based on the idea of ‘Rifter said so, so it must be true’. While that behavior might be based on a character like Wendy from the old Peter Pan stories, Wren has grown and can have a bit more personality she was lacking before.

Now she has more of a backstory that I can draw from – This is true for all of the characters, actually. Since I went back and worked with Nevermor, I know where Wren and the rest of them have been. I know about their recent past, the subtle quirks of their personalities, and how the plot arc has affected them, which does occasionally change the way they act in certain situations… That should be fun. It’ll add a little bit of surprise for those who have read it before.

So, again I turn to the questions. For those who have read Neverland: Forsaken Dreamscape as a fanfiction, what did you like most about Wendy’s character, and what did you hate?

—

As far as my progress, I’m into a more advanced fine-tuning stage. It’s been a real battle and still is, correcting all the head-hopping, changing a lot of the details and just generally adding more to the story so that it can be better. Lately, I feel like all I’ve been doing is cutting stuff, so after cleaving a fair amount from the story, I have around 142K words right now. It’s slightly shorter than Nevermor, but there are still a few bits I’m thinking of adding, I just haven’t done it yet. I originally released Nevermor a bit too early, I think, without really giving it the editing love it deserved. Editing takes a loong time, especially with a looong document, but I’ve learned a few tricks. Still, I’m going to spend these last few months giving  Forsaken Dreamscape the editing polish it needs to be perfect the first time.

For those who are curious, it took me about 6 months AFTER I released Nevermor to really edit it like I wanted to. So, all published versions of it are excellent now.

I guess that’s about it for now! More news to come!

Forsaken Dreamscape – Official Description

To start us off on the road to Forsaken Dreamscape‘s publication, it seems only right that I talk a bit about the book, where the story is going at this point, and give a few hints, details, and descriptions.

If you want to be completely surprised, you don’t have to read this stuff.  Sometimes even the smallest details ruin things for some people, and you’ll enjoy it more if you’re surprised. However, for those who are already in the know about this book and are concerned about the changes from the old version, this is the place you want to be!  Take it as a warm-up exercise. Get used to the new names in this context and it’ll seem right to you when you read the entire thing.

And if you HAVEN’T READ NEVERMOR YET…. well, you should. :p

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Description – Following the plot arc

“This is why you are here, I expect.  You would hope to save this forsaken dreamscape of ours.”

When Wren left Nevermor, she didn’t intend to stay away forever.  She’d wanted to make her home in the secret realm of freedom and dreams.  Rifter had promised not to forget her.

Four years have passed, and she has not seen him since that day.  He did not return for her as he promised, and life has not been kind to her otherwise.

Now 19, Wren is shut away in an asylum, accused of leading the young orphans of Miss Nora’s Home to their deaths – urging them off the roof with the promise that they could fly.  Nevermor seems far beyond her reach but she has never forgotten it, and in her absence, it has been forsaken.

Under a cloud of mysterious darkness, the land has died.  Even Rifter himself has been warped in a way that gives him a ghastly appearance – and he has aged, even against his promise never to do so.  Worst of all, the boys have all left him, each going his own way after horrible events took place. 

What happened in her absence?  Why has everything fallen apart?

At Rifter’s request, Wren sets out across the broken world to gather the wolf pack so that they might take back the land that is rightfully theirs.  They will no longer heed their leader for unknown reasons, but they will listen to her. 

Out of love and trust, Wren agrees, but she finds out quickly that things are not all as they seem, and everyone has a different story to tell.

 

Short Description:

Forsaken Dreamscape is the second book in Lani Lenore’s Nevermor trilogy, a dark fantasy based on the legend of Peter Pan.

Four years have passed since Wren left Nevermor – since Rifter promised that he wouldn’t forget her.  Now 19, Wren is shut away in an asylum, accused of madness and of murders she didn’t commit.  When Rifter finally comes for her, it is not a moment too soon, and in her absence, Nevermor has changed.  Under a cloud of mysterious darkness, the land has died.

At Rifter’s request, Wren sets out across the broken world to gather the wolf pack, now separated, so that they might take back the land that is rightfully theirs.  Out of love and trust, Wren agrees, but she finds out quickly that things are not all as they seem, and everyone has a different story to tell.

___

I’ll use both of these descriptions in different instances I’m sure, but they give a pretty clear idea of what the story is for this book. In it’s simplest form, Forsaken Dreamscape follows in the vein of the first book and is a dark fantasy (that’s fantasy with horror elements) action-adventure with heavy mystery elements and romantic themes as well – because what’s an epic tale without a little bit of everything?

Like the first book, it is written in third person, and while the readers may get to see into the heads of many different characters, the story is told mainly through what the main character, Wren, sees and discovers – which is also why this book takes place 4 years after the other, because Wren has not been back to Nevermor in that amount of time. (Hm, I wonder why…)

Because of the time lapse, things have changed.  If you’ve read Nevermor, you know where things left off. Kind of a cliffhanger, right?  Forsaken Dreamscape is going to show the effects of the events that took place in Nevermor, exploring the toll taken on the world and the people in it.

I’m aiming for a mid-February release date, but with recent updates to the Smashwords and Kindle services, it may come up for preorder before then (maybe before Christmas if I can swing it).

Any questions, comments, or cheering so far?  Come on, I know you can’t wait!

Project Nevermor 1 Year Anniversary!

It’s September, and that means it’s been a year since I started this blog and this project. (Has it really been that long??) This is a great milestone in the process of this series, and I thank all of you for sticking with me!

Since it is September, that means there are only 5 more months until the release of book 2 in the Nevermor trilogy: Forsaken Dreamscape! I know that seems like a long time, but it’ll be here in a flash, and hopefully I can provide enough information, previews, and hints to keep you satisfied until then.

So, this post pretty much kicks off the next five months! This year is flying by – for me anyway. The darkness is coming, and it’ll be here soon!

Most of you already know what Forsaken Dreamscape is about, and many of you have probably read the old version. Some of you haven’t, however, and this will be new to you in some respects. But either way, it’s going to be a great new experience for everyone!

I know it’s a bit early perhaps, but I’ve swapped the blog over to a Forsaken Dreamscape theme, even though I will continue to give news on the progress of the first book as well. Also, don’t forget about my official website, where you can purchase my books directly from me! lani-lenore.com

Additionally, some of you have probably noticed the little ‘Donate’ button on the side over there, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet. It’s basically for those who would like to donate to the book series, even though the Kickstarter campaign didn’t go through. It’s just a simple transaction directly through Paypal. If you just want to send a few dollars along to help me out, that would be much appreciated. I’m on the verge of bringing Nevermor into hardback and also entering it into several indie book contests, which will cost me.  I’m looking at several hundred dollars which has to come out of my own pocket!  Any help would be welcome and appreciated!!

Okay, enough about that. I’m going to start providing information about Forsaken Dreamscape (hopefully starting this week) but for now, I’d like to open the floor to any questions you might have about the new one: things that concern you and the like. Though, try not to ask about things that concern major spoilers. I’m curious to know what you’re looking forward to and what your expectations are for this new version, and I’ll try to address what I can in a later post, or at least take them into account as I go along.

So, what have you been dying to know?

www.lani-lenore.com is live and official!

After working on it for a bit, I’ve finally decided that it’s ready!  My official author site is ready to be viewed!  It’s nothing flashy, but it does the important things that it’s supposed to do: allows me to sell my books without dealing with a middle man who takes a chunk of my profits. Annnnd I can sell my books for a lower price!  Everybody wins!

Get writing news, buy my books at lower prices, and – one of my favorite things – get the books signed!

So, go check it out!: www.lani-lenore.com

Right now, I’m offering a special offer on my website that you can’t get anywhere else!  Buy a print copy of Nevermor from my site, get it cheaper, get it signed, get a Nevermor bookmark and a limited 5×7 postcard, all for cheaper than you can buy it from major booksellers! Don’t miss out!  There are not many packages available!

As for my fans outside the US, you should be able to get an EPUB file to read on your computer if you were unable to have access to my books in your country before.  The files are sold through Gumroad.  I think the currency should convert automatically, even though it is listed a USD. As for print copies, I haven’t quite figured out how to set up my site for more than one mode of shipping, so that’s still a work in progress, but maybe some of that will be resolved with the other thing I’m about to announce…

I’m currently setting up my book with IngramSpark, which *should* not only allow me to print and sell Nevermor in hardback format, but will also distribute the book to more countries and allow hard copies to be sold! It can be printed elsewhere and all those high shipping costs can be eliminated! It’s still a work in progress, but my self-publishing venture has come a long way in a year, and this progress will pave the way for more books in the future!

This is all big news, but there is more great stuff to come this month! I’ll be getting started with Forsaken Dreamscape news very soon!

Exciting News! – (especially for my international fans!)

I’m soon to have my own official author website! This is very exciting for me, because while I have been able post Nevermor news here (and I will continue to maintain this blog), my website will be a place to showcase all my written works and keep up with my book news, but here’s the part that I love best:

I can sell my books straight from the source! (That’s me, by the way)

What does that mean for my readers? Well, it means two things I know you’ll really be happy about.

1: Lower Prices! – Since I’m selling the product directly, I don’t have to account for a middle man taking a cut, so I can actually sell lower and make more!

2: More of my fans will have access to the ebooks! – I’ll be able to sell my books in ebook formats with Gumroad, which means that anyone around the world can purchase copies of my books!

This is exciting for me, and I hope it will be able to bridge a gap I’ve been feeling in the connection I used to feel with my fans. The site isn’t ready yet, but I’m hoping to launch by next month (if I can get it all figured out by then).

I’m making movement on other fronts as well. I just got my book in a real Brick and Mortar Bookstore in my area called Angie’s Book Attic. (Hopefully I can get a picture of that soon) Of course I hope it sells, but just to have it on the shelf there is exciting, and people will walk by it, at least.

I’m still going strong with Forsaken Dreamscape rewrites, and I’ll be talking about that a bit more soon as I get ready to start promoting it a few months early. If you haven’t read Nevermor yet, you should probably get to it! :p

Rewriting an Existing Story vs Writing from Scratch

As many of you know (but for those who don’t) my Nevermor series is based on a Peter Pan fanfiction that I wrote back in the day, approximately 10 years ago. Yet throughout those ten years, I’ve given it a bit of attention from time to time as far as editing and updating the content, gradually improving it along the way, and when I decided to take on this project, I thought I’d be golden.

I made a pretty big mistake – which in reality may not have been a mistake at all. I didn’t READ the one I’d already written, only relied on MEMORY to drive me as I created the new book.  I finished Nevermor and was feeling good about it, and I thought: Okay, the second book is already written.  All I have to do it tweak it some, clean it up a bit, and it’ll be done!

So, so wrong.

While I was able to go in a whole new direction with Nevermor and guessed that I would fix this one accordingly, I hadn’t taken the degree of material that I would have to remove or completely rewrite from Forsaken into account.

In a way, this has been good. I love what I did with Nevermor and I don’t regret it. The rewrites are tedious, but this approach is forcing me to correct things that I didn’t like about the story instead of letting them slide – to really examine the plot and the characters and set things up a bit better.

Consider, there are 10 years of writing experience between where I was and where I am now.  That’s certainly a lot, and worth the effort to capture.

Here are a few of the things that I feel make the rewrites MORE difficult than if I was simply writing it fresh:

Sorting through sections/sentences – There have been many instances in which I’m picking through portions of the rewriting as if looking for rotten spots, trying to decide if I should keep this piece of a sentence and work with it or simply trash it and write another. In the past, I was NEVER able to delete anything I wrote. If I wrote a paragraph, it stuck, even if I stated the same thing in another paragraph later. To say that I can delete portions of my writing truly shows how far I’ve come in understanding what is better for the story.

I added new details in the new book that affect this one more than I thought: It was my intention that all the books should go together, and yet stand alone in their own way. Instead of drawing one long story out over three books, you’re getting three great stories that go together, but also stand alone with their own plot. So, I wasn’t too worried about the new book, Nevermor, being different, but because of the way that I looked into the past and built onto the story, certain details about the characters have been affected. It’s not a bad thing. It gives the characters more life. It just makes the rewriting more difficult.

There is less building and new discovery – The main thing I find discouraging about this one is that I keep getting bored with it as I go along. The reason for this is because I don’t have as much brainstorming going on, and I don’t feel the exciting rush of new ideas as I build this story and watch it unfold, because it is already there. I have built onto a few things, and that was fun, but it’s difficult to remember the contours of this clay I was shaping so many years ago…

When I first started this conversion project, I probably would have told everyone that this was the way to do it:   write the second book first and then go backward. (ha!)  In the end, I’d almost – ALMOST! – rather just be writing this from scratch. It’s going to be awesome in the end, but working on it has seriously been giving me a headache!

But I digress. It is the price that must be paid for art. So, now I turn to it once again.

I find that I keep cutting my wordcount as I delete paragraphs and add new ones, and right now I’m drifting somewhere around 140K, but that’s still a good number. It’s progress!