Kyra Halland's Blog, page 46

Author Spotlight: Constance Williams and Lillian Bishop

Introducing Constance Williams and Lillian Bishop, authors of The Witch Lake Chronicles.

1. Tell us a little about yourself.
C - Well, there are two of us - myself and Lillian.  The thing that sets us apart from most co-authors is that we live on different continents.  I live in the United Kingdom, and Lillian in the USA.  We were introduced by a mutual friend more than a decade ago and we’ve been writing together ever since.  Being so far apart presents its own unique set of challenges, but we’ve overcome them and actually learned to love it.  Having two very different views of the world means we always have something new and fresh to contribute and, in the end, it actually has proven to be a real asset to our work.

2. When did you start writing, and why?
C - We’ve both been writing all our lives, really.  I really got the bug when I was in kindergarten and my teacher would give out ‘storybooks’ to people whose writing was good enough.  I was determined that I was going to be one of the first to get one!

L - For me, it was first grade, because of Young Authors, and I loved it so much I never quit! It fit in well with my elaborate storytelling games with the neighborhood kids.

C - When we first started writing together, we would just bat ideas back and forth on a casual basis.  From there things progressed.  The idea to actually publish our work only came a couple of years ago.

3. What do you write, and why? What do you enjoy about what you write?
C - We’ve been known to write all sorts of things, really.  Our current series, though, is young adult paranormal fantasy  After playing around with lots of ideas, we settled on the genre for our first series because it is one we feel really confident in.  Plus - it’s really fun to write!

L - I really think it’s a good genre to be in. It’s popular for a reason, it’s highly entertaining on a number of levels, and it’s the kind of thing you can read through pretty quickly and easily. Life gets pretty busy, so having something that fits with that is a good thing for readers!

4. What is your latest book or series? Any forthcoming books?
C - The Dreamwalker, the first instalment of The Witch Lake Chronicles was released this summer, and we’re working on the sequel, The Protectors, which we hope will be released towards the end of the year

L - We plan to keep the series going for some time, with a third book already plotted!

C - Plus, there’s a totally different series we’re plotting out as well.  We plan on being around for quite some time!

5. "Welcome To My Worlds": Tell us a little about the world of your latest book or series.
L - Contemporary New England America, for starters. We’re working in a world like our own, but with supernatural elements involved that are not common knowledge.

C - The series is based in the town of Witch Lake, which is a somewhat isolated little place.  Not the kind of town that people go ‘oh hey, let’s go there, that’d be great!’  It’s nestled on the shore of Witch Lake itself, which is a large body of water with bluffs at one end, and mostly surrounded by forest.  A beautiful, quiet part of the world.

6. Introduce us to some of your characters. What do you like about them?
C - The Dreamwalker focuses on Sam, a teenage boy who has been homeschooled for the past few years, but who returns to high school for his senior year.  His return is surrounded by all sorts of rumour and conjecture - none of which come anywhere close to the truth.  His story is all about trying to find his place in the world, and discovering who he is and where he fits in.

L - Then there’s Rhionnan. She’s a girl who died when she was 18, nearly a century ago. She’s fiesty, and has little tact when talking to people. She’s a passionate person by nature, which is the driving force behind just about everything she does.

7. A fun fact you would like your readers to know about you or your book.
C - Both Lillian and I have phobias which are specifically mentioned in the book!  We couldn’t resist, though they are pretty hidden.

8. Blog/site link, and where your book is available.
You can find our book, and more about the series, at our website www.witch-lake.com

We’re planning on releasing it in other formats later in the year, so look out!  You can keep up to date by liking us on facebook for new updates - https://www.facebook.com/witchlakechronicles

Author Spotlight: J.J. DiBenedetto

Introducing J.J. DiBenedetto, author of the Dream series. (I've reviewed the first two books, Dream Student and Dream Doctor.)

1. Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m a native New Yorker (although I live in the Washington DC area these days), full blooded Italian (three of my four grandparents came off the boat), a fundraising professional by day, married to my beautiful wife and owner of (or maybe owned by) a tortoiseshell cat.

2. When did you start writing, and why?
I started in high school; I’ve always had the urge to write.  It was always science fiction then, and through college and afterwards.  About 10 years ago, I finally finished something – the first draft of what would become “Dream Student”.  It was a contemporary story rather than far future, starships and aliens sci-fi, and…well, it wasn’t very good.  So it sat for several years, until last year when a friend of mine sold a novel.  I decided, “why not me,” dusted off that first drat, rewrote it from the first word, and here I am now!

3. What do you write, and why? What do you enjoy about what you write?
I guess I’d call my books Paranormal Romance or Paranormal Suspense, but they really cross genres.  There is some romance, and suspense, and mystery and the paranormal twist (the heroine can see other people’s dreams), but it’s difficult for me to really pin down the genre exactly.

I enjoy these books because I’ve come to love these characters (I’d have to, to write five books about them!).  That’s the main thing.  And I like that (I think) I’ve been able to balance the mystery and the paranormal with everyday life and the difficulties we all face.

4. What is your latest book or series? Any forthcoming books?
My series is the Dream Series.  It follows Sara, who we meet in the first book as a college student hoping to go to medical school when her supernatural dreams begin.  The books follow her from there to med school, residency and becoming a doctor (as well as falling in love, getting married and becoming a parent).  They also follow her from confronting a serial killer to figuring out who’s trying to kill one of her teachers, to stopping a mobster and a corrupt politician.

The latest book in the series will be released later this month.  It’s called “Waking Dream” and it introduces something Sara’s never dealt with before – a nemesis.  She meets someone else (outside of her immediate family) who has the same talent for dreaming that she does…but not the same moral sense of what to do with it.

5. "Welcome To My Worlds": Tell us a little about the world of your latest book or series.
The world of the Dream Series is our world.  I try to keep it as real as I can.  The one difference is the time.  The first book takes place in 1989-90 (not at all coincidentally, the same time I was in college), and each book jumps ahead as Sara’s life progresses.  The latest book takes place in January of 2001.

6. Introduce us to some of your characters. What do you like about them?
The heroine of the series is Sara Barnes.  When we first meet her, she’s a fairly typical bookworm.  She’s very shy and focused on her schoolwork.  She’s got a big heart, though, and a best friend who won’t let her stay in her shell.

Her boyfriend (later husband) is Brian Alderson, who’s even shier than Sara at first.  But he’s also very smart, extremely devoted to her, and he’s got a very goofy sense of humor that comes out over time.  He’s also ready to defend Sara and the rest of his family against anything that threatens them.

In the third book, “Dream Child”, we meet Lizzie, Sara’s daughter.  She’s about to turn four, and she’s incredibly precocious.  She’s very bright, friendly, bubbly, compassionate, and as Sara notes “doesn’t pay much attention to the line between good behavior and brattiness.”

7. A fun fact you would like your readers to know about you or your book.
A fun fact about me?  I was a DJ in college (5 to 7 AM Friday mornings!), and to this day I still have my FCC Class III Radio Operator’s License, and it’s still valid.
8. Blog/site link, and where your book is available.
My blog is Writing Dreams (http://www.wrtingdreams.net)

The books are available at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/author/jjdibenedetto).  The first book, “Dream Student,” is also available at Audible.com and on iTunes as an audiobook.

Author Spotlight: Eva Gordon

Introducing Eva Gordon, who's here on her blog tour with Saskia Book Tours to promote her novel Apocalyptic Moon:

I write fantasy and paranormal novels with a strong romantic element. I love to create stories that combine my passion for mythology, romance and werewolf lore. Under my nom de plume, Sadie Winstone, I write steampunk and Victorian era historical and alternative novels.

And to satisfy my taste for the zombie/werewolf genres, Apocalyptic Moon, by The Wild Rose Press an epic paranormal romance, is officially released: May 10, 2013. Available on all formats on Amazon, The Wild Rose Press and soon, Apple, Nook, Kobo. Buy links on my website www.ravenauthor.com

Lycan Gladiator by Corvallis Press coming August 20, 2013. Book 1 in the epic fantasy historical paranormal, Wolf Maiden Chronicles Saga.

More works to follow.

I have a BS in Zoology and graduate studies in Biology. I have taught high school Biology, Environmental Science and Anatomy/Physiology. When not in my den writing, I enjoy world travel, steampunk conventions, hiking, raptor rehabilitation and wolf sanctuaries.

I also teach online workshops on wolf lore ancient falconry and animal lore for Romance Writers of America and other writer groups. If you are interested in my workshops, please contact me.

http://www.ravenauthor.com/
http://evagordon.blogspot.com/

Dr. Dora Adler's life has been in disarray since the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, but when she gets bitten by one of the undead, her whole world is turned upside down. Held captive in a secret underground lab, the tall, muscular hunk in the next cell is her only hope for salvation. Unfortunately, he claims to be a werewolf. Yeah, and she's supposedly a witch.

Dirk Gunderson is an alpha Arbor pack werewolf. Captured and collared, he's sold to the zombie lab in hopes his blood serum can create a vaccine. He needs to escape, but not without the hot little brunette witch.

In the midst of enemy werewolves and the hordes of undead, Dirk and Dora's sexual tension ignites a blaze hotter than the desert highway. Along their journey, they battle the inevitable: a werewolf must never take a witch as a mate.


Where you can purchase this book

Amazon.co.uk
Amazon US
Author Website
The Wild Rose Press
Book Strand
Apple i-bookstore
Sony
Nook

Daughter of the Wildings Book 2 Cover Art!

Just got the preview files of the cover art for Daughter of the Wildings Book 2, which now has a title: Bad Hunting. Here's the full wraparound for the paperback version:
And here's the ebook version:
Many thanks to me-illuminated (Mominur Rahman) for this awesome art! To see more of his work, go to me-illuminated.deviantart.com.

From the Old Story Files: the Origins of Chosen of Azara

For some reason, whenever I count up how many complete novels I've written, I always seem to forget that, buried deep in the "Old Stories" folder in my Projects folder on my computer is a complete draft of the original version of the story that eventually become Chosen of Azara . I was reading back over it yesterday (very gingerly, in the same manner that you might remove that big chunk of prickly pear that's gotten itself stuck in the sole of your sneaker, because too much contact would be painful) and was surprised at how many elements of the original story made it into Chosen of Azara (along with some that, thankfully, didn't).

The seed of the idea that eventually turned into that first novel and finally matured into Chosen of Azara was an image that came into my mind one day, of a highborn young woman alone in the woods, seeing a vision of an unknown man, and then some time later, the man appears, in the flesh, at the door of her home, looking for her.

The earlier story starts with that scene and goes on with the adventure from there. I also discovered that the first story also has a magical talisman that the young woman wears as a necklace, two brothers, a dubious fiance, a lost kingdom, and a king who under normal circumstances should be waaaaay past his "for best quality, use by" date. And, like Chosen of Azara, it's also set in the world of Estelend which I had begun developing probably about the same time or a little earlier.

A lot of writers, especially newer ones, worry that just because one story has the same starting premise and even some more specific plot elements in common with another story, that that makes the two stories the same. You see this on the NaNoWriMo boards a lot - "Am I plagiarizing [movie or book] by having [incredibly broad and common story element] in my story?" (Someone wanted to know if they were plagiarizing George R.R. Martin by including sex in their fantasy novel.)  Or, "This movie stole my plot!" Young wizards going to wizard school (A Wizard of Earthsea, anyone?) or characters who are half-human, half-god (a substantial chunk of Greek mythology) seem to cause particular concern.

The answer is, No, you're not plagiarizing, No one stole your idea, There are no ideas that have absolutely never been done before. Two writers can start out with remarkably similar premises, and even some specific plot elements, and end up with very different stories.

And, in fact, the SAME author can write two very different stories from the same starting point and with the same plot elements.

The original "girl sees strange man in a vision in the forest" story is pretty straightforward. Girl sees vision, dude shows up, girl (accompanied by brothers and dubious fiance) goes off on adventure with mystery dude, lost kingdom, yada yada, (eventual) happy ending.

I wasn't real happy with how that story came out, and in fact the girl got a name and personality change halfway through. She started out as kind of this pathetic spinster would-be-hermit, and eventually eveolved into someone more like the character of Lucie turned out to be. Aside from the main character, the story as a whole didn't do what I wanted it to do, and it certainly didn't do justice to my original idea of the man in the vision.

So I turned my mind (aka the Idea-o-Tron (TM)) to learning more about the guy in the visions. Ancient king, lost kingdom... How in the world is he showing up in visions in the woods right here, right now, to this particular young lady? I started digging more into that, and that was where Sevry and his story (and the very cool time travel technique) came from. But there was more to it than that; how did the war begin, that destroyed Sevry's kingdom? Kingdom-annihilating wars don't just come out of nowhere. So that led deeper into Savaru's history, and to the story of Juzeva.

By the time I'd worked out all this backstory, I realized it wasn't just backstory; the stories of Juzeva and Sevry were too closely connected to Lucie's story, and had too much important information, and were too compelling to me to just be relegated to backstory, to be worked in small chunks into the story of Lucie's adventure. So the new version of the novel started with Juzeva and became an inter-generational tale of the fall and restoration of the kingdom of Savaru. And it turned into a novel that I decided I loved, and was proud to publish (as opposed to the original version, which will remain in the privacy of my hard drive; though I'll never delete it because you never know when something from an old story can be recycled into a new one.)

Book Review: A Story of River

A Story of River, by Lana Axe (read my interview with Lana Axe here)

Kyra's Star Ratings:
Story: * * * *
Characters: * * *
Writing: * * * *
Emotional Engagement: * * *

In A Story of River, a traditional fantasy, elven and human lands are being attacked by an evil sorceror, and an unlikely band of human and elven allies seek the help of River, a powerful water elemental. I found the story enjoyable, and Ms. Axe's traditional fantasy world is charming. The writing is clear and well-crafted, with a minimum of errors (mainly some verb tense issues).

The parts with the antagonist, Ulda, were particularly interesting. He's deliciously nasty and ruthless, with a vivid personality and some really cool magic using gems and living souls. Other than these parts, though, I felt like the novel was just skimming the surface of the story. I would have liked to dig deeper into the minds, hearts, and personalities of the protagonists. There wasn't a lot other than name, position, and race (elf or human) to differentiate them, and the events of the story didn't seem to affect them very deeply. In particular, when one character died, it seemed to have only a brief and minimal impact on the other characters, even the ones who should have been devastated by that character's death. I as a reader was affected by the death of this character, who was one of the more vivid characters, and I was disappointed at the death's lack of impact on the story. In addition, I would have liked more physical description of the characters and their surroundings. A few details are given, but not enough to help me feel grounded in and surrounded by what is really a very charming and interesting fantasy world. I also would have liked to have more description of what the characters are experiencing physically as they go through their adventure, to engage my mind and senses more fully in the story. I wouldn't really consider these things to be faults in the novel; rather, they are ways in which a lot more could have been done with the novel to help it live up to its great potential.

Basically, what I'm getting at with this review is I enjoyed A Story of River and wanted more - not in length (the plot developed and resolved quite nicely and doesn't need to be longer) but in depth.

On the whole, A Story of River is an entertaining, nicely-written read, suitable for young teens through adults. I understand it's Ms. Axe's first novel, and I look forward to more books from her and to watching her development as an author.

The Worst Writing Advice Ever, and How It Nearly Killed My Book

Every author has one. The Book of Eternal Revisions, where you need "just one more draft" to make it "good enough." And of course, each "one last draft" leads to another and another and another...

For me, that book is The Lost Book of Anggird . Aside from the, oh, sixteen years or so it took me to sort out the story and characters and finish the first draft, this book has been through more revisions than any other of my books. And not because the first draft was that bad; really, looking back on it now, it was really pretty good, as far as first drafts go.

No, the reason why I ended up going over and over and over it again was a bit of advice that prevails on various writing sites and forums (actually two bits of advice that form kind of an evil, story-eating symbiosis of doom): Before unleashing your novel on the world, polish it till it gleams, and a major part of this polishing is the removal of every unnecessary word.

At the time that I completed the draft of Lost Book and began the unending cycle of revisions and edits, I was heavily under the influence of a certain forum popular among writers, which is especially focused on "professional" writing - that is, writing for conventional publication. The advice quoted above is prevalent on that forum. I was feeling my way back into writing original fiction after a long stint as a prolific fanfiction writer, and wondering if maybe I should consider testing the waters in the shark, er, agent pool again, so I paid diligent attention to everything said by the "experts" on the forum, and tried to apply it to my writing. (The thought of starting to query agents again lasted about 5 minutes, then died a swift and well-deserved death.)

And, over three years of revising Lost Book according to those guidelines, here's what happened: When I got the feedback on Version 7 of Lost Book back from my test readers a few months ago and went in to do this last big round of revision, I realized that the prose was mushy and bland, almost entirely devoid of any color or personality whatsoever. I've been complimented on what people call my smooth, clear writing style, and received comments to that effect on Lost Book, but what I noticed went beyond smooth and clear.

What I had done in the pursuit of producing "acceptable" writing was I had stripped out much of the lively language, interesting details, and other bits of personality from my writing. I started reading the manuscript and almost immediately began thinking, That doesn't say what I meant, and, Wow, that sentence was boring - made boring in my attempt to smooth out the flow and present my ideas in the fewest words. It was like unflavored, watery Cream of Wheat, or that rice cereal you feed to babies. With no lumps or sharp edges or interesting sticky-out bits - they'd all been smoothed out and polished into oblivion.

Now, the advice to avoid unnecessary words isn't all bad. It's rooted in some good principles. In general, it's good to avoid repetitious redundancies and long passages that have nothing whatsoever to do with the story, and excessively purple prose.

But carried too far, you end up with "See Spot run. Spot is a dog." Or this thrilling passage from Lost Book, "There was a fire. The man was scared. He stole a horse."

Just kidding. It's not that bad. But when I started reading the manuscript to do this revision, I just knew that it wasn't right, it wasn't my voice.

In the meantime, since starting to realize that those bits of advice from that writer's forum aren't neccesarily the best, I'd also started reading Dean Wesley Smith's blog. Mr. Smith has a completely opposite approach to revision: don't. Or if you have to, revise as little as possible. I also took Holly Lisle's online How To Revise Your Novel course*, which takes the approach that you identify what works with your story and what doesn't, fix what doesn't work, and get it all done in one big revision then get the novel out the door and get to work on the next one.

I need a little more revision than no passes or one pass, but I've taken the spirit behind Mr. Smith's and Ms. Lisle's revision philosophies and formulated my own advice: Don't revise to other people's rules, don't revise the life out of your story, use the words and sentence structures that most closely say what you want to say in the way you want to say it, and trust your own creative vision.

So with this go-round on Lost Book, what I'm doing (besides making the revisions suggested by the test reader feedback) is adding back in the life and style and individual voice that I'd stripped out in previous revisions. As I read, I'm paying attention to the difference between what's on the page and the way the prose comes naturally into my mind and changing what's on the page to my natural voice. I'm adding back in details, fun asides, extra lines of dialogue that give more insight into mindsets and relationships, and lots of other things to make it a fuller, richer story told in my voice. So far I've added back in about 7,000 words, even while trimming some things that did still need to be cut. And, for the first time in a long time, I'm excited about this story again, and I can't wait until it's ready to share with my readers.

*Disclaimer: the link to How To Revise Your Novel is my affiliate link. If someone buys the course through that link, I get a commission. I don't recommend the course because I'm an affiliate; I recommend the course because it's made my revisions deeper, more effective, and faster; because I've learned a ton about writing better FIRST drafts from it, and because if you want to publish your writing, whether self-pub or traditional publishing, that course is the best $250 you can spend on your writing. It's a tough, mind- (and gut-) wrenching course, but you'll learn to see your novels in ways you never did before and make them better than ever.

And Then There Were Six

So I finished the first draft of Book 4 of Daughter of the Wildings and was planning Book 5, when one night it came to me, as I was brushing my teeth, that there needs to be a sixth book in the series.

I panicked, wondering if there was enough story left to make up a whole other book. But as I thought about it that night (I usually lay awake late at night working out plots and story problems in my mind) and sat down and did a bunch of scene brainstorming and story development the next day, I realized that yes, there does have to be a sixth book, and there's plenty of story for two books instead of one. So a Book 6 there will be.

I think I've known, way deep down, for a long time that it would take another book to finish off the series properly. For a long time I had envisioned the events of Book 5, which moves the story from the frontier - the Wildings - into the civilized land of Granadaia, as being the climactic events of the series. But that just didn't seem right. The series is called Daughter of the Wildings, and it's about that uncivilized frontier land, its unique magic, and the connection between Lainie Banfrey (the Daughter in the series) and the land and its magic. Finishing it off in Granadaia without coming back to what is the heart of the series would be an unsatisfactory ending that doesn't fit with what the series is about. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the events in Granadaia are the leadup to the climactic events, and not the actual climax themselves. The story has to come back to the Wildings, to the threats to the land and the people that have been building up through all the other books, and to the real significance of Lainie's unique power and her relationship to the land, and also integrate Silas fully into that relationship, in order to tie everything together and bring the story to a meaningful and satisfying conclusion.

As I thought this through, I thought that maybe the Granadaia part and the return to the Wildings part could just be two halves of the same book. But the more I developed the storyline, the more it became clear that the two halves of the book are also two totally different story lines, each with its own central story problem, instigating events, development, and conclusion. I aso realized that if the book was going to be an equivalent length with the previous books in the series, I was going to have to skim over or leave out a lot of important stuff, or else the book was going to be twice as long as the other books.

Therefore, the obvious answer, which waited for that brainless and bored moment of brushing my teeth to hit me upside the head, is to split "Book 5" into two books.

I think I'm about ready to start writing the last two books. As with the other books so far in the series, there's this feeling of jumping into the deep end without really knowing how deep the water is or what's waiting in there. I know where the books start, and where they end, and have a general idea of what happens in between, but very few details are clear. But so far it's worked out well, so I just have to make that leap of faith two more times. I think I'll just write straight through, without stopping between books 5 and 6, since I'd already been planning them as a single unit. With hard work and a minimum of interruptions, I hope to finish the drafts of both books by October.

So, yay! More time with Silas and Lainie! And none of this is even taking into consideration my idea for a possible follow-up series.

Note on the story blurbs for Daughter of the Wildings: All six are up. I apologize for any cheesiness, especially in the last few. Writing blurbs is hard, especially if you're trying not to give away any spoilers. And I want to stipulate that in my books, suggesting that the hero and heroine end up together is not a spoiler. In addition to being fantasy, my books are also romance, and to be a proper romance (as opposed to more general love story), you have to have the Happily (even if things aren't easy) Ever After. It's expected, as a hallmark of the genre. (Plus I hate unhappy endings.) The question isn't if they end up together, but how .

In the meantime, edits on The Lost Book of Anggird are progressing apace (I'm planning a blog post on the worst writing advice ever and how it nearly killed Lost Book), along with the first major revision of Sarya's Song . Maybe I'll do a post on that too, how I struggled with it for years, then applied some very helpful story-planning techniques, and now have the least-broken first draft I think I've ever written.

Daughter of the Wildings Series Overview Posted

I finished the draft of Book 4 of Daughter of the Wildings the other day, at around 41,500 words - a good bit longer than I thought it would be. Since I tend to "write short," I'm sure it'll end up longer after revisions. I'd had the ending of that book in mind for a long time, even before I knew exactly what that installment would be about; I knew where I wanted it to hit on the overall series story arc. It was fun to finally write that scene. I've also had the first few scenes of Book 5 worked out for just as long, and now I'm developing the rest of that book. Should be ready to start writing soon. The series has developed in some surprising ways since I wrote Book 1, which I didn't even intend to be the first book of a series; I've always written stand-alones, and it was supposed to also be a stand-alone, but it didn't work out that way! Anyway, I'm kind of pleased and surprised by how well all the different story threads are pulling together in my planning, and it seems like every day I get a new insight into how everything in the series works together.

Of course, these are things I didn't have in mind when I wrote the first couple of books. So once the draft of Book 5 is done, the plan is to revise the entire series as a single unit, as though it was all one book, to go back and make sure all those different bits of story are the way they should be early on. That's an advantage of writing the whole series before you start to revise or release any of it; you can let the story develop how it wants to and then after you get to the end you can go back and make the earlier parts match up with the later parts, why certain things happened, what's going on in the background, and things that turned out to be important that you didn't think were all that important at the time. I'll go back to the beginning and bring it all together so the whole series is solid and consistent and hangs together.

Now that I'm planning Book 5 and have a pretty good idea of what actually happens in it, I've written quick blurbs or teasers for every book in the series, so you, my readers, can get an idea of what's in store. For now, it's on the Still to Come page, but I hope to soon be able to get Daughter of the Wildings set up on its own book page.

Daughter of the Wildings Book 4, 5, and Beyond!

Updates on Camp NaNo progress with Daughter of the Wildings Book 4:
I crossed the 30,000 word mark yesterday with still a good chunk of story left to go, so I raised my word count target to 35,000, just to keep it interesting. After today's writing, I'm at 31,902/35,000 words.

Like I keep saying, this series has been incredibly fun to write. Silas and Lainie are probably my favorite characters ever - I love all my characters, but there's something special about them. And I never thought that writing about a cattle drive could be so much fun, either, but it is, especially when you throw in a little magic and a little romance. So I'm coming up to the end of Book 4 and starting to plan Book 5, and feeling both a little excited and a little sad because I don't want to be done with Silas and Lainie. And then while I'm figuring out the central conflict for Book 5, which is the main conflict that the whole series has been driving towards, I get an idea for a follow-up book, or maybe even a series! I don't want to make any promises right now; the idea will need some story development to see if it really has the potential to go anywhere, but the central story question of Book 5 brings up some interesting issues involving the larger world that the series is set in. It would also veer somewhat into steampunk-ish territory, which is a genre I haven't read a lot, except for the Emperor's Edge series by Lindsay Buroker (which I highly recommend!), so I'll need to add some to my ever-growing reading list.

I'm also getting near the end of the analysis phase of the first major revision of Sarya's Song . After some close plot and world-building analysis, I'm pleased to say that the Plot Hole of Doom, which kept this story in limbo for 18 or 19 years, has indeed been successfully eradicated :-D In the words of another one of my favorite writers, Scott Lynch (author of the Gentlemen Bastards series):

"Some errors can be rectified with the Painless Scalpel of Minor Adjustment. Others require the Burning Sword of Righteous Rearrangement. This particular knot in the story will have to be handled by the Sherman Tank of Paradox Eradication."

And so, onward.