Artifice of Power Update # 7

Okay, it’s been a week. I had so much fun getting into act 2 this week that by Monday morning, I was almost 5,000 words into my 7,000 word weekly goal. I slowed down from there, but easily made my goal before I got started tonight, ending at 8,800 for the “week.” That’s in quotation marks because I haven’t actually started tonight’s writing yet, so I expect the number to be higher before the end of the night.

Now that I feel like my story is flowing on track, I expect to start wracking up some higher weekly numbers… Except for those Niamsha chapters. She always throws me for a loop! In fact, I was so thrown by her this week that I actually skipped Niamsha’s first act 2 chapter to write one from Sayli’s perspective about the follow-up of her last events. I did go back and work on Niamsha’s chapter again, though, because her events more closely tie with Arkaen and Kilasha, especially at this stage of the book. As a result, I can’t just skip her and write their events. I’m a good thousand words into her first act 2 chapter, where her events really kick into gear. It should be a great progression. Recap of notable writing events this week:

I got some serious politics going with Sayli, which she was being hampered in because of the need to weave Arkaen and Kilasha into that part of the events. Suffice to say, that’s no longer an issue.Kilasha finally got to say Fuck It to the BS of Sentar province, which he was happy about, but basically no one else was.Close to half my word count for the week was out of order, which is usually a concern, but this chapter should be fine written out of order. Also, it was a fun chapter to write!I’m closing in on reaching 40% of my intended word count for this novel! That said, I’m probably over-writing a bit, so I’ll probably write a longer book than I intend and then decide if I can cut it down or if the book was just longer than planned.Other writing thoughts

So I’ve been toying for a few weeks with the idea of writing a different style of novel in October and November while I have this novel on break for initial feedback. My primary hesitation is that this main novel series–and, really, most of the novels I read and just about all other novel ideas I want to write–is a much slower-paced, epic fantasy. The “different” novel would be a fantasy romance (“Romantasy”, if you will). It feels really out of my wheelhouse and also like I’d be trying to jump on a trend that is mostly poorly written, overly rushed books in the current market. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to give that idea a shot, but in case I do… I promise I won’t make it trashy, and I’ll clearly label it romantasy so my epic fantasy readers who aren’t interested in romance don’t pick up a book they’re going to hate. It’s not in consideration because of the trend so much as because I had an idea for one eight years ago and I’m hoping to try out a new writing structure that could help speed up my writing process overall.

But my priority is ALWAYS my epic fantasy, mostly because it’s so much fun to write!