Tag Archives: the candlemaker’s merman

Author #9 – Deadlines and Debates

Hello again! You’ve noticed I’ve stopped calling these ‘Liliy is a blank’ – why? Now that I’ve got links to these ‘series’ up top…it seemed redundant. XD I’m still keeping the Author #X though…ha ha. For me.

It’s crunch time this week (much to the dismay of my WaM fans…) and it’s time to put the stone to the grind, and the pedal to the metal, and all that jazz. (To quote Peggy Hill: “Oh yeah!”)

Children of Hephaestus

I originally made my (new) goal for finishing the 2nd draft edit for the 14th, but my editor has expressed if I could get it to her a little earlier, it’d be more convenient due to some free time that’s appeared. She said not to push myself, but since I’ve already missed my original deadline for December 31st, I’m going to try and push to get this done by the 11th. That way, I have the 12th to transfer mark-ups to Scrivener, which means my editor should have it by the 13th…

Here’s to making that happen. *cheers with a cup of Mountain Dew*

The Candlemaker’s Merman

Ironically, in my attempts to do some editing last night for CoH, I ended up writing 1500 words for this instead. So, productivity from my procrastination! At least it was that instead of getting lost in Skyrim again… In any case, Book 2 is now halfway done with it’s raw draft, and things are looking up.

I think I’m going to try and push out four or five books before going back to edit the first one. That way, by book five I’ll have enough of a grasp on my characters that I can analyze them a tad better in the first two books. One character in particular is turning out completely different from what I first envisioned for him, so I want to see where that goes.

Random: Having your keyboard sit on an uneven surface is really annoying when it’s rattling back and forth in a teeter-totter motion.

Still enjoying the series though and I can’t wait to share it with you! :D

Author Blog

Today’s recommendation? Mike Duran. I think I discovered Mike while looking up Christian Horror topics, and followed his Twitter. I haven’t picked up one of his books yet, but I have been reading his blog. He likes to cover controversial topics and sticks to his guns without shame. I think the best part of that is reading the comments–all of them insightful, and bringing up debate over such topics as Taking the Lord’s Name in Vain.

The main post that caught my attention, while mostly referring to the Christian genre, is Why You Should Review Books You Don’t Like. I think this can be applied to all genres and readers, because at the heart of the matter it focuses on the importance of honest, thought out reviews.

Read for the posts or the comment debates, but either way it’s educational. :D

Liliy is an Author #8

So, the past two weeks were highly unproductive for me.

I spent nearly all my time reading South Park fanfiction (don’t look at me like that, the week before I left for vacation I did nothing but watch South Park on the official site and I craved more of it despite my lack of internet connection…) and watching the Food Network (I love you Iron Chef).

Writing wise, I think I edited two pages of Children of Hephaestus. To quote Big Mac: “Yup.”

But! Christmas and New Year’s are over and it’s back to work for me! Sadly, I only managed to get work done on Jupiter (About 1500 words?), and the second Book of the Candlemaker’s Merman series (Which is currently sitting around 7500 words).

Unfortunately, this means I definitely dropped the ball on getting the editing of CoH’s draft 2 finished by the end of December. My new goal is January the 14th. *rolls up sleeves*

…wish me luck. Seriously. I’m going to need it.

Liliy is an Author #7

Hello again! My crazy December continues. It’s been wreaking havoc on my comic, WaM, but so far writing hasn’t been too deterred.

The Candlemaker’s Merman

I finished the rough, rough, rough draft of the first book in the series. It’s sitting around 19,000 words, and I figure it’ll hit a nice 30,000 once I fill out the barebones plot with some lovely character development. The beta readers have it at the moment, so I look forward to their feedback before I start digging in too deep.

In the meantime, I’ve started book two, and it has about 2,000 words to its name. And speaking of progress, I had a lovely chat with my brother and I think we came up with some plots for later books. So yay!

I really like this series–it gives me the same sort of joy I get writing WaM, so I want to do it right. That means no slip-ups in the release schedule that I start…so you get to wait longer for the books to start coming out, but after that, they should come out on the intended schedule.

Now if I could only figure out what I want the schedule to be…how long do you mind waiting between short  novellas in a continuing series? (That’s reasonable…don’t say a book a week, or I’ll have to have a buffer of about what? ten to twenty books before you even get one… XD).

Children of Hephaestus 2: Jupiter

18,000 words out of the intended 120,000k. Not bad. Honestly not much to report on this front. I’ll probably stop mentioning it unless something big happens. XD

Children of Hephaestus

Editing is my Achilles heel. I can write like a hare, but I edit like a tortoise. I had four hours of a car ride with nothing to do but edit and I still only managed to mark up three chapters.

Must find a faster way to read out loud and edit at the same time…

Especially since I don’t intend to even start releasing Candlemaker until this one is out. :D *thumbs up*

Author Blog Post

I haven’t been reading much lately, but I just opened up this blog post to read…at this very moment. We can read it together! XD

How Much Should an Ebook Cost? From Seth Godin at The Domino Project.

Liliy is an Author #5

And another week has come and gone~ And I’ve got a bit of progress! I’ve also decided to start listing my goals once in a while to see if I meet them. This is the fun part about blogging, I think. Tallying progress! :D

NaNoWriMo/Nonnative Ice

It’s done. I won (just barely passing 50,000) and we shall now forget about it. :D

Children of Hephaestus

Editing should go much more quickly now that NaNoWriMo is out of the way. I’ve currently completed five chapters with hand editing, and wrote two new scenes to help establish some characters earlier in the story.

Goals:

  • Have the draft edited and back to my editor by January 1st.
  • Figure out what I’m doing for the cover (Going back to scratch and design it again or hire someone–I can’t make up my mind.)
  • Release final novel in late spring (April/May 2012)

Children of Hephaestus 2: Jupiter

Moving along smoothly with the sequel as well. I think I’m at about 15,000 words give or take. My current goal is to get the bulk of it written, so I can finally work in the ten or so disconnected scenes that don’t currently have a snug little home in the manuscript.

Goals:

  • Have first draft finished by the time Children of Hephaestus is released.

The Candlemaker’s Merman

This is coming along nicely, too. It’s a much lighter story than most of my other works, and has a much more friendship/fantasy basis. And it’s funny. I should add that in. I forgot how much fun it was to write humorous situations.

The end goal for this is a series of connected novellas. The first book is currently a little over 9,000 words and I can see it ending happily at around 30k to 40k.

You might still have to wait a bit to see it though, as I want at least three books to be finished (but not necessarily edited) before I start to release them. This is one time where having a buffer would do me some good. *thumbs up*

Goals:

  • Finish the first book by February and start on the second.
  • Finish three books by the end of 2012.
  • Have at least the first book published by the end of 2012.

Author Blog

R.L. Stine’s Twitter When I was younger, I was addicted to Goosebumps (like every other kid my age). I ate these books up. Recently, someone pointed me to R.L. Stine’s Twitter feed and the rest was history. The man’s hilarious and definitely worth the follow.

Yeah, this isn’t really writing advice–but it’s fun and author related. Plus, if this isn’t proof that the books you loved as a kid stick with you, I don’t know what is.

Liliy is an Author #4

“I’m having a Me Party~ A party just by myself~ A Me Party~ I don’t need nobody else~ I’m having a Me Party~ I’m the first and last to show~” *sings along to Me Party from the Muppets 2011 Soundtrack* Can you tell I’m obsessing over the Muppets lately? Because I am. :D

But that’s Fangirlin’ leaking over. You all want the writing scoop for the week. *puts hands on waist, cocks hip and winks*

Room of Maggots

You’ve probably seen me mention this on Twitter, or saw it on DA. If not — I’m letting you know again! It’s the first short story I’ve posted in…a long time, and I’m pretty happy with it. To copy my description from the DeviantArt Page:

Room of Maggots by Grey Liliy. A Horror Short Story, Approx. 5000 words. Self-Edited.

Rosie goes to the cellar to retrieve a glass of wine for her husband’s dinner party, but finds herself trapped in the dark with a dead body when the door vanishes. With only a single light, and the smell of rotting flesh assaulting her senses–how is she to get out?
—
This is the product of forcing myself to write something in the first person.

I do not like the First Person point of view–in fact, I can rather say that I despise it. I barely tolerate reading it (though I will force myself if the subject appeals enough), and I can’t stand writing in it.

However, I wanted to challenge myself–so I sat down and forced myself to write something in first person. A year or so later, I finally forced myself to edit the work and make it presentable enough to share.

If you need a true example of my disgust for this particular point of view, consider this: I forced myself to write in first person, and what came of it is a room full of maggots.

So far the response has been good–for what I was going for. At least one person who read it said they were glad they hadn’t eaten beforehand. So, I guess that means goal accomplished. *thumbs up* Also, it confirmed that I probably needed the 16+ age warning. I don’t think it’s particularly bad myself (I’m seeing 13+), but best to play it safe with these things.

You can read Room of Maggots on Deviantart if you have an account, or over on Broken Pocket. :D

NaNoWriMo/Nonnative Ice

48k – only 2k to go and I’m done with this thing. How have I gotten the word count as high as it is? By rewriting scenes. My dislike of the story, and the total mess of the plot line, have made coming up with new material more difficult than I’d like to admit.  As such, I’ve been looking at stuff I’ve already written and tried to turn it into something at least bearable. It’s amazing how high your word count goes when you take a scene that was 200 words and expand it to 500-600 words–rinse and repeat. I was hitting 2k a day just from that. *thumbs up*

If you’re curious how that works, when I’m not sure/don’t like what I’m writing, my scenes end up bare-bones action and dialogue. So what was originally:

“How are you feeling?” Ida said.

Olivier shrugged, “Been better.”

will turn into:

     “How are you feeling?” Ida said, voice unsure of herself. She gripped the front of her skirt, tightly. Olivier hadn’t looked at her in over ten minutes. He just kept staring at the wallpaper print on the wall.

     Olivier shrugged, vaguely aware that Ida had been talking to him. She prodded his shoulder with a finger, letting the words finally sink into his skull. Olivier answered reluctantly, “Been better.”

If you’re curious, I went from 10 words to 69. This adds up really quickly. :D

The Candlemaker’s Merman

My beta reader, unnamed until I know it’s okay to say the name, is awesome. Beta’s already read the 6k or so words I had written, which means I have…nothing more to send. But Beta feedback is quite useful, so I have some guidance on what questions still need to be answered in the future. :D

Children of Hephaestus

I edited…three pages. :D Reading aloud takes forever. Though, I think it’s because I’m catching all the things I missed before and having to stop every sentence to make a mark or two–that tends to slow the process.

At this rate, I don’t think my editor is going to recognize the book–in a good way.

Author Tool

One Page Per Day This is actually what I used to write the first draft of Room of Maggots last year. I’ve given up on it since I got Scrivener (<3), but I still think it’s a nice tool. The basic premise is you can only write–get this–one page at a time. :D

You can write more than one a day, but you still have to manually add the next page. At the time I was using it, I made sure to write one page a day, as suggested, and it worked out pretty well. Try it out if you’ve got the time. :)