Surprise. Surprise.

Got surprised the other day when doing the "name search" bit.  WolfSinger Publications has Taking Vengeance, my novelette about Mariah and Ashton discovering the threat posed by Trestemontan magic, listed on their site in the middle of their 2011 list.  Guess that means it'll be published somewhere around June to August -- right when I'll be doing the traveling thing.  Guess you can't have everything.

Worse, it means I have to get serious about this platform thing ... but am disinclined.  Maybe I'll feel different when I finally get my illustrations up on the website.

Progress on the pictures!  Take a look at the home page illustration of Mariah with Ashton and Linden.  I think I drove the poor artist crazy with revisions, but I really like the result.  Now I have to find or write the copy to go with it while the artist puts in the color.  At the moment, can't remember where I saved my previous draft copy -- if I did.

Linden, Mariah and Ashton -- the Triad who launched a Rebellion against persecution but became estranged after they won freedom for the Half-Elven.  [by Igor Glushkin].

Writing Decisions

Decisions.  Decisions.  I seem to be doing nothing but make decisions about my writing because everything keeps changing.  The publishing world hasn't changed as much as what's going on it my head.  The more I think I know what I'm doing, the less I seem to know.

The biggest change:  I'm no longer writing to amuse myself.  When first writing about the Half-Elven of the Far Isles, I had this scene of a discontented woman standing on a cliff edge over the ocean in a gale with her long reddish hair blowing away from her head appear in my head.  Imagine my surprise when Mariah turned out to be a Half-Elven (though actually she's a true elf, but that's another story), and her daughter had just been almost killed by sea raiders.  The words flowed as I wrote about events before and after that initial scene until I had over 400,000 words.  [Chopped it into three novels plus bits and pieces.]

That opening scene and the subsequent events became the novelette that WolfSinger Publications bought for release in 2011 -- Taking Vengeance.

Now I'm fighting to write short stories ... not my strong point ... for Renna's Tales.  After struggling for a week I finally got the words flowing.  The problem.  I kept writing summaries about the action and where it fit into the long history of my Half-Elven ... rather than showing the adventure at hand.  --  This is complicated because the events Renna gossips about are forming into a novel of its own about the struggle for power after the Treaty with the Suthrons created the Marches.

I think I'm on the "write" track for the current short story now.  So, a decision ... do I continue to play with the Half-Elven ... or do I go back to the middle grade stuff I've written which has just as slim a chance of being published?

Being rather dense, I think I'll try to do both.

Another change:  I entered my website url for "free" search engine exposure.  So, I've adjusted the counter on my site.  Maybe I should have just left it with 400 viewings, but I wanted to see if the free sites made any difference in the visitors.  I'll keep you posted.  

One thing I've notice is that my traffic from foreign countries for this blog has increased the last couple weeks.  But, it's not the result of the search engines.  Their confirmations warned me that it'd be weeks before the freebies got crawled.  If I wanted things done faster, I could pay for their accelerated service.  --  I'm sticking to my orginal plan of getting some original artwork up on the site and then use the GoDaddy submission service.  [Incidently, the artwork's progressing.]

Wrestling the Short Story

Still ... trying to cobble together a short story for Renna's Tales.  The piece is progressing, but not as fast as I had expected.  [The story of everyone's life, I'd guess.]  My hopes of knocking out a short story [around 3,000 words] a month have withered for lack of skill.  One problem:  making a magically powerful Half-Elven vulnerable.

While I'm not particularly happy about the delay, I think the effort is worthwhile ... if only as a training exercise.  I'm into "keep it short, stupid" mode.  The "it" being my writing.  Hopefully, I'll get new content on the website next month.  

The going-for-a-story-every-other-month idea made me feel less a dunce ... then, I discovered the anthology Must Love Hellhounds was out in mass paperback.  Sat back with great expectations of a Charlaine Harris and Ilona Andrews story ... plus a couple other entertainments ... and got whopped up the side of the head.  Charlaine, I hardly knew you.  Her story, while interesting, dragged.  It took nine pages to offer the first of her dry [in character] commentary statements.

Must thank the editor for introducing me to a new writer though:  Meljean Brook.  Loved the way she made the stock tough former CIA operative character stand out as an individual.

Pictures?   You wonder.  I'm working on it, but I really feel uncomfortable being a "nag".

Trudging Along ...

Slow progress.  Maybe work is moving so slow on the site, you can't see it.  Today, I'm calling GoDaddy customer service.  Maybe you might soon see a picture ... but not the ones coming from the artist.

Spent most of the last week working on a short story.  The core ideas had been done months ago from another point of view.  Decided gossip about the characters would come better from a secondary character (Renna)  rather than one of the main actors (Mariah).

Had a major panic moment.  I knew I had saved the story, but couldn't find it when I went looking for it.  Fortunately, NYC daughter had saved it where she could retrieve it.  Her reward?  She got the revise version to critique.  Others are critiquing it too ... but I still may fall on my face into a pool of criticism because I don't follow the normal short story formula.

One other point.  The AW Water Cooler denizens have pointed out -- there's no artwork on the site.  Hopefully, the artist I'm working with will come up with some ideas soon.  I'm faced with the dilemna:  "to nag or not to nag".

A mile stone.  Someone returned to look at the site.

Continuing Website Saga

Still no pictures of my Half-Elven yet.  Hey, don't think I can nag my artist.  Oh, I could, but he might get mad.

Am still dinking with the website, changing this and that.  Did mention it's existence at the AW Water Cooler and got lots of insights on what writers expect from a website.  Saddest comment.  Some thought publishers provided websites for their published writers, and I should wait for my publisher to provide.  

My reading says different.  Comments from several mid-list authors whose publishers left them to hang in the ether.  For me?  I'm setting up to promote an e-published novelette by a micro-publisher [WolfSinger Publications].  I think I'd wait a looooong time for a publisher website to appear on the web, though I hope to get some suggestions once next year's publishing schedule is set.

The consensus of AW comment pointed to one big problem with my site -- lack of content.  So, I went digging through my files Sunday afternoon looking for the story I thought to rewrite and place as the first installment of "Renna's Tales".  I couldn't find it.  Worse, I can't remember the trick Mariah played on her unwanted suitor ... though I think it had something to do with pigs.

Then, my NYC daughter came to the rescue.  She found a copy of the story in her email files.  Now I have to rewrite to fit the new format.  Mariah will no longer be gossiping about Half-Elven characters, but Renna.  It's not entirely far fetched.  Renna is a mentioned character in Taking Vengeance.

Doing the Media Thing

At this point in time, it's all abut building a platform for the Half-Elven of the Far Isles.  A big distinction since there are active forums on Tolkien's elves and their human alliances. Marriages?  Gaming forums also have half-elvish characters.  Bet none of them have a grandmother as a main character.  [No I am not a grandmother.]

So the progress report:  Waiting.  Waiting to get the copyediting done on the short story for Smashwords.  Waiting for the artwork.  Then, maybe I can do some polishing on the site.

Website in Process

Done Done It!

The Half-Elven of the Far Isles website is under construction -- and the home page's on line.  Now I have to get my guru to help me get all the buttons in place.  Learning how to edit text would help too.  Spent over 3/4 an hour trying to add "under construction" to the site.  It didn't take even though I hit all the "save" buttons I saw.

One of the first things that'll go up is a short story:  Caverns Between Worlds.  It doesn't involve the main characters, but answers a question Linden can't figure out -- "Why the blazes did Hattenel ring-mate Voron?"

 

Website Building

As if I don't have enough headaches.  I'm up to my ears in  learning how to build a website.  Fortunately, I have someone to hold my hand.

Other big project.  Getting a query set up for Dark Solstice, the story of Mariah and Linden's reconcilliation.   If I'm doing a Half-Elven website, the logical thing to do is to market one of the main books.  Watch out agents.  I'm stumbling forward.