I've passed 90,000 words in The Homunculus. That's 10,000 words since my last post on 6 May, which is 17 days, which is an average of 588 words a day.
Wow, that sucks....
This book has been like pulling teeth. I'm enjoying the way it's turning out, but hoo, man, it's been fighting me! The Battle Sylph took me a month to write. I have no idea why (but I wish that always happened). Each successive Sylph book took longer to finish, to the point where book 4 took 9 months to write (book 4 does take place before book 5, but I wrote book 5 first).
I actually started writing The Homunculus on 1 Feb 2010. It REALLY fought me then until I had to put it aside for about 6 months or so until I figured out how to rework the plot. Good thing I didn't have a contract for it (still don't) as that would have really made me nervous.
My all time record for writing a book is for one called Hunting the Rapture. It's up at about a dozen houses right now for sale. It's 511 typed pages, over 200,000 words, and took me four years to write. That one was written back when I wrote everything out longhand.... took years to get me to actually type stuff straight into a computer, so I don't think that record will be broken....I hope.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Another update
I've hit 80,000 words in The Humunculus! Yay!
I've also got ideas for the next series I'm going to write *sigh* that may go as many as seven books in length.
For anyone who is paying attention, I've finished playing with my site design of the most part and www.ljmcdonald.ca is just a splash page leading here. Much kudos to Starkite Works for helping me do this. I couldn't have done it without her.
I've also got ideas for the next series I'm going to write *sigh* that may go as many as seven books in length.
For anyone who is paying attention, I've finished playing with my site design of the most part and www.ljmcdonald.ca is just a splash page leading here. Much kudos to Starkite Works for helping me do this. I couldn't have done it without her.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Update
In case anyone's noticed, the site's undergoing a lot of changes. A friend's helping me turn it into something more easily updatable and customizable than my old site.
In writing news, I'm 70,000 words into the first draft of THE HOMUNCULUS. 20-30k left to go, then on to book three. I haven't sold the series yet.
Also, I stuck a new artwork in the new My Artwork page.
In writing news, I'm 70,000 words into the first draft of THE HOMUNCULUS. 20-30k left to go, then on to book three. I haven't sold the series yet.
Also, I stuck a new artwork in the new My Artwork page.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
And now for something completely different....
I know it's nothing to do with writing, but I'm happy with it. This is the first (hopefully successful) attempt at creating art on my new cintiq drawing tablet. I had to fiddle with the colour calibration when I took it off the tablet and put it on my main computer screen, so hopefully she doesn't look oddly coloured to anyone.
I should probably go write something now...
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Why Bees?
I found myself chatting with Autumn Dawn recently, a very nice author who's over at http://www.authorautumndawn.blogspot.com/ and who gave THE BATTLE SYLPH a sweet little plug. She'd just got herself a new beehive and the idea of hives and queens in the sylph universe appealed to her. She asked me why I used that idea.
It's kind of hard to say what I was thinking when I came up with it. I've said before somewhere that the sylphs were inspired by bees and tengu and all sorts of stuff. I tend to play with concepts in my writing, even if I'm the only one who knows it, and I do recall that I brought in the bee idea because I wanted to explore the idea of power. I've read a lot of books, both good and bad, which have characters with immense power, and immense power over other people. That's great. But usually those with the greatest power end up with those they have power over going "Hey! Cut it out!" Look at all the books where the the protagonists are out to stop the evil king/god/demon/priest/whatever who's crushing their freedom. I can't think off the top of my head of any books where the characters are under that sort of absolute power and are perfectly fine with it. It would be a rare sylph indeed who didn't want to have a master/queen (*shifty look towards book six*) Anyway, bees are happy with the whole hive mentality, and I kind of liked that for the sylphs. It certainly wouldn't work in any universe - humans are notoriously bad at bee-like behaviour - but it worked in this one.
It's kind of hard to say what I was thinking when I came up with it. I've said before somewhere that the sylphs were inspired by bees and tengu and all sorts of stuff. I tend to play with concepts in my writing, even if I'm the only one who knows it, and I do recall that I brought in the bee idea because I wanted to explore the idea of power. I've read a lot of books, both good and bad, which have characters with immense power, and immense power over other people. That's great. But usually those with the greatest power end up with those they have power over going "Hey! Cut it out!" Look at all the books where the the protagonists are out to stop the evil king/god/demon/priest/whatever who's crushing their freedom. I can't think off the top of my head of any books where the characters are under that sort of absolute power and are perfectly fine with it. It would be a rare sylph indeed who didn't want to have a master/queen (*shifty look towards book six*) Anyway, bees are happy with the whole hive mentality, and I kind of liked that for the sylphs. It certainly wouldn't work in any universe - humans are notoriously bad at bee-like behaviour - but it worked in this one.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
My website's fixed
Yay, I figured it out, so it's not longer saying that Midwinter still is coming out at Christmas or that Queen is releasing in March. Sorry for everyone who was misled by that. I'm pondering doing an overhaul of the site's entire look, but I primarily want to use this blog for updating and make the other site as simple as possible.
I've also added a little widget thing at the bottom of each entry so people can click to give their thoughts on whatever I put out there. I thought it was kind of cute, though I may end up regretting adding the WTF? option....
I've also added a little widget thing at the bottom of each entry so people can click to give their thoughts on whatever I put out there. I thought it was kind of cute, though I may end up regretting adding the WTF? option....
Monday, March 7, 2011
I'm nominated!
I got an email yesterday giving me some good news.
A Midwinter Fantasy has been nominated by TRR reviewers for Best in Anthology (Romance) for 2010 at The Romance Reviews (“TRR”), and
The Battle Sylph has been nominated by TRR reviewers for Best in Fantasy Romance for 2010 at The Romance Reviews (“TRR”).
Thanks for everyone who voted for me! I didn't expect to do even this well.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Where I am
Barbaranramos commented on one of my posts about being happy to hear I'm writing book six of the Sylph series. I should give an update on all of that.
Books four and five of the Sylph series are written and edited. Dorchester gave me a contract to buy them back in September, but I turned it down. Much as I love my editor there, I'm not happy at their new publishing direction towards E-books only, followed by expensive trades. My agent is looking for a different house to publish them instead, who'll release them in paperback as well as e-format. Dorchester still owns the rights to the first three books though, and it's hard to sell the second half of a series to a publishing house when they can't get control of the first half.
So, THE SYLPH HUNTER and WAR OF THE SYLPHS aren't coming out anytime soon that I know of. DOOR TO THE SYLPHS is on hold for a couple of reasons. One is because it's coming out more as straight fantasy than romantic fantasy and another is because I'm not happy with it and have it in the mental simmer pot. The third reason is because I'm writing something else.
My agent, who is awesome, has two finished books of mine in her hands. HUNTING THE RAPTURE is straight fantasy and THE CLIFFS OF SHAKIRI is sci-fi young adult. Neither are romantic fantasy. I don't think of myself specifically as a romantic fantasy author, to be honest. But I do have a series that does have it as part of the storyline and is actually quite a bit steamier than the Sylph books, I think.
THE CUCKOO is written and has gone through a first edit and is in my agent's hands. I'm halfway through writing THE HOMUNCULUS and will follow it up with THE REVENANT. I'm hoping to sell all three at once and get the first drafts written so that I can edit them as a whole. Completely different universe from the Sylphs, different characters, different everything. Still fantasy, though.
So that's where I am, along with working a full time job that's getting a little crazy right now. I'm writing, but the release of the books themselves is completely out of my hands. I'm just trying to get through them and find a reliable beta reader. And fix the website. I know it's kinda outdated. I'm having problems logging in. Sorry.
Books four and five of the Sylph series are written and edited. Dorchester gave me a contract to buy them back in September, but I turned it down. Much as I love my editor there, I'm not happy at their new publishing direction towards E-books only, followed by expensive trades. My agent is looking for a different house to publish them instead, who'll release them in paperback as well as e-format. Dorchester still owns the rights to the first three books though, and it's hard to sell the second half of a series to a publishing house when they can't get control of the first half.
So, THE SYLPH HUNTER and WAR OF THE SYLPHS aren't coming out anytime soon that I know of. DOOR TO THE SYLPHS is on hold for a couple of reasons. One is because it's coming out more as straight fantasy than romantic fantasy and another is because I'm not happy with it and have it in the mental simmer pot. The third reason is because I'm writing something else.
My agent, who is awesome, has two finished books of mine in her hands. HUNTING THE RAPTURE is straight fantasy and THE CLIFFS OF SHAKIRI is sci-fi young adult. Neither are romantic fantasy. I don't think of myself specifically as a romantic fantasy author, to be honest. But I do have a series that does have it as part of the storyline and is actually quite a bit steamier than the Sylph books, I think.
THE CUCKOO is written and has gone through a first edit and is in my agent's hands. I'm halfway through writing THE HOMUNCULUS and will follow it up with THE REVENANT. I'm hoping to sell all three at once and get the first drafts written so that I can edit them as a whole. Completely different universe from the Sylphs, different characters, different everything. Still fantasy, though.
So that's where I am, along with working a full time job that's getting a little crazy right now. I'm writing, but the release of the books themselves is completely out of my hands. I'm just trying to get through them and find a reliable beta reader. And fix the website. I know it's kinda outdated. I'm having problems logging in. Sorry.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Grand Opening!
Hi everyone. The Romance Reviews website is having their Grand Opening throughout all of March and they have all sorts of prizes and other stuff to be won. I'm one of the featured authors on there and there'll be an ad for The Battle Sylph up. Apparently you can vote for your favourite books and authors. By voting, you guys can win prizes of gift certificates and books and the like. If you vote for me and I win, I get an advertising package to promote my books. Sort of a win/win scenario.
Just click on the picture above to go and visit their website.
http://www.theromancereviews.com
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Just Touching Base
Eek. Since I have people who seem to actually be reading this, I should probably put an update. I don't have much to say, mind you. I had a nice, quiet Christmas break that I enjoyed very much and am getting ready to go back to work tomorrow. That won't be so bad.
In the writing world, I'm plugging along as normal. I'm waiting for the first edits back of QUEEN OF THE SYLPHS, seeing what's happening with her two sequels, and just hit the 74k word mark for book six in the series, which has the very boring working title of DOOR TO THE SYLPHS. Not sure how long that one will be, but it's either going to be the longest book in the series or be split into book six and seven. Don't know at this point. I don't usually know where I'm going with a novel during the first draft anyway.
Once I finish that book, I'm going to write something in another universe. I have several to pick from, so it's just a matter of seeing which one sucks me in more when the time comes.
In the writing world, I'm plugging along as normal. I'm waiting for the first edits back of QUEEN OF THE SYLPHS, seeing what's happening with her two sequels, and just hit the 74k word mark for book six in the series, which has the very boring working title of DOOR TO THE SYLPHS. Not sure how long that one will be, but it's either going to be the longest book in the series or be split into book six and seven. Don't know at this point. I don't usually know where I'm going with a novel during the first draft anyway.
Once I finish that book, I'm going to write something in another universe. I have several to pick from, so it's just a matter of seeing which one sucks me in more when the time comes.
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