One of the things I find hard to do is remember all the little details of my characters. Stuff like how long their hair is, what weapon they like, how old they are. I can remember all the sordid details of their pasts, but those sort of trivia facts? Leon changed his age three times during the first draft of one of my novels.
I've tried all sorts of things to keep track. Cue cards, notebooks, spreadsheets. They don't work so well for me. However, I've now found something that actually seems to work. Wikispaces. It's, well, a wiki. You just go to www.wikispaces.com, sign up for an account, and put stuff in it. The joy of it is, you can click on a word you've typed, such as 'battler' and make an instant link to a new page by that name. Click the link and it'll ask you to make the page if you haven't already. Just type a link to the page you left and make it the same way. Fast, easy, I can update it whenever. I can access it on the internet so I can get to it whatever the machine I'm using, and I can even save it locally. I'm having fun with it.
Since I decided I would pay for an account, my wikispaces is private. It's not something anyone else would want to read anyway, I'd think. And it's chocked full of spoilers galore. Best part of it is, since it's all integrated, if you type a new name for a character in and make the link and click on it, you'll know immediately if it's a name you've used before, since it'll bring up the page you made earlier. No more reusing names without realizing it! There's, um, two different Autumns in two different series. And Blue has shown up so many times that I've given up and started doing it deliberately, just to see if anyone calls me on it down the road.
I don't know if wikispaces will work for everyone, but I know I'm certainly happy with it and I'm pimping it to all my author friends.
In writing news, I'm working on a novel that Del Rey is looking at. No promises yet on them buying it, but I have my toes crossed. No word yet on selling books four and five of the Sylph series, but I am happy that people seem to really like book three. That makes me very happy, especially given how it's not the standard sort of romantic fantasy novel. Thanks, everyone.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
The Battle Sylph is going to be in a commercial
Thanks to the efforts of Hannah Wolfson, the best promoter in the world at Dorchester, THE BATTLE SYLPH is going to be showing up in a Vorizon commercial for the new IPad 2. Its in the commercial below, at about the .13 second mark. It's in the shot where they show the IBooks bookshelf, and it's the second book in the second row. I'm still in shock. Yay!
In other news, I've posted the prologue for QUEEN OF THE SYLPHS on the Sylphs books page. Just to give people a taste for the book.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Thoughts behind covers
On one of my earlier posts (Queen of the Sylphs cover on 2 Jun 11), a reader named Pam made a comment that she loved the cover, but wished that Solie had red hair in it, since she is a redhead. Very good point, Pam.
It's my fault that she doesn't. When Dorchester asked me if I had any thoughts for the cover, I suggested they use blue. My reasoning was, there's been a predominant colour tone on each of the books so far. There was black for the first, showing the direness of the situation. There was red for the second, showing the passion of the characters, and the blue is in the third as a sign of the sorrow. It's also a nod to Claw, who has blue hair and is a predominant character in this book. At least, that's my logic in looking at it.
BTW, the men at the bottom are just dropped in there, but I can't not look at them and name them. Left to right (starting with the one who has a face) they're Claw, Mace, Ril, Heyou, and Dillon. At least, I think they are. The two shadowy ones in the back are probably Wat and Blue.
It's my fault that she doesn't. When Dorchester asked me if I had any thoughts for the cover, I suggested they use blue. My reasoning was, there's been a predominant colour tone on each of the books so far. There was black for the first, showing the direness of the situation. There was red for the second, showing the passion of the characters, and the blue is in the third as a sign of the sorrow. It's also a nod to Claw, who has blue hair and is a predominant character in this book. At least, that's my logic in looking at it.
BTW, the men at the bottom are just dropped in there, but I can't not look at them and name them. Left to right (starting with the one who has a face) they're Claw, Mace, Ril, Heyou, and Dillon. At least, I think they are. The two shadowy ones in the back are probably Wat and Blue.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Update
I'm really bad at updating this...gah...I must become better at it.
Updates...a lot's been happening. For those who are interested:
QUEEN OF THE SYLPHS is through the editing process. I've read over the galley proof, which is a pdf of the book as it appears in print, and it's all good to go. A professional proofreader is also reading it, but my job is done unless they come back and go "hey, you did something really stupid here." This has happened to me...
I will be doing a blog tour to promote QUEEN OF THE SYLPHS in September. So right now I'm writing blog entries, answering interview questions, etc. It's been a lot of fun and a lot of work. Here's the schedule:
Monday 09/26: Lurv a la Mode
Tuesday 09/27: Parajunkee’s View
This is definitely keeping me busy. Plus I get to check out all these websites. They're worth giving a look.
Otherwise, I'm just writing, writing, writing while my agent works on finding buyers. Apparently the summer is a slow time for book contracts as everyone is on vacation, so it should pick up soon.
Updates...a lot's been happening. For those who are interested:
QUEEN OF THE SYLPHS is through the editing process. I've read over the galley proof, which is a pdf of the book as it appears in print, and it's all good to go. A professional proofreader is also reading it, but my job is done unless they come back and go "hey, you did something really stupid here." This has happened to me...
I will be doing a blog tour to promote QUEEN OF THE SYLPHS in September. So right now I'm writing blog entries, answering interview questions, etc. It's been a lot of fun and a lot of work. Here's the schedule:
Monday 09/26: Lurv a la Mode
Tuesday 09/27: Parajunkee’s View
Saturday 10/1: Waiting for Faeries
This is definitely keeping me busy. Plus I get to check out all these websites. They're worth giving a look.
Otherwise, I'm just writing, writing, writing while my agent works on finding buyers. Apparently the summer is a slow time for book contracts as everyone is on vacation, so it should pick up soon.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
I have a release date for Queen
Apparently, if I'm reading this notice I found correctly, QUEEN OF THE SYLPHS will be released by Dorchester in both Trade, E-book format, and Audio on 6 September 2011.
They're also rereleasing my first two books in Trade format. So yay, a solid date!
That gives me two months for all the editing.... *cry*
At least I know what I'm doing this summer.
They're also rereleasing my first two books in Trade format. So yay, a solid date!
That gives me two months for all the editing.... *cry*
At least I know what I'm doing this summer.
Plugging Along or: My muse is weird
As I've mentioned before, THE HOMUNCULUS, book two of my Cuckoo series, took forever to write. I started it in March of 2010 and didn't finish the first draft until May of this year. I think it's a pretty good book (I haven't actually read it yet. I don't read my work as I'm initially writing it. Kills my creativity for some reason) but it was like pulling teeth to get it.
Two days after that one was finished, I started typing book three of the series, THE REVENANT, where inspiration proves yet again that she's a fickle, as it's day 13 after I started and I've written just over 17,000 words and am on Chapter Five. And this is after I discovered some sort of massive bug with the new version of the word processing software I was using meant it wasn't actually saving anything and I lost 5000 words. That was a bad day when I figured that one out.
The is the sort of inspiration that I want, obviously. I much prefer to spew out a book than to fight with it. I don't know why this book is coming out so easily while the last one was a reluctant mule about it (book one, THE CUCKOO, came out at a decent speed, taking me four months for the first draft). It must be something about how it was a middle of the series book. I don't know for sure. Most of the Sylph books took progressively longer to write. Book four, HUNTER OF THE SYLPHS (which is still looking for a home and may just have one soon), took what seemed forever and was another molasses book, beat only by, what a surprise, THE HOMUNCULUS.
At least it's done now. Until the rewrite, anyway.
Two days after that one was finished, I started typing book three of the series, THE REVENANT, where inspiration proves yet again that she's a fickle
The is the sort of inspiration that I want, obviously. I much prefer to spew out a book than to fight with it. I don't know why this book is coming out so easily while the last one was a reluctant mule about it (book one, THE CUCKOO, came out at a decent speed, taking me four months for the first draft). It must be something about how it was a middle of the series book. I don't know for sure. Most of the Sylph books took progressively longer to write. Book four, HUNTER OF THE SYLPHS (which is still looking for a home and may just have one soon), took what seemed forever and was another molasses book, beat only by, what a surprise, THE HOMUNCULUS.
At least it's done now. Until the rewrite, anyway.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Queen of the Sylphs cover
Look what I have. Isn't it pretty? I think this is my favourite of all the Sylph covers. It's done by Anne Cain.
Friday, May 27, 2011
I Finished!
The first draft of THE HOMUNCULUS is finished! Woot! I started that bad boy on 1 Feb 2010. Gah.... But it's done now!
Tomorrow I start on THE REVENANT. Yippee!
Edits will wait until all three are done so I can work on them as a whole. Makes continuity easier to manage.
Tomorrow I start on THE REVENANT. Yippee!
Edits will wait until all three are done so I can work on them as a whole. Makes continuity easier to manage.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Another Update
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.
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.
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.
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