my-series-a-writings-account

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Revision a Series; Part 2

Have finally finished my revisions and am currently having the novel edited. Working on some short stories while waiting on news. Also going to start checking out agents and workshop a cover letter. Once I get it back, will send out some copies to beta readers to get feedback before sending out the cover letters.

Hoping next time that revisions take less time but I should start to optimize my writing+revisions as I do this more and with the current plan being a series, I should expect to see myself improve. That said, I really did enjoy writing this story and I am hopeful that others will enjoy reading this story. Expect some more updates later this month.

[my-series-a-writings-account]

Revisions, A Series; Part 1

Hey, it's been a while. My summer was pretty hectic but I have still been hard at work trying to get this book finished and it's looking alright currently. Have been revising some of the bits as there were aspects that needed more details or changes to them. From that I can say about one third of the book is nearing completion with basically the half end of the book still needing a lot of work. It's definitely taking longer than I thought as one, this is my first time and I am have probably underestimated the amount of work that goes into a book. Two, not a paid author so I have been doing this when I have been able to considering there might be no payout from all this effort which definitely triggers my anxiety. Three, other stuff has gone on too which demands my attention so I need to address that stuff when it comes up. Overall I can say that I should have the first half of the book finished for this month. I should probably also say that I use a floating timeline so while I thought I would be done closer to August, things happen and it's important to give myself some wiggle room so things are looking closer to happening by the end of fall.

As for things I have been revising the first three chapters a lot and will be getting them to beta readers in a couple of weeks. I need to work hard on the opening line for the book as I am still not happy with it after multiple drafts. Chapter 2's revisions have been mostly editing and nothing major. I have a plot point and some dialogue I am hoping to revise more in Chapter 3 while doing some more light editing for Chapter 4.

With that said, I might give some more updates later on as well as some possible looks at the process as I have been recording and detailing it. Expect a lot of maps and maybe even some lore perhaps! That's the post for now, hope to see you again!

[my-series-a-writings-account]

An Update About Editing: It's Hard

Perfection is the name of the game and I am nothing if not a perfectionist.

Actually I am also doing the editing on my own which may or may not be a smart move for me. Trying to learn from this at least as I fix errors that I should have be aware of in the first phase while also smoothing over some beats here and there. Been working hard on the first three chapters in particular as get the feeling for my writing and this story.

Hoping to have something for June, regarding sending it to agents but I will need to review my work and write a good cover letter while handling the rejection I am bound to come against in the summer time. All and all, projected for a 2025 release so hoping for that as I continue on My Story: Spark.

[my-series-a-writings-account]

A Post About Editing

The process of editing is like polishing a stone. You smooth the edges by repetition, eventually creating a shiny stone.

This is my current thoughts as I edit through Spark. Working on adding more scenes and words to it, while also making sure that my vision is clearly stated. Some chapters will be easier than others, but in the end I hope to create something polished, something that can shine. It's only a matter of repetition until I am happy with the shape of the story.

[my-series-a-writings-account]

Chapter and Current Word Count; Take Five

Chapter 18 is finished and I am currently working on Chapter 19. Word count is currently 58.5k. Likely going to flesh out some chapters more during February but with only 2 chapters left, I imagine my next word count like be the final word count once I have gone through that process which includes editing.

It seems like I am on track to met my outline for having the book ready during the spring, just would need to do research on a cover letter as well as possible literary agents and I should be set for what comes next. Hoping it all goes well, I will continue to update with some neat tidbits of information as well as things I worked on during the writing that I find neat enough to share. Definitely have some maps and drawings that I am interested in releasing at a later date.

[my-series-a-writings-account]

Chapter and Current Word Count; Take Four

Chapter 15 is finished and am currently working on Chapter 16. Current word count is 51.5k. Would be happy to see my rough draft end around 60-65k words, which I seem to be on track for.

Hopefully this means the book will be finished partially for the end of this month, looking at editing for the start of spring and getting it into the hands of publishers for late spring at earliest which would mean a possible 2024 release date...? A lot of that is wishful thinking and I would more or less expect publishing in 2025 especially if they want to market it seriously since it would be such a late contender with announced works for 2024.

That said, Book 1 is likely to be done for this year and after that or based on it, I can start confirming work on Book 2 which is huge! Look forward to it, going to probably next provide an update late January if maybe sprinkle some information in here. It's all really seeming to come together though and I am very excited to see where this can take me as I have HUGE plans in store for my future writing.

[my-series-a-writings-account]

Spark: The Summary

Often I will get asked: "R.I. Phoenix, what is your book about?"

It's one of the few certainties when I mention I am writing a book and while I haven't always been the best at answering it due to some hesitancy with how much spoiler material might be contained within that summary, I have gotten better about feeling okay with the summary I have.

So here is the Summary, as it stands:

"After waking up, a group of children find out they have powers. Deciding to use these powers to help others, they quickly learn that they are far out of their depth and that the world is so much bigger than they could have ever imagined.

Our Heroes are facing down, in this installation: A Shadow Government, Backflips, Awful Teachers, Capitalism, and Budding Romances."

[my-series-a-writings-account]

Organization and Information Regarding All the Small Things

Jumping straight into it, I have recently found myself needing to create references for little details. Whether that's a random character who gets maybe a line or two or the names of characters mentioned but largely not used with the current story. I am probably going to look at getting some type of folder system going on as well as a possible cabinet. I have so much random loose leaf paper floating around, it can get annoying trying to find everything. Also, post it notes that I would like to keep, but can't have on my desk at all times because I need space for when I am creating layouts of areas in the novel.

Just the importance of having organization for the little things that you might not commit or do not need to commit to memory but having them is useful for references. I am not sure how much success I find using white boards since that mostly results in me taking a picture anyways but I could have used paper instead, although whiteboard is more flexible with making mistakes on it.

All in all, getting to the point where some changes would allow my future self to be a bit more grateful to me, especially since setting in good habits now is the best time to do that. So Happy New Year, everyone.

[my-series-a-writings-account]

Character Post; James Spark

James Spark

Age: 11

Birthday: November 27, 1992

Residency: Apartment Number 0017, 1137 Rojway Complex, Bronx, New York City, New York, USA

Occupation: Student, Essayist

Species: Human

Gender: Cis Male

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Powers: Techno Talk

Status: Alive and Active

Allies:

Katy Blake - [REDACTED]

[REDACTED]

Enemies:

The People From MARS - [REDACTED]

[REDACTED]

Family:

Jacob Spark (Father)

Kevin Spark (Brother)

Joey Spark (Brother)

Goals:

Win "The New York Times' Upcoming Academic Essayist" Award

[REDACTED]

Appearance:

Short Hair; Dark brown

Small, rigid nose; thin

Green eyes, small, bead like

Below average height for his age; underweight

Likes to wear Blue, Black, and Yellow

Relationships:

Katy Blake - Crush, Student Peer

Andrew Glace - Rival, Student Peer

[REDACTED]

His Story: [REDACTED]

[my-series-a-writings-account]

Chapter and Current Word Count; Take Three

Chapter 12 is finished and I am currently working on Chapter 13. Current word count is 43.5k. I have been researching word count a bit since I keep bringing it up in this blog. 40k word count seems to be accepted as the bare minimum for YA Novels and I linked a post that I used for reference, down below. Ideally, something within the YA genre, should not be epica length (eg LOTR) nor for the purpose of being a first time author. While I am obviously nowhere near the length of 120k+ words nor will I reach that with my first or even second book, information is important. So, from what I gathered, it looks like I should aim somewhere between 50k to 90k; with my range most likely to end up around 60k to 70k. This is probably fine as there is less risk in printing for shorter works although, my rough estimate at the beginning was on the higher end of 90k by final draft and that too can be seen as alright due to world building elements especially within a fantasy/sci-fi setting. Considering where I am now, book will be done for Winter 2024 for sure and I will see how far I get it in terms of publishing.

Regarding recent silence on my end, I ended up getting pretty badly sick during tail end of November and had to go to the hospital which resulted in me picking up an infection from my stay; neat! I am just finally getting over the worse of it and starting to be able to write again. Not a fan of hospitals but it is what it is, and I am just happy I can start working on my book even though this resulted in about three weeks worth of setbacks. I posted about one of the other main characters in my story, Ryan Phoenix, and will be posting about the final character in the trio sometime this weekend. Expect another one or two post from me; I have some baking that I need to get done for the upcoming season and I have been playing some Splatoon 3+OSRS while I have down time, so more likely to find time for this blogging during the weekends. Looking forward to the new year very much and I am thankful to have any amount of eyes on this project as I develop it. Thank you for reading!

[my-series-a-writings-account]

Character Post; Ryan Phoenix

Ryan Phoenix

Age: 13

Birthday: July 9, 1991

Residency: 2 Malrose Crescent, Greater Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Occupation: Student, Second Son of the Phoenix Family

Species: Human [REDACTED]

Gender: Cis Male

Sexuality: Bisexual

Powers: Elemental Base - Fire

Status: Alive and Active

Allies: [REDACTED]

Enemies: [REDACTED]

Family:

Paul Phoenix (Father)

Yorick Phoenix (Brother)

Robert Phoenix (Cousin)

Frank Phoenix (Uncle)

Amal Shahin-Azad (Aunt)

Arthur Phoenix (Grandfather)

Goals: [REDACTED]

Appearance:

Brown Hair; short, curls when longer

Small nose; Button, Flat

Blue Eyes, Large, Round

Above average height; recovering from substantial health concerns, slightly below average weight

Likes to wear Red, White, Black, and Blue

Relationships: [REDACTED]

His Story: [REDACTED]

[my-series-a-writings-account]

A helpful chart regarding sexuality, useful for finding out what categories exist, especially for people who fit outside of the gender binary or are asexual. Used this for some of my asexual characters!

[my-series-a-writings-account]

Character Post; Sarah Faivth

Sarah Faivth

Age: 13

Birthday: May 8, 1991

Residency: 1 Malrose Crescent, Greater Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Occupation: Student (SUSPENDED), Direct Heir of the Faivth Family

Species: Human

Gender: Cis Female

Sexuality: Androphilic Demisexual

Powers: Telepathy - Level II

Status: Alive and Active

Allies: [REDACTED]

Enemies: [REDACTED]

Family:

Joseph Faivth (Father)

Lucy Faivth (Stepmother)

Luna Faivth (Stepsister)

Damian Faivth (Stepbrother)

Colin Faivth (Uncle)

Goals: [REDACTED]

Appearance:

Straight Long Blonde Hair, below shoulder length; currently "rocking it" with short bangs to see if she likes them (She does)

Thin Nose; Small, Pointy

Grey Eyes, Sharp, Oval

Above average height; thin, below average weight

Likes to wear Purples, Pinks, and Whites

Relationships: [REDACTED]

Her Story: [REDACTED]

[my-series-a-writings-account]

Chapter and Current Word Count; 2nd Take

Chapter 8 just got finished and current Word Count is 31.1k. Looking back, certain chapters will likely need a few more words pumped into them but right now just need to focus on the roughest of rough drafts. Will be using this as a chance for to provide updates as well; currently experiencing severe migraines so being near screens or upright at all has proven to been challenging, hoping a visit to my gp will clear some of this up for although I have little faith in the health care system. Ideally I finish everything by the end of November, still something very promising even with this setback (Although gives me less time to edit and review my work which sets back the date when I can finally start look to floating my book around). This isn't my first time having chronic pain issues but it is the first time that things have been so severe I have been playing hot potato with whether or not I need to go to the ER or I can wait for my gp appointment.

I have been eating a lot of ice cream and I think I am starting to lose the childlike joy of having no standards when it comes to sugary food. I think that's alright though because ice cream costs money; see profile header.

[my-series-a-writings-account]

Character Outline; Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Disorganization

Weirdly have found myself getting occasionally distracted to look up organizational tools, especially regarding information on characters. I have tried to do something that mimics a Wiki format, that was my initial thought.

So it would look like:

Name | Age | Birthday | Residency | Occupation | Species | Gender | Sexuality | Powers | Status | Allies | Enemies

My thinking was that information that would be summed up in very compactly, should just be put upfront with anything that required descriptive language would come later. For example:

Appearance | Personality | Relationships | Their Story

Writing these out would be their own project, one which I don't currently have the most time for so I began to accept that the Wiki Formatting really does benefit from Crowd Sourcing time from others and I don't think that needs to be done for certain things I listed here.

Appearance, Personality; I have accepted that it's fine to create bullet points for describing these, no need to get too deep with those. While I find this extremely useful for saving time on the Appearance but I would say that I have begrudgingly accepted it to describe Personality as I don't like the idea that you can simply denote the nuances of a character in bullet points and that's also why I would have trouble using it to describe their Relationships. As for writing out their history, I think that's something that would have to be fully written out and as such, just really need to have vague ideas of their stories as I move forward. Maybe not great, but I have good idea of what comes for them all and where they came from (They=My characters).

Not sure if this will be helpful for anyone or if I am just too much of a perfectionist that I needed to figure out how to organize information for my characters but this is currently where I am at with this problem, self inflicted or not. I also wanted to preload this information since I will be posting a Character Sheet later today. Don't expect a full sheet though as I am not going to be including anything beyond Appearance.

I should be able to take questions, I hope, so feel free to ask me stuff; especially as things progress and you have questions about characters, world, setting, etc. I really like to talk about my writing, I still feel pretty passionate about sharing the story I am creating, hence this blog.

[my-series-a-writings-account]

Current Body of Work: Eras and History, Pt 1

Part of the story I am writing, involves alt history. Basically I am taking a period of time, reimagining it, and how that would affect the world as it would exist in the story.

This means I have been studying some time lines loosely while trying to construct something a bit floaty in case I need to move things around at a latter date. The eras I am particularly interested in are the 5th to 14th century, for a few reasons.

Firstly, this period includes the Dark Ages which will allow me to play a little fast and loose with some conspiracy drama. What do I mean by conspiracy? The series in currently set in the Year of our Lord, Lady, or Liege (Shout out to my fellow Enbies, you are seen <3); 2004. However, the 2004 in my book and the 2004 as someone might remember it, should be the same. So what I mean to say is that history was different until a certain point and there will be a conspiracy about that in my novels. Hence why the use of the Dark Ages in particular here as it offers the best cover for a huge conspiracy like rewriting history to occur.

Secondly, it lines up with some other nice world beats that aren't directly related to what I am currently writing but do relate to the world at large. Of course that's a story in of itself but I enjoy the fact that I can include a couple of key details when working on the timeline. For reference, I am referring to The Legend of King Arthur as well as the Crusades.

Those are some of the big points I am working on, while also researching 2004 of course. So summary, researching these things:

The Dark Ages

The Crusades

The Legend of King Arthur

2004 Culture for Accuracy

Events that occurred within the periods between the 5th century and the 14th century

If I come across anything cool in particular or feel like dropping some lore, I will probably recreate a follow up post with the corresponding number (eg. Pt 2 for my second post on this subject). I will also be making a post that clearly says that I think as well as looking into fine tuning this process.

[my-series-a-writings-account]

The Book, Itself; 1st Post

The book itself is a YA novel about a group of children in New York City, who wake up with super powers. That's really the premise, without going into any spoilers; although I imagine I will probably need to figure out how to post spoilery things on here for the sake of future posts.

Hoping to try floating it around by the end of this year, meaning I need to get a rough draft finished this month and have it become presentable to publishers for the next. Not sure how realistic that might be but that's the goal I have set for myself. Feel free to follow along for the drama and suspense that will surely follow.