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Are you still around, my friend? And if so, what is the Catwing writing at the moment?
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
- Rank: Eccentric Mentor
- Total Posts: 1789
@rochellaine Ooo…I LOVE the sound of Daughter of Judas! What’s your progress on it so far?
@seekjustice This is the question that I can never truthfully answer. Since Bound and Determined is the third in the series, it all started with Held Captive–and that’s a long story which spans three blog posts. The actual plot, which I had changed several times already, was inspired by an idea a friend had given me, to use for the sequel. I already had the second book planned, so I decided to use his idea for BAD. It was basically that Xavier had to be separated from Rina, to captain another ship for some odd reason, which left her alone (with her children and crew, of course) with the opportunity to pirate again. I was able to use a previous idea for BAD, tie the two together, and then voila! Bound and Determined was born! (Or, well, reborn, really, since the title had already existed.)Tell Me No Lies happened in a similar way. My first completed manuscript, Beyond the Inner Storm, featured two characters, Kerri-Leigh Cannon and Forrest Billingham. They were the hero’s sister and new acquainted, respectively. The pair’s names had been used once before in a detective novel, so of course I intended to give them a story of their own as well. (The one where the detective partners have to “marry” to solve a case.) Anyway, I scrapped both ideas, then extracted the whole cast of characters–every last one–and then totally redid their stories. The characters’ backstories are pretty much the same, but the rest is totally different. It had struck me as odd that I’d brushed the murder of Kerri’s husband, Marcus Cannon, off so easily, which led me to wonder what would’ve happened if Forrest has actually investigated it.
These two are probably the only stories of mine that I can give a true account of the driving forces behind them. Held Captive, on the other hand, is quite complicated.
@seekjustice Well, I’m too late, as usual, but charging into the surf anyways.
1) Epitaph. Approximately either 400 or 900 pages for the manuscript itself, not including extra material. Murder mystery. Somebody’s going to die. This is a book largely focused upon the characters and less so upon action. Though, there is still a considerable amount of action. Also: focus is heavily laid on theme. In the plotting/character developement/etc. process right now. Calculated to write first draft throughout the year 2021. This is the beginning novel in the series, and sets up several fundamental things for the rest of the series. This is gonna be REALLy sad.
2) These Tempestuous Currents. Murder mystery; same detective. Different story. Obviously. Approximately 300-500 pages; haven’t gone too in-depth with this one, so am just guessing. This is definitely an idea for the second or third book in the series (of which, I’m planning for somewheres around 60/70 novels).
3) (amazing title which I can’t tell you yet): Either the second or third (more likely to be the third) in the series. Sets up key events for other novels. Approx. 400-600 pages. I’ve worked more on this one than These Tempestuous Currents. Can’t wait to write this one out.
4) A bunch of other mystery novels I’m working on which are too numerous to display here.
5) Into the Deep. Pirate/mythologically-seamed/fantasy novel set in another world. This is a mixture of an old, old idea of mine (which I worked on for a bit; it was one of my better ideas), Treasure Island, Moby-Dick, Pirates of the Caribbean, and some other ideas from other novels/movies I got. I’m looking forward to writing this one, but can’t yet determine when that will happen.
6) Fantasy epics. Both poetry and prose.
7) Languages linked with the fantasy.
8) Two science fiction projects which I’m uncertain as to their continuation.
9) Poetry, of course.
10) Other.
As for the inspiration for my stories…I’ll just do Epitaph because I either forgot about the others, or this one’s more important at the moment and there are too many, anyways (bother). I actually got the idea for Epitaph from a conversation here on KP. It was a conversation which rambled on on the Topic of the Week (I think it was) “Favourite place you could be to write” or something along those lines.
I actually got one of my science fiction novel ideas from a conversation here, too.
@e-k-seaver You heard N.D.Wilson speak? Did you talk to him? Lucky. Your book(s) sound really intriguing. I believe they have something to do with Reflections?@seekjustice Calligraphy Guild was honestly sort of wish-fulfillment. XD There’s this group of indie authors I follow who work together and are friends and whatnot that I would love to be a part of one day, plus the idea of having an in-person community of authors who work together (which they are not; that’s just an additional impossible wish, lol) sounds amazing, so… a calligraphy guild. And it ended up being calligraphy and time-writing ink thanks to a dream I had one night about ink that gave people different abilities. (Coincidentally, the dream featured a couple members of that indie author group. XD)
The Half-Elves was inspired by the world of Hyrule. My family’s first Legend of Zelda game was Link’s Crossbow Training, which gives you these fascinating Hyrule settings and creatures with zero story context and limited opportunity to explore the world. So, naturally, my imagination ran with it and I created characters and set them in Hyrule and had them explore. Which… honestly wasn’t that impressive, given that my seven-year-old self didn’t have anywhere close to the skill to translate her imagination onto paper. XD On the bright side, that left the world blank enough for me to transform it into something new when I got older and decided I wanted to keep the story as something more than fan-fiction, although a careful observer can probably still pick out nods to Hyrule. 😉
@leon-fleming When you say “mythologically-seamed,” are you talking inspired-by-real-world-mythology or does it feature a lot of created mythology? (Either way, it sounds epic.)
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Singer. Worldbuilding enthusiast.
@leon-fleming, yes, I have heard N. D.
Wilson speak. I may or may not have accidentally insulted him. I swear, it was an accident. What he was teaching on was pretty interesting. It was about word choice and how a book ought to sound while reading allowed and certain connotations and how spoken words sound.
And yes. My story does have to do with Reflections. Interesting backstory on the name, that one.The pen is mightier than the sword, but in a duel, I'm taking the sword.
ekseaver.wordpress.com- Rank: Eccentric Mentor
- Total Posts: 1789
What Mr. Fleming regrets to mention is that I was the driving force behind Epitaph. Me and his death, that is.
@e-k-seaver Oo…care to share said backstory? I have wondered where that came from…@leon-fleming Would it sound nice or kind or something if I said that your ideas sound very interesting?
Ooh, does @leon-fleming die?
@gracie-j, yes. However, I believe it must be shared in a document because it’s about 4 pages worth of information. Here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rwx2AS9sHaSolHcanYncy9cQemZ544eACJCdRWAfjiw/edit?usp=sharing
The pen is mightier than the sword, but in a duel, I'm taking the sword.
ekseaver.wordpress.com- Rank: Eccentric Mentor
- Total Posts: 1789
@e-k-seaver Well, we all (or just me, at least) thought that Leon had already. Then, in some twisted turn of fate, he reappeared, alive and well. I don’t believe he’ll be dying in any books anytime soon, however. (Actually, it all started out with me saying that Gone with the Wind would haunt him until his death, then he made a joke about how he was dying, then I started printing invitations and planning the funeral, which inspired him to write a murder mystery. His wedding, on the other hand, inspired his characters.)
Thanks for sharing! I’ll get to reading it soon!
@gracie-j, Oooh fascinating.
The pen is mightier than the sword, but in a duel, I'm taking the sword.
ekseaver.wordpress.com@r-m-archer I mean both, actually; mythology from the fictional world, and some real-world mythology. And I must say that there’s a bit of what some people might call “magic”, but which I would refer to as something a bit different. It is connected highly with the mythology within the novel. I’d tell what the magic things are, but…I don’t know. Maybe not; they’re sort’ve important to the plot, as well as an added air of mystery/weighted-intrigue.
@e-k-seaver XD You insulted him? How?Ah, yes; I thought it did.
Oh, yeah; sure, uh-huh. @gracie-j Wow! A complement! And from you especially! Well, you know what they say; you hear something new every day. *walks away, shaking head in amazement*
I’M. NOT. DEAD. YET.
@leon-fleming, so I started my short discussion with him with “So I didn’t actually like your books—” and at that point I just saw him kinda zone out, even though I was trying to tell him how he inspired one of mine (that is now gathering dust in a closet. 😂) Sooo yeah. Meeting Andrew Peterson went a lot better. XD
Yes. How could you have known? 😜@gracie-j, what’s your MBTI/enneagram?
The pen is mightier than the sword, but in a duel, I'm taking the sword.
ekseaver.wordpress.com@e-k-seaver XD! What?! Do you still dislike his books? When was this? Recently? Wow, lot of question marks.
How could I have known?
@leon-fleming That sounds cool! What real-world mythology did you use?
@e-k-seaver You’ve met both of them? Duuuude. That’s awesome. I would love to meet them someday (Peterson especially). Maybe they’ll be at RealmMakers whenever I finally get to go. XDSpeculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Singer. Worldbuilding enthusiast.
@r-m-archer Thanks! I’m using some Greek mythology so far. Though I’m tying it into the fictional world mythology.
@leon-fleming, yup, the only book of his I liked was Boys of Blur. And no, that event happened almost two years ago. I’ve gained slightly more control of my tongue since then. 😎
I couldn’t guess.
@r-m-archer, yeah it was pretty neat. 😂 Both of them talked about writing at a homeschooling conference I went to.The pen is mightier than the sword, but in a duel, I'm taking the sword.
ekseaver.wordpress.com
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