Tag: Writing

Done, done, done!

On By MikaelaIn updates

After two years of on and off writing, I finished the work in progress. Yes, it is a mess, but I adore this meandering slice of life story about inheriting a house and then suddenly everything goes wrong. But don’t worry. No one dies or is badly hurt. Are there a bunch of dropped threads in the book? Probably but since it is book one in the series, I don’t feel the need to tie all of them up. But yes. There will be some clarification when I add a bunch of words in the second draft. (Spoiler: I always add a bunch of words in the second draft… and often in the third draft too. )

Anyway. The messy first draft of House Witch (which is a title that doesn’t fits at all) is done at 46 500 words. Which is a decent sized first draft for me. The writing the end of the book also gave me some ideas for a partially written story set in this world. No, it is not the same series as this one. I wrestled with if I should make them the same series, but the truth is that they are too different. If this is series are small town paranormal romance, the other series is more mystery focused. Honestly the other series is my homage to an old swedish series about an antique stores owner that solves crimes. Just… with magic and supernaturals. Plotwise I might also have been inspired by semi recent swedish events. Look. If people insists on stealing coins and books I am going to be inspired.

Teaser: Daughter of the Dark

On By MikaelaIn Writing

I am doing edits on Daughter of the Dark right now.  They are progressing nicely, so I thought it is was a good time to post the edited version of the opening scene. Or at least the first 150 words.  :).  I’ll put up the whole chapter closer to the publication date.

 

The three stories high house with its red-brick facade and walled garden didn’t look out of place in the neighborhood, at least not on the surface. The wards I sensed told me otherwise. I knew that if I activated the Sight I would see the rainbow of colors beneath. I frowned. The wards felt like elemental magic, not shamanic magic. Which didn’t make sense. Unlike the other realms, this realm had very low levels of elemental magic. In other words, using elemental magic for spells hurt. A lot. I winced in sympathy with the mage that had been hired to create the wards.
The elemental magic based wards also meant that the owner of the house must have hired someone from another realm. Gnomes, I guessed, since they were masters at creating wards. They were also expensive.

Unease slithered down my spine.
Why would someone put in so much money and effort to ward a residence, albeit an upscale one?

Excerpt from Exile

On By MikaelaIn Writing

I am  spending the weekend finishing the second draft of Exile. Since it I am planning publish it sometime in July, and it is  Midsummer, I decided to post the opening scene.   🙂 There are some typos but I hope you enjoy it!

I squinted at the scroll in front of me. It was written in High Dhurian and in a tiny, cramped script, by a long dead Priestess. I was certain the scroll contained the information about the Wise One my tutor had tasked me with to hunt down. If only there was a spell to magnify the script. I grimaced. Even if there was, the scroll was ancient enough that the spell might damage it.

Or the other books in the library. I glanced at the shelves surrounding me. For most of the other novices, the scrolls contained the gathered wisdom of the  Priestesshood of Gwynfar. To me the scrolls were headache inducing, and dull. Maybe I would have been more interested if the scrolls hadn’t been written in High Dhurian.

To me and my tutor the fact that I hated High Dhurian was another sign that I wasn’t meant to be a Priestess of Gwynfar. Too bad my mother , the Arch-Priestess, disagreed.

I sighed. If only Mother wasn’t the Arch-Priestess. If she hadn’t been I wouldn’t be corralled down a life path I didn’t want.

Like many Dhurians I had a gift of moon magic, but I lacked the devotion to spend my life as a priestess.

I froze when Mother’s voice drifted towards me. I shook off the brief paralyzation, and rolled up the scroll. This part of the library was technically forbidden to Novices, due to its proximity to the oldest scrolls. Which was why I had chosen it. There was information about the First Clan Mothers in other scrolls but it was watered down . What I needed was to read the scrolls written by them. Or transcribed by later generations.

The importance of thinking ahead

On By MikaelaIn Writing

My publication schedule for 2014 is set.  I know what I will publish, even if I am not certain of the exact dates. So now I’m thinking of 2015.  Which feels a bit odd. I’m used to writing whatever I’m in the mood for. Now I have to treat it like a business.  Set a schedule, yet allowing enough flexibility for any changes ( both good and bad) that occur.

So next year I’ll make a loose schedule, probably more of a list of the books I want to publish  and roughly when.   What said schedule will contain depends on what I write during the next 6 months.  For example, I have 5000 words on Archangel’s Hunt which is my next writing WIP.  When Archangel’s Hunt is finished, I’m planning to write Cauldron 2.   It might be a bit optimistic, considering all the other things I need to do.  But once Daughter of the Dark is published I am taking a break from revising until Oct, when I  need to edit  A Shadow of Love.

Next year I am planning of spreading out the revision and the writing. I have to, otherwise I will get burned out.  And no one wants that.

That said, I have so many plans for 2015.  I’m tempted to take one year of from releases  and just write new things.  I realise that would be a bad career move, though. So I’m not going to. But if I did, the sequels to the Wild Hunt would be on the top of the list. 🙂

 

Out and about in the sun

On By MikaelaIn Writing

 

 

 

I rarely write about what I’m doing, but I thought I would make a difference for this weekend.

It began on Thursday, when my brother graduated from Med school. *beams* I’m so proud of him. He celebrated with a party, which was lot of fun.  I chatted with people, got to see his face when our youngest brother showed up. The whole family had been keeping that from him, as a surprise.

And when I got home, I had a pleasant surprise too: The edits where waiting for me, and the cover.

Then the next day I decided to visit Smaka på Stockholm.  It turns out I wasn’t the only one. It felt like half of Stockholm was there. I did have Banh Mi at a food truck, and liked it a lot.  It was on the outskirt, so less people there.

Yesterday, I went for an hour walk along the water, that ended when I stepped in poop. Of the human version, I suspect. Ugh.  So I scraped it off, and then cleaned the soles when I got home.  In the evening, the family went to see Jag ringer mina bröder by Jonas Hassen Khemiri. It was really, really good.  I’m hoping it gets translated to other languages since more people should see it.

The result of a really good weekend is that I’m beaming and ready to go back to work on the revisions later today.

 

 

Edits!

On By MikaelaIn updates, Writing

Last night  the edits for Daughter of Dark landed in my inbox. I read the edit letter, but decided to wait with reading the draft.  Honestly, the edit letter made me so happy that I have been smiling all day. It also worked as a motivation boast for finishing The Wild Hunt.  I have been struggling with them lately.  Now I have a reason to finish them ( well, beyond the fact that Thirzah would have shown up at my door, demanding more, if I didn’t finish them. ). At the moment,   I cannot wait to begin editing Daughter of the Dark.   The edits will help me turn the draft from good to great. You will love it when it is out.

I have been thinking of which books Daughter of the Dark are similar to, and conclusion I have come to is the Sianim novels by Patricia Briggs and the Raine Benares series by Lisa Shearin. In other words,  Fantasy with a good dose of Urban Fantasy elements and a varying degree of Romance. :).

 

I have also seen the first draft of the cover.  And it is so pretty.  That said, I’m not showing it until the cover is final. Sorry.  There is potiental for too much hassle otherwise.

But I’m really happy I hired Storywonk for the edits, and Skyla Dawn Cameron for the cover art.

Oh, and my webhost also has a mailing list option. I plan to poke around with it, since I just discovered it. I think the first step is to add an e-mail subscription button, though.

Edit: No, the first step is to create an e-mail address.

( I discovered this when I for a couple of minutes thought I had broken my webpage.)

New shiny bookstore!

On By MikaelaIn Writing

Soo.. If you look to the sidebar on my homepage, you will see a new page called Bookstore. Right now it is empty, but in the future I’ll offer exclusive samples ( of the longer version), free short stories and maybe even ARCs. Everything will be in watermarked epub, since Publit don’t offer a mobi option. ( That’s the only drawback as far as I can see.)

It will work like Bookview Cafe’s bookstore: You pay with credit card ( or bill me later, though I have no idea how that works if you are abroad) and the download link is e-mailed to you. This will probably be the way I offer the free download on Shamrokon. I’ll simply not tick the boxes for the other distribution channels until after I get back home. ( And raise the price to 2.99 )

So many things to do

On By MikaelaIn Life, Writing

A couple of days ago, Shamrokon tweeted: Just 99 days to go.  I stared at the tweet for a moment, and then panicked for a moment.   Let’s just say I’ll be busy this summer.  I’m revising the Wild Hunt, which keeps on growing to Thrizah and Kari’s delight. But being told ” More is good, since it is a fascinating world”by  Kari does boost my self-esteem. 🙂  The goal is to finish the revision in June 1st, but I don’t think I’ll manage it.  But I should have it done before I get the edits back for Daughter of the Dark.

I plan to spend most of June on editing Daughter of the Dark and revising Exile.  Or maybe the other way around, since Exile has a closer release date than Daughter of the Dark.    Though both of them is coming soon!

I have found a reasonably priced copy editor that I plan to contact soon. ( She prefers to do a sample edit, and I’m not going to send her unedited pages.)

Oh. And deciding on a marketing plan.  I think it will involve a lot of teasers.  Since the only thing I got to catch the attention of readers is my novellas.  There will be longer and shorter teasers.  I really like the quotes that Shiloh Walker posts close to release date, so I’ll make something similar in Gimp. That much I can do at least.  I am also thinking about swag for Eurocon.  I want to offer a free download of either Exile or Daughter of the Dark, but I’m still thinking about how to do it. ( I know what the easy way would be, but I’m not certain if it is the best way).  Which reminds me. I need to hire a cover artist. I’m leaning towards Skyla Dawn Cameron, I really like her covers.

But right now I’m running around finishing everything on my todo list before I leave for London on Monday.  I’m going to see my brother for the first time in 6 months! I plan to hug him so much. 🙂 I mostly plan to visit British Museum and bookstores.    And take a walk in Hyde Park, if my leg doesn’t hurt too much.

 

 

 

Thoughts about selfpublishing

On By MikaelaIn Writing

 

”Selfpublishing is better.” ” Selfpublishing is the only path.” I’ve lost count on how many times I have read things like that, both in blogposts and in comments..
Don’t get me wrong, I can understand why selfpublishing is appealing, but for me it is more complex than that.

When I consider which stories I’ll selfpublish and which I’ll submit to a publisher, it depends on the genre and the length.
The Portal Universe stories is slated for selfpublishing, purely because they are an odd length, and the fact that most of the stories are Urban Fantasy set in an secondary universe. There isn’t many fantasy publishers interested in novellas shorter than 30 0000 words. For the same reason, The Wild Hunt and its sequels is also slated for selfpublishing. Epic fantasy novellas isn’t something publishers are interested in.

On the other hand, the Queen of Sind isn’t slated for selfpublishing. It is slightly longer than the Wild Hunt, but it has a romance subplot. That romance subplot makes all the difference. What I have found from looking at submission guidelines is that more publishers are interested in fantasy romance novellas than fantasy novellas. Because of this, I’m making a list of publishers I’m planning to submit to.

Another aspect is the fact that to be successful in selfpublishing you have to spend money. I know that some authors manage to selfpublish their novels by spending very little money. I’m not one of them. For Daughter of the Dark I will end up spending 300-400 dollar on editing and cover art.
Is it a lot of money? Not really. Not when you consider it includes content editing, copyediting, proofreading, cover design.  ( Yes, I’ve managed to find a cover artist that I like for less than 120 dollar.)

But if I had written novels? I wouldn’t have had the money to put out a quality product. In fact, I wouldn’t have considered self publishing. Mainly because I think publishers have a role, and that they know what they are doing. Mostly. Since I write Fantasy novellas, that is a purely hypothetic question, though.