Getting back into the routine

OK, the poetry books have been published, the decks have been cleared and I am ready to roll - again.

My first action was to read the chapters I have written so far. Ouch, doesn't look too good but I am assured that this is par for the course for a first draft. The story itself still excites me, so I guess I just pick up where I left off and leave improving it until later.

One of the first things which I have been making notes about is to fill in the structure of the story, the outline. I am preparing a list of "titles" for the scenes in the next part of the story. To this end I am trying to put a little flesh on the bones of the story by preparing some visualisations as discussed in a reccent post.

So far I have dealt with:-

•  an introduction to the story, 
• the magical accident which results in an evil twin of King Eadwyne being "born" as an adult, 
• how this twin (who becomes known as FEAR) begins to explore the castle and
• the discovery of the library of magic by FEAR
• and how Dinbar, Eadwyne's Court Magician is used by FEAR to learn how to use the power of the library for his own evil ends.

I have outlined several other chapters but I am now working on adding the flesh referred to above. As an example, here is a photocollage of a scene where the Castle Commander, Bryssan Firaeus is being warned about FEAR by Dinbar. I am not yet sure who the imp in the background leaning over the wall is supposed to represent but it could yet lead to an interesting side plot.

(check out my photography blog for how I did this, or use the page menu at the top of the page).

Procrastination or clearing the decks?

It has been five weeks since my last post but I have not been idle. I have been converting a number of articles and poetry collections into a format which I can publish on Amazon. I have used their own independent publishing company Createspace. Createspace offers a completely free service including ISBN numbering and an on-line cover designer however a number of professional services are available if you need or desire that help. I chose the free services but found that proof reading is a skill I definitely need to cultivate, LOL.

I have been "clearing the decks" of some material I have had around for some time and decided that I would take a few weeks and then I would have a clear way forward with the novel. I hope I am not simply procrastinating, it would be such a pity since I started "Emcounter with Fear" with such high hopes and expectations.

For your information, the four books published so far are:-

 

You can see them all on my author page on Amazon (Nightmare may take a couple of days to appear due to the Amazon processing).

Depending on how I approach the next couple, there may be another 2 or 3 books to be converted, however I shall not be spending too much time on those and expect to be back to writing the novel very soon.

I have not been completely out of touch with Eadwynne and hiw friends however I have been making notes and scribbling down ideas. I even visited a local castle, Kenilworth Castle,  to take in the atmosphere and take a few photos to help with setting the scenes for my story. Hopefully I will be back to regular postings by the end of this month. Watch out for postings via the usual social networks.