New Year, New… Something
Me? Not quite. Update? Yes!
The holidays were busy, so busy that I didn’t get much on my books done at all. Now that it’s almost February, I figured it was about time to remind everyone I still exist and I am, in fact, still working on Immersion. (If you want to keep in the loop with what I’m doing, I usually post weekly on my Instagram page!) My goal is to hit 20,000 words this month, and then add 30,000 words in both February and March, leaving me at a total of 80,000 words. Then I will attempt to complete the third book’s first draft by August at the latest (no promises on that, I know I have a bad sense of time!)
At this point, I’m not sure how long it will take me to edit these books completely. I am hoping to get the first book into the world sometime between the end of this year, and the beginning of 2023. However, there are no hard deadlines yet. They all have major revisions that I will have to address and they will need streamlined so there are fewer characters in total (there are some characters that do NOTHING for the plot, and as much as I love them, they need to go). Every character that remains will be plot relevant… but perhaps not for that specific book.
Speaking of specific books, I have mentioned that other books will include the syreni or sirens in a previous blog post. They are not the only ones that will make cameos and hint at future stories. So far, I believe the third book will bring at least one main character from another story, if not two. (To be decided, sometimes plot and characters decide that they will stay or need cut out in the editing phase. Sorry Niko, but you don’t do ANYTHING for Elise’s story now.) That’s the problem when I have too many characters and plot threads that are all interconnected. Now I have to attempt to explain them in story format so that people can understand.
Thankfully, I am starting to learn some tricks to keep myself writing. Mainly, that if I’m bored by the scene, other people will be, so the best thing I can do is interrupt the scene with some sort of conflict. (Thanks to a few videos by Alexa Donne on Youtube, they were so helpful!) A lot of it will need editing and streamlining as I mentioned above. Whatever works when I’m a pantser, right? (Pantser: someone who doesn’t do the outline thing at all and just writes whatever comes to mind.) Keep in mind, I do have an end goal, I just never know what will happen in the middle of a story!
I am proud to announce that Immersion is at somewhere around 12,000 to 13,000 words. I should hit 20,000 before the month ends. Summer, Min, and Mitan (me-tahn) are discovering things aren’t as easy as they would like now that the main elf village is in view. (Mostly Summer, but when does anything go right for main characters?) I am excited to get them on their journey to meet the main character of… whatever the third book will be called. I am debating changing it to Vibration since Combustion fits another character’s story better. Future me will know, and you will too, once I post about it.
Finally, I have discovered that the scenery of the books has changed over time. In the past, the elf village never had mushroom-looking buildings. To be fair, the elf village didn’t actually exist in my mind, since I never wrote about the elves living there. I wrote about the outliers, the ones that stayed away from the main group. (I wonder if that says anything about me. Nah, it couldn’t possibly!) Min is one such outlier, and he still is. I’ll leave you to discover why that is when you read Immersion. What do you think makes a character an outlier?
Housekeeping/TLDR: I’m still working on Immersion and hope to finish the first draft by the end of March. I am posting (mostly) weekly on my Instagram. Future blog posts will be once a month to give a larger overview. I will also update the book list as I change or add titles for future books. Feel free to ask about those books too!
Until the Stars Fall,
Vivian Hale
Current Songs: We Stand in Silence by Twelve Titans Music, Origin by Besomorph, Neoni