Finally Moving Forward Again

Journal 120 20 May- 1 June 2024

Finally, I feel like I’m getting back into the grove.

I still find that my attention is pulled in multiple directions and I’m constantly splitting time. But I’ve finished a task that should have been handled months ago.

The Daeria Novel (aka Invasion 2) is resting again. My first revision pass hunted down typos, fixed major continuity errors, and clarified a ton of sentences. Gods do I tend to run on with long sentences.

Despite the cutting and culling of my sentences, I ended up adding more words overall to the manuscript. But considering the sections where I seemed to have paused, forgot the entire end of a conversation. Then another section missing a bit of exposition. A character forgotten in mid action.

In any case the first pass is done and the book can go sit. It is done enough for now. Coming in at 188K, the shortest of the books so far.

Next Book

Which brings us to Dusk aka Invasion 3.

I have nothing holding me back—other than splitting my time between a dozen different things. As I write this, I’m thinking about taking the car in for an oil change, I have my laundry in the washer, and I have paint work to do.

The excuses still come easy, I guess. Ha ha.

Dusk might be the largest of the books. Depends on how deep I want to go with the first third of the book. The original outline of my thesis novel would have been 300k words. But between college classes telling me to aim lower. And shifting it from the third novel in a series to the prequel to another series. And it would be a first novel for a new author… if I ever find an agent and sell it. But I digress.

The point is that Ashlands was originally slated to be this massive standalone book that was a bridge between a Duology and Pentalogy. It was going to be a massive, oversized story that introduced all the key heroes, villains, and the inciting incident that launches the Pentalogy.

Evolving Story

As I’ve written the Invasion books I have evolved and changed the storyline. My attention to detail has forced me to track days for everything. Travel, distances, seasonal changes, etc.

It doesn’t make sense for my main heroes to show up in all five books. The books are taking place all over the place, thousands of miles apart and it makes no sense for the heroes at the end of Daeria. Who—SPOILER—are arguing to go in two different directions, neither of which is 3-5000 miles East to Dusk.

My story demanded that I let other heroes handle the next novel.

Original Plans

Each book was originally set to have a main story and a B-story. If you’ve read through all the journals during the last two novels, I go over the A+B stories all the time. For the last two novels the A storyline has been Slater & Co, driving the overall story arc. And the B-story is usually local heroes in their own problems who end up joining the main story.

In Invasion 1 was a bunch of tomb robbers awakening an ancient Pharaoh and running away from an invading army (and assassins). They easily get caught up with the A-story heroes, who help put the Pharaoh back on the throne on their way out of Aegyptus.

Invasion 2: I decided to use secondary characters from my thesis novel as the B-heroes, with the addition of some locals. The book is a 50-50 split where both storylines are driven to meet in the middle. Literally traveling over thousands of miles to join in (I THINK) spectacular ending. It’s travelogue, fight scenes, exposition and theory crafting, and then a final showdown between multiple factions at the end.

Original Invasion 3 should have seen the A-story then turn and go to Dusk. Rinse and repeat of the stories. A arrives on the scene while B is dealing with a problem. Yada.

But as I said above, organically the end of Book 2 saw the dynamic of the A-team shifting. With arguments over what direction to take and with the B-team melding into the group.

Hence why over the last few months I have spent a ton of time writing new notes, mapping the city of Dusk, coming up with storylines. Writing roleplaying game mechanics and materials about the setting and characters.

Yeah, it was an exercise in procrastination.

New Plans Dusk

And because of all of the procrastination I have come up with a whole new narrative. A twist to the narrative focus.

For two books the A-team have driven the story, only ending up entangled with the b-story by happenstance, or because of confluence.

With Dusk I want to make the local heroes the main focus of the piece. I also want to introduce the setting. The local heroes are the A-story. I’m swapping the priority and the weight of the storylines.

Slater and Co are not coming here, but I still need former members of the A-team moving through this story. So, I took a page from Invasion 2 and returned to secondary characters. Barnabus and Jaime from book 1. The first characters to leave on their own (also combine from the B and A teams respectively).

How does this make the book longer?

That’s the question.

Well, with a shift to focus on the “local heroes” in the next three books. I might have forgotten to mention that the next two books are also local forward stories.

Focus.

The plan right now is for the first third of the book to focus on the lives of two brothers. From their birth through their teens, separation, rise to power, and then reunion as an unstoppable duo. This part of the story could be TOLD in a brief matter of paragraphs, or a couple meaty chapters. Or I could go to town and devote a full ten chapters, five each fleshing out key events and moments in their lives.

Then we have to have the local story—the “what is happening NOW?”, before Barnabus and Jaime come into the story and bring all of their baggage. The invasion part of the whole series only comes into the back third of the book.

Add on that I keep changing up what happens in my pro- and epilogues. Which are both actually their own story. This is a bit of a spoiler easter egg, but the way I’m writing them they can sort of be cut out of the books and then formed into their own novella by the time all five books are done. I’m toying with bringing back the interludes that break the novel into three sections. Past. Now. Invasion.

Digressing?

Perhaps I’m going too far in this post.

Suffice, the revision pass is done and now I can get myself set to start writing again. The Dusk novel is going to be epic in every way. It introduces some of my favorite characters, my favorite setting, and just a dark horror element.

Not saying that horror isn’t steeped in all of my writing, as my other favorite genre. I am a man who loves monsters and their stories. Human and otherwise.

I’ve rambled on long enough. I’m excited and there is a lot coming down the road.

Thanks for reading and see you soon.