tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-22:662460Serpent Slitheringwhen the snake ain't scribblingT. E. Waters2012-09-28T02:17:15Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-22:662460:3828State of the Writer... September edition.2012-09-28T02:13:50Z2012-09-28T02:17:15Zpublic0I'm afraid to say that this month has mostly been a wash in terms of progress. Ironically, I got more done while on vacation than I did upon my return... HOWEVER, I have some super exciting news to announce too!<br /><br />1. <b>The Ghost Tiger's Lament</b>: NOW IN PRINT. !!! Buy links that are currently live:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SFBSGK">http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SFBSGK</a> (cover image hasn't updated here yet)<br /><a href="http://www.createspace.com/3679903">http://www.createspace.com/3679903</a><br /><br />More links will go up at <a href="http://www.tewaters.com/spring-and-autumn/book-i">the book page</a> if/when I find them. Alternatively, I'm planning to set up a Goodreads giveaway soonish, so keep an eye out for that too.<br /><br />In honor of the release, I also finished compiling a long list of the resources I used/still use when researching for this series. Check it out <a href="http://www.tewaters.com/spring-and-autumn/resources">HERE</a>.<br /><br />2. <b>Black Tortoise, White Snake</b> (Ghost Tiger sequel): I've started posting excerpts <a href="http://www.wattpad.com/story/2180312-black-tortoise-white-snake-draft-excerpts">at Wattpad</a>. :3 It's locked for fans only though, so you'll need an account. I don't know how much I will end up posting, but for those who like sneak peeks...<br /><br />3. <b>Memory of AUSOS</b>: Nothing much to say this time around, other than the fact that I've been SUPER NERVOUS about tripping myself up with what I've already established and what I haven't...<br /><br />Also:<br /><br /><img height="300" width="200" src="http://www.tewaters.com/ausos-nahwan/ausos1.jpg"><br /><br />^_^ (illustration by the awesome <a href="http://r-tan.deviantart.com/">Raymond Tan</a>. terrible and in-progress font work by me.)<br /><br />4. <b>The Land of Eternal Winter</b>: Have finally resumed work on this. Trying to go faster, but have been going through trash/rewrite cycles for a few problem areas.<br /><br />5. <b>Other/Miscellaneous</b>: I've been doing a lot of research recently for the space opera universe... Am also working on Twelfth Princess's story ("Small Magics"). I'd like to get "Small Magics" out before the end of the year, but we'll have to see.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=tewaters&ditemid=3828" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-22:662460:2859Julyyyy update2012-07-22T22:15:32Z2012-07-22T22:15:32Zpublic0Rawr. Wattpad readers are FRIGHTENINGLY voracious. XD Within 3-5 days of my feature, I'd had 800+ complete readthroughs of Ghost Tiger. Even more by now. I've been cycling through various stages of nervousness and joy all month... I'm probably not making any extra money from the exposure or anything, but it really makes me more happy than I can express that I've been finding an audience for what I originally thought would be a very, very niche story.<br /><br />In other random news, I immediately jumped on board when Kobo's publishing platform came out of beta earlier this month. TBH I have no idea how to find my stuff on their site (and Smashwords had previously been distributing ugly Meatgrinder files to them -- not sure if they've been taken down yet) and I haven't sold a single thing yet, but I adore the platform, at least. Sleek, intuitive design, plenty of stats to potentially obsess over... I guess I'll invest some more time figuring things out later.<br /><br />ANYHOW. Here is a progress report on my current projects:<br /><br />1. <b>Memory of AUSOS</b>: Episode 14 was really bad from a serialization POV, I think. I had a pretty tough time trying to figure out how to approach this episode, but in the end I had to settle for something I'm still not at all satisfied with. Episode 15 is the beginning of a double-episode arc and should come across much better... or so I hope.<br /><br />2. <b>The Land of Eternal Winter</b>: This little baby is chugging along nicely after my block during May/June. I think I've unknotted most of the major issues I was stuck on.<br /><br />I haven't talked much about this book/series in public so far, but I will say it's faster-paced than pretty much everything I've published so far and is generally a lot of fun. I don't like making promises about release dates (I work really badly with precise deadlines T_T), but I do hope to have it out sometime this fall.<br /><br />That said, I'm thinking of using this one to experiment with Amazon's Kindle Select program as a launch strategy, so it may not be until early 2013 before it will be available to non-Kindle readers. (Select asks for 90 days of exclusivity.) After the period of exclusivity is over, though, I plan to put this on Wattpad too! Haven't decided anything for certain yet though.<br /><br />3. <b>Black Tortoise, White Snake</b>: i.e. the Ghost Tiger sequel and my other wintry project at the moment.<br /><br />Well, I finally took the plunge and started drafting. And I'm really excited by the way it's turning out far! I suspect it will end up longer than Ghost Tiger -- the story is no longer solely from Ashne's POV (I won't spoil anyone reading this post on the other two POVs just yet though :P), and in general the plot focus is no longer quite so narrow. It's a rather different sort of book from the first, I think, but hopefully still just as enjoyable (or more so).<br /><br />I will probably put this up on Wattpad eventually as well, but it really depends on what my sales are looking like by the time it's done in a couple of months, and how much the publishing industry has changed (again) by then.<br /><br />(It's the third book in this series [out of a total of five] that almost definitely <i>won't</i> end up on Wattpad for various reasons: chronologically it's a prequel and Ashne & co. only show up as cameos for the most part, it is probably going to end up as one MONSTER TOME of a book, and generally speaking it's a much heavier story than I think most people are going to be willing to invest their time in. But who knows -- Book 3 is still a looong way off, and I may very well have changed my mind by then!)<br /><br />4. <b>Other/Miscellaneous</b>: People have really taken a liking to "Thousand-Year Cat", I notice. I've actually planned a few more short stories in this universe (one has in fact been 60-70% written for more than a year) -- I really should get cracking on them, huh? XP<br /><br />That said, the stories are only very loosely connected, and each one will be stylistically different from the others... so people who liked "Cat" may not necessarily like the rest. The one that's almost done is essentially a rambling first person pseudo-mystery starring a powerful middle-aged witch. So yeah.<br /><br />Aside from that one, there is one about Twelfth Princess (from "Cat") and her horde of nutty sisters, and one surreal Sleeping Beauty-inspired tale about a sorceress who shows up in the pseudo-mystery....<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />IN OTHER NEWS, I will be on vacation for a month starting August 9th, but hopefully will continue to get things done while gone.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=tewaters&ditemid=2859" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-22:662460:2472That time of the month again2012-06-26T20:07:00Z2012-06-26T20:07:00Zpublic0Hmm, yeah, a couple of updates, with perhaps more later. Maybe I should start posting here more than once a month. :P<br /><br /><br />1. <b>Memory of AUSOS</b>: I've finally reached the midpoint of the first season! i.e. am venturing now into uncharted territories... Technically I have the whole season outlined, but I'm really a pantser at heart, and this shows especially with AUSOS, where I pretty much never know exactly how an update is going to turn out until I sit down and write it.<br /><br />The last couple of updates (the ones since relaunch) have been kinda interesting in that I've been waiting a long, long time to write them. Episode 13 in particular has been in the plans from the very beginning... Which didn't make it any easier to write, but did mean I had a pretty clear image or idea of what I was going for.<br /><br />But now that I've passed that milestone, the next major milestone I have ahead of me is the season finale. Which is a long way off. And everything that lies in between is muddled and vague. Or, in other words, I feel like I'm starting from scratch again, even though I'm technically not. Still, daunting!<br /><br /><br />2. <b>The Ghost Tiger's Lament</b>: Like I've posted several times at several places by now, the book is now posted in entirety at Wattpad --<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wattpad.com/story/1427188-the-ghost-tiger%27s-lament">http://www.wattpad.com/story/1427188-the-ghost-tiger%27s-lament</a><br /><br />It's going to be featured starting July 5th, and I'm a little nervous about the reception... but oh well, what's done is done. No use wasting more brain power on it. I've started hammering out the shape of the sequel and doing research for it, and have also written a few snippets here and there, but it doesn't look anything like the beginnings of a proper draft yet.<br /><br /><br />3. <b>Vortex Saga/The Land of Eternal Winter</b>: The new/current project. To be honest, I have been completely STUCK on writing for the past two months, but that doesn't mean I haven't been making progress either. Recently I decided to trash the opening of the first book and try a different angle, so we'll see how that goes.<br /><br />For the record, I cycled through at least ten different openings for Ghost Tiger -- and have done similarly for previous (retired) projects. AUSOS was one of the rare instances where I knew exactly where and how to start. Otherwise, I HATE OPENINGS. (For longer work, at least. Don't have as much of a problem with them for shorts.) No other part of a book gives me as much trouble or forces me to do as much rewriting. For me, the opening serves as the foundation of the rest of the story, so if I don't get it right, everything collapses. On the flip side, once the opening is (finally) set in stone, the rest is relatively smooth going. Fixes later on are easier to make, and much less painful.<br /><br /><br />4. <b>Other/Miscellaneous</b>: Like I said, have been in a rut through most of May/June. Aside from dashing out AUSOS updates, I did get a little bit of work done on a short story that's like more than a year old at this point, but not enough to boast about. :P<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=tewaters&ditemid=2472" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments