Two months has flown by fast. It doesn't feel like I've made two months worth of progress (of course), but nonetheless there are some new developments that you all might enjoy hearing about.
First off, going back to my May important update blog post, I had announced physical versions of my book would be coming soon. It's still in the works, it's just taking some time to finalize and make sure a print version will look good and correct. I'm having to learn how to resize my cover to fit the right margins, as well as adding a back and spine to it, along with text that will go on that spine and back. Moral of the story: next time I commision an artist to make me a cover, I will request and pay for one that fits the back and spine as well as the front.
Second, if you've read that blog post I mentioned earlier, you will also have seen that the addition of a new project to my list, The Midnight Masquerade. Beyond the initial planning, I haven't done much with it, it's on the backburner while I work on my books in order. What I can tell you, however, is that The Midnight Masquerade exists because after considering what The Eldritch Queen trilogy will be about, it won't quite satisfy my itch for dabbling in themes and cultures I enjoy tremendously. The goal is for The Midnight Masquerade to combine urban fantasy with the essence of the early American 1900s, specifically the mid-20s to early 30s. It will also incorporate the vibe of the renaissance. I don't know what genre it will be, but I do want some kind of blend of mystery, thriller, and dark fantasy. It has similarities to The Eldritch Queen, but the settings and influences are quite different. The Eldritch Queen pulls a lot from eastern/southern European culture in the 1800s and slavic mythology.
Lastly, concerning The Aveline Heiress, I have made a few small decisions that have in fact significant consequences. I say that in a good way. My choice to keep a lot of existing content from the initial version as opposed to rewriting everything will save me lots of time and I believe it will be beneficial to the final product. I do not write the same way twice, so I found it pretty much impossible to tell myself to throw out the things I feel I did incredibly well with the first time around. The trick has become merging old scenes with the brand new or severely modified/combined ones. At around two-thirds of the way through the story, which is just under 90,000 words in the first version, the book has precisely 64 "scenes" I call them, The revision has only 46 scenes after I spent lots of time figuring out how to tell a better version of the same exact storyline in a shorter amount of time. Yes, it is in fact possible to tell basically the same story and leave little out in a shorter time. Sound confusing? Look forward to a post in the future elaborating on my exact process, it'll be a great way to look into the mind of a writer.
With The Aveline Heiress, I'm trying to have everything my own way. Often times, stories can write themselves the way they want based on your natural writing process. It's entirely another thing to be able to take control and do things differently, the way they need to be, the way you want it to be. My default mode is to write descriptively, slow and methodically, but that's not how I want The Aveline Heiress to be. With this revision, I'm aiming to make the story appropriately faster-paced, more appealing to the group I want it to, redoing the bad, while simultaneously making the good even better and without taking away from the essence of the book. Funnily enough, I feel like I'm beginning to learn and grasp the very things I believe I've lacked since I started writing, especially control of pacing.
I have an excellent story, that much I am certain of. I'm highly confident it will be something I can pitch to an authentic publisher. It's only a matter of extracting the potential I know the story has out of it. I'm not going to quit, I'm going to take as long as I need, because with a story like this, I will not settle for anything less than exactly what I want. Not to put down The Gatekeeper: The War for Marroland, but it's about improving my ability as an author. Thankfully, with the way I'm handling the revision, finishing The Aveline Heiress won't be as long of a wait as it might have been.
If I can nail this book here and now, I can absolutely strike gold with The Eldritch Queen. Stay tuned.
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