Audio Recording

The State of the Writer: 4/18/21

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 2 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 4/4/21         The State of the Writer: 5/2/21–>

A post updated every other Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 1

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Setting up notes in Scrivener

Sometimes you take steps back in a process, which is why I removed “working on Chapter 1 outline” from the status.  I’ve been hashing out more notes and trying to refine the connections between this and my first novel.  I’m trying to decide if I want to make a Scrivener for that prior to starting work on this.  Obviously The Serpent’s Tale is already written, but it needs a complete overhaul.  Because it’s the foundation of this story, I have characters and settings from it in Scrivener under “Past Characters” and “Past Settings,” but there’s a lot of crossover, and it might just be easier to make it its own.  Even if it wouldn’t help with this novel, it’ll help when I rewrite TST.  It’s really just deciding if I want to do it prior to jumping into this, and this all started because I needed to make a map lol.  I am absolutely awful at direction so a visual representation would really help; however, I’m also shit at drawing and measuring distances so there’s that, too.  All of the online map creators are either too complicated or cost money, so here I am doing it freehand.  I have notes about where certain places were located as well as the story’s starting and ending point.  It’s just filling out the details between.

Continue reading →

The State of the Writer: 3/7/21

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 24 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 2/21/21         The State of the Writer: 3/21/21–>

A post updated every other Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 1

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Setting up notes in Scrivener & Working on Chapter 1 Outline

The last major thing I have to do is finish up my language notes.  I have some minor character details I could figure out, but a lot of that stuff happens in the writing process.  I’m super tired today and the caffeine doesn’t seem to be working so yeah.  I hope I can get the outline together so I can start writing soon.

Continue reading →

The State of the Writer: 2/21/21

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 6 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 2/7/21         The State of the Writer: 3/7/21–>

A post updated every other Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 1

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Setting up notes in Scrivener & Working on Chapter 1 Outline

A Supreme Ruler needs a supreme steed.  He doesn’t QUITE breathe fire, but his origins are very suspect per the first time I wrote about him in The Serpent’s Tale.  I wound up finding the name “Angaros” in The Book of Angels, a volume I bought years ago that I still use for a reference every now and then (I literally have it next to me right now because as you all know my memory is shit, and I couldn’t quite remember exactly what Angaros meant).  It translates into “courier” from Persian, and I thought, “Well that’s a great name for a dark angel’s horse.  Why the hell not?”  There’s another term “Angiras,” which I thought said “Ankiras” until today so that’s a 13+ year mistake (oops), but…I like the subtle difference between Angaros and Ankiras and plan to use the latter for the name of the titular character’s hawk.  Angiras is from ancient Sanskrit and means “divine spirit,” and I like that for a bird.  The Holy Ghost is often represented as a dove so there you go.

Continue reading →

The State of the Writer: 2/7/21

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 12 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 1/24/21         The State of the Writer: 2/21/21–>

A post updated every other Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 1

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Setting up notes in Scrivener

I managed to figure out one of the things I had under General Issues and Questions on OneNote from years ago for the male MC.  Sometimes I just have to start writing about the problem and brainstorming solutions, and it’ll come together.  I still have a few more things to do, but I’m starting to think about what I need to finish up in order to start writing the first chapter.  My hubs is the MVP for just listening to me talk about this shit and let me figure it out lol.

Continue reading →

The State of the Writer: 1/24/21

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 6 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 1/10/21         The State of the Writer: 2/7/21–>

A post updated every other Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 1

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Setting up notes in Scrivener

I wound up making a checklist of things I want to do in Scrivener before I start writing.  This was after I went through all of my old notebooks for any scribblings specifically related to the WIP like the stuff involving language and demographic background.  The checklist happened because I wanted a way to catalog what I still needed to nail down before I begin writing (plus I work better with checklists/to-do lists), but I also feel like I’m nearing the point where I just want to start and then figure things out as I go.

Continue reading →

The State of the Writer: 1/10/21

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 6 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 12/27/20         The State of the Writer: 1/24/21–>

A post updated every other Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 0

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Setting up notes in Scrivener

I have reached the obsessive stage of my language creation lol.  I think I’ve found a pattern I like though, and I also think I can move on and back to other things while still working on this on the side.  I still have numerous items from my notebooks to work in, nor have I figured out some of the integral details of how the world operates.  It’s more hashing out how things work so that I can be consistent when I finally start to write.  Plus I want to go back to finding pictures of beautiful people lol.  I’ll start posting the ideas I have for the other characters, too.

Continue reading →

The State of the Writer: 12/27/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 2 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 12/13/20         The State of the Writer: 1/10/21–>

A post updated every other Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 2

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Setting up notes in Scrivener

Whew…creating a language is time consuming lol.  My plan was always to expand on what I’d initially started in The Serpent’s Tale, my first (and still unpublished) novel that this one borrows heavily from.  The male MC is a polyglot and fully fluent in the language of his background, and I’m kind of a doer when it comes to writing aka show vs. tell I suppose.  You can’t just say someone speaks a different language and not have them speak said language (it’s the same way how I had to literally show he’s an assassin by, uh, having him kill some people lol).  I made up more words in that language, which is called Rava, than any others, and it’s the only one where I even attempted grammar and syntax.

Continue reading →

The State of the Writer: 11/29/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 7 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 11/15/20         The State of the Writer: 12/13/20–>

A post updated every other Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 1

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Setting up notes in Scrivener

Besides finding the perfect artwork of my protagonist I’ve been very productive.  It’s all worldbuilding shit right now, but I purchased the full version of Scrivener, and I’ve been working on it bit by bit every day.  I tend to come up with ideas as I’m working, which is a bit of a catch 22 since I’m a plotter, so I need to know what I’m writing before I write it.  This doesn’t mean I can’t change, but I have to have some kind of vague idea of where I’m going.  Granted, I completely changed the end of my first novel and had no clue how I was going to end Northern Lights when I wrote it, but I had all of the necessary elements to start.  With this one I have a similar issue where I’m not sure how the titular character’s major issue resolves, but as I mentioned I come up with my best ideas while writing, so yeah…

Continue reading →

The State of the Writer: 11/15/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 14 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 11/1/20         The State of the Writer: 11/29/20–>

A post updated every other Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 1

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Setting up notes in Scrivener

Holy shit…there’s a new story in the status lol.  I’ve talked about this one before I shelved it for a while, but I’m back at it now that The Broken Rose is finished.  This is the story I wanted to use TBR as a test run for.  I attempted to do it for NaNoWriMo a few years ago, but I wound up scrapping the whole thing and starting over.  The first chapter was boring, and I needed to do something else.

Continue reading →

The State of the Writer: 11/1/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 13 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 10/18/20         The State of the Writer: 11/15/20–>

A post updated every other Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 1

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Length: Novel
Final Word Count: 249,902
Prior Word Count: 250,147
Word Difference: -245
Status: Finished

I wrote this in the authors note, but my god…this was an experience.  I learn something new with every story I write.  Among other things I realized something that’s supposed to just be an idea trial for something else could turn into the longest thing I’ve ever written and stand on its own merits.  I also expanded on my own person Aeriseph head canon universe in ways I never dreamed of, but even more so I realized things about myself I never considered.  Granted as I grow older I conclude more aspects of my identity, but with what I write and what I want to write it comes even clearer.

Continue reading →