Finally I give the low-down on The Darkling Watch

At last it’s the long awaited, long promised post about The Darkling Watch. The entry that I’ve been promising for a while, many, many weeks in fact. I’m struggling to think about where to start. I suppose at the beginning is the best place to start.

The Darkling Watch is part of a series. The series itself focuses on the beings known as the Darklings. The Darklings is the collective name for the supernatural beings that live within our worlds, the vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters and witches, staying hidden from human eyes. The Watch is the police force of this world, comprised of different Darklings and their human helpers who call themselves the Admin. The Darkling Watch is actually probably the end book(s) given that I’ve now reworked the ending (more on that later) and it’s not completely happy. I’ve got other novels vaguely planned that feature characters from this part of the series but they come before the novel starts. So basically I’m working from the back to the beginning. I think. The Darkling Watch is about a girl who is killed, basically at the very beginning, but who is brought back to life and thrown into the world of the Darklings. It’s slowly revealed that what happens to Nadia (our Main Character) wasn’t an accident but that a deranged god has been pulling her strings for many years. Who? Loki, the prankster god of Norse mythology, with a twist. Why? To bring about Ragnarok and end the world.

This novel was a NaNo novel, written for NaNoWriMo, and I only decided to take part about halfway through October. The planning was rushed, the characters were only vaguely described and I had no idea about chapters or anything like that. I had written before but I’d never managed to finish an entire novel. I managed to plan about halfway through, making detailed notes on scenes etc. After that things got a little foggy and I only had vague outlines for each scene. So after I hit the end of my detailed notes I started pantsing. That led to some interesting developments to say the least. Something about writing late at night leads to weird things happening in my mind. Granted, some of these developments were pretty awesome and I couldn’t have thought of them while I was just sat there thinking and planning. It has led to things being quite complicated and the completed novel now needs a lot of work.

The biggest piece of work I’m having to do, before I even think about editing phrasing of sentences and fixing all the little details, is reading through the novel and separating it up into chapters. As I’ve gone through I’ve spotted missing scenes and the fact is that these have made the story even bigger. So it’s ended up with me having to split the manuscript into two, possibly three separate books. I don’t actually have a problem with this, it gives me a chance to explore my characters and their emotions more, building on things that are only briefly touched up but need more attention to them. To put it shortly, the editing I’m doing is making it even bigger. And I like it. Much of my writing right now, as it stands is mostly telling, not showing as writers are encouraged to do. Not worrying about making the novel bigger means I get to hone these skills and get my characters showing how they feel, focusing on emotions and thoughts rather than just ‘he felt sad’, ‘she wanted to kiss his mouth’ and so on. Also I need to add in a timeline in my notes. Right now everything in the story happens very quickly. Nadia falls in love with a shifter too quickly for it to be authentic. Everything gets very rushed along and I need to stretch the time that the novel covers. Making it even longer.

Now... another thing that makes it even longer, possibly into a third book, making The Darkling Watch a trilogy is the research I’ve been doing. Early on in the writing stage I decided that Loki, Norse god of mischief and general iffy character, would be my antagonist. Thing was I didn’t know much about Norse mythology. So, once the novel was finished, I tracked down a few books on Norse mythology. As I worked on it I began to develop new ideas for both The Darkling Watch and my NaNo novel. What struck me most was the myth about Ragnorok, signalled by the freeing of Loki from his chains. In my novel Loki gets free and tries to end the world. With my research though I’m starting to think that maybe the end of the world should get closer to actually happening by the end and they all live happily ever after. The idea of shoving my characters through 3 years of winter is appealing, I do admit.

Yes I’m evil.

Why am I so relaxed about the time I’m taking to edit The Darkling Watch? Why do I not mind the fact that my novel has now turned into two, possibly three, books? Simply put... I’m self-publishing; on Amazon kindle and possibly in paperback. First though I need to finish the story and then I’ve got to find someone who can help with my cover. I have got a few ideas about that actually but more on the topic of book covers at a later date. But before all that I need to find a group of beta readers, something I’m not sure how to do, after the edits are done of course. For now though I’m enjoying the work and taking my time. I’m young and there’s nothing rushing me right now.

The Sunday Workspace: Now with more writing

Alright, I admit it; I almost forgot that I’d promised a blog today. I’m a very bad writer/artist/blogger (person). What matters though is that I’ve remembered and have written this lovely, albeit brief, entry so please don’t pelt me with old fruit or run away!

So getting on topic, in my workspace for the next week are;

1. A series of Sketchbook Project Illustrations. Primarily they’ll be those of the world wonders, some will be the bases for a couple of fold out pages. I’m hoping to get some cutting and sticking done as well as a bit more water-colouring (I really do enjoy watercolour), all on those few pages that I have planned.
2. Further outlining for NaNoWriMo. So far I’ve got the separate scenes (mostly) outlined on individual note-cards. I can expand each scene on the back and move them around (yes I am so much of a geek that organising excites me).  I’ve got to get the order set and ready for expanding.
3. Lots and lots of research. I’ve got various areas that I want to research based on my novel idea; mostly surrounding the supernatural and the various mythologies surrounding those topics. I’m starting simple, using Wikipedia (I know, I know, it’s not 100% reliable however I’m adapting the info to suit me it’s not that big a deal) but by the end of the week I hope to have made a few visits to the library (that is if I get over my weird fear of going to the library alone out of paranoia that the books’ll eat me... ooh idea!)

     I did want to be a pantser (someone who rights by the seat of their pants) but the organising geek in me just couldn’t avoid the whole basic-outline-outline-by-scene-character-profile-exactly, thing.  That also reminds me, I need to come up with some more names for my characters along with descriptions, personality, backstory etc. I accept and acknowledge that I’m weird about this stuff but I reckon that’s part of the joy of being a writer. I just don’t think that Bethany is the name of my MC (main character for the non-writers on here) and as a result I gotta fiddle with that...AGAIN.

      (Here’s a bit of whining/self-pitying, just to show that I’m not this mad happy gremlin that runs around Nottingham.) I accept that I’ve gone off Witchan for the time being. Maybe I started it too soon, I don’t know, I did put up the first pages before I’d even finished the Introduction when it’s possible that I should have waited until then. As it stands though I’m just going to focus on my writing and see if that gets me any closer to reaching my dream of being published. When the urge to draw a page or two strikes me though I’m not ignoring it and hopefully I can and will get a buffer going. I’m not going to force it though (forced art is bad art!)

So that’s what I’ll be doing this week. How about you? Any trips? Anyone else preparing for NaNoWriMo?

Progress Wednesday: Personal challenge, general crafting and a bit of baking.

So this week I've been up to a fair bit of fun and creative stuff. A fair bit of it is related to my Personal Challenge and the October targets. Firstly I've managed to finish another chapter-type thing for my novel. It's a bit tricky to tell this sort of thing now because I've removed the chapter seperations from my first draft. Either way, I've managed to write a large amount since I last posted about the novel. It's tricky because I still wanna research and create my world but at the same time I'm writing. The great thing is that I've found a load of history programs on BT Vision that I can watch as part of research regarding the world itself. As I've been writing though my characters' histories have been revealing parts of my world's culture. I guess that's the way sometimes, when the writing itself runs away and takes on a life of its own.

 For the Sketchbook Project I've managed to finish another page. This one will be in the first few pages and is part of a series of 'Wonder Images' a bunch of pictures linked by the theme of the Wonders of the World. I figured I'd start from England and work my way eastward acround the world from there. This was drawn with soluble watercolour and ink. I sketched the design first before I shaded in the sky and ground with the colour crayons before running over with a wet paintbrush. I then outlined the stones with a fineliner and used a brush pen that was running out to lightly scrub in the texture of the stones.
The lines on the other page, around the date-stamp, is the next in the series, the Eiffel Tower in France. Talking about this has made me think that maybe I need to start taking pictures of my progress as I create a piece.

The picture to the right ---> is also another image for the Sketchbook Project. This comes much later in the book.
In other Personal Challenge news, I've managed to finish the colour for the first full page of Witchan. I need to go over the colour with water as I've used water-soluble pencil crayon again. There will be a white border around it all once I've scanned and editted it on the computer. First though, I've got to fiddle with scanning settings so that the pages scan properly. The comic's on hiatus now, as I said before, while I try to sort things out.
 I spent most of today playing with glue, tissue paper, pom-poms, pipe-cleaners, foam, lolly sticks and goggley eyes. I'll probably pop a few pictures up of my creations once I've finished making them. For now, enjoy these images of my mince pies, I spent Monday afternoon making them by hand. They're surprisingly tasty and now all gone. The big one with the shooting star hole is big enough for two!

Progress Wednesday: A fair bit done.

So it's Wednesday again. I've gotten a fair bit of progress made once more. Sadly, due to being in an interview all day means that I've not got any pictures. For the Sketchbook Project I've finished another picture and planned two more. That's further success for my personal challenge. I've also planned three more pages of Witchan and plan to sketch them up tomorrow, as well as finishing the colour for the pages I have. Hopefully I'll be able to finish altering the two pages I've scanned too. For my novels, I finished the first draft for one chapter and I've also started another. Research into the world itself and my creation of it is also going well, as is the research for the new idea I came up with.

Well, that's it for today, I may blog again tomorrow and expand on this but right now I'm just exhausted.
So, good night.

Research and language creation

Looking at the title I've just realised that I'm absolutely rubbish at coming up with titles, for blogs and for stories. I need to work on that.
Anyway, back to the task at hand. Last night, while watching Lord of the Rings, extended edition, I was inspired. It was great. I was just sat on my bed, surrounded by paper and writing stuff about the world that I'm planning to set most of my stories in. I ended up doing lots of organising, which let's face it, I love. I've finally found a way to bring in the elves and dwarves and other crazy creatures that make fantasy more fantastic. I blame Terry Brooks for this of course. Him and Tolkien. First I had to figure out what kinds of creatures I wanted to include within Geniania (that's the world, yes.. the name needs a little work) and then I had to figure out why they didn't appear in the history of the countries I'd already written about. I've got the first few figured out but may well include others later as I write stories in other countries.
I'm also, dare I say it, looking at creating languages for these other races which is both exciting and nerve-wrecking. I probably won't use much of any languages I do create, just a few words. Either way though I'm hoping that it's going to be a fun and interesting thing to do, even if it has little baring on the stories themselves.
People are probably reading this and wondering why am I putting so much research and work into backstory that won't be relevant to the stories themselves or that the readers may well never hear about. People could think "it's fantasy, why do you need to research anything? You can just make it up and say it's that way because the world says so" There's a simple answer to both of those questions. It makes the world and its people seem much more real. I could simply start writing without doing any of this research but I'd probably get stuck halfway through and get my facts all mixed up.
There's other stuff I need to research too but it's not really world specific, more story specific and it would give things away. All this research could very well see me in the library at some point though so I need to track down Nottingham Library as well as Cotgrave and West Bridgeford so that I can have a wander around.