December Writing Goals & State of Samantha

I'm stealing this from the genius that is Brandon Sanderson. Every year in December he does a post where he lets people know where he's at with his many projects. Since I've talked about several this year I thought I'd bring them up and tell you where I am with each of them, since the state of them has changed throughout the year. I'm also including my goals for the month and what I achieved since last month at the bottom of the post.

The Queen's Ransom

My main project at the moment. I have a 400 days plan, which I'll talk about in the latter half of the post. If I can't manage that I'll stick to the original plan, which involves finishing completely by either May of 2018 or April of 2019. Currently I'm finishing POV editing, which I'm hopeful will be done soon, and then move to continuity editing before sending it off to a few choice Alpha Readers. While that's with readers I'll be taking a crack at the "epic" version I've talked about. I don't know where that will lead, but you'll definitely be kept updated.

Lamp and Mirror

Originally the idea for this story was completely different, but now it has morphed into a victorian-era vampire romance trilogy, which will probably be my next project. I plan to start writing it by June of next year, though the sooner the better. If all goes to plan I'll have the rough draft done in September.

Whole New World

The companion novel to The Queen's Ransom (and title subject to change) will also be a project I begin in the new year. I don't think I'll get to it until the latter half of the year, which means, tentatively, October through December will be the rough draft stage of this book. 

Wheel and Cog

This is the project of my heart and I dearly want to write it, but I don't know when I will. It means to much to mess up and while the big picture doesn't evolve the small details do slowly. I don't think I'll get to it next year but I will get to it eventually, so stay tuned.

Septology Project

On the way back burner for right now. I don't even know if it will be written at this point because the spark has mostly died. Most likely I will take ideas from it for other projects, which I think is the best course of action for this one.

Previously Unmentioned

There are several projects I want to work on in the new year that I've never mentioned on here before, so I thought I'd throw them in.

Train Towns

This is a novella full of a lot of different things that I want to at least start in the new year. I want to keep it short and sweet and I'm hoping it will be good enough to submit to magazines or competitions when it's done. My plan is to start the rough draft in February.

Monsters Under Bed/Monsters in my Head

A poem that has also been circulating in my mind for a bit. I think I will begin this in May, after it's been circulating a bit more. Again, I'm hoping it's good enough, when it'd done, to send off to competitions.

DECEMBER GOALS

I'll be continuing my rewrite/POV editing this month and my plan is to also get through the continuity. However, I recently came up with a rather ambitious 400 days schedule. This means I want to finish the book and have it out there for submissions before 400 days have passed. You're wondering why 400. Well, in 400 days (less now) I'll be having my last day of work at where I work since I'll then be leaving for studying abroad and can't keep the job overseas and don't have any plans to immediately return after studying abroad. If I can have a novel up on it's own feet in that time I think it would be brilliant. Here are the next big hurdles according to my 400 days plan:

• December 15th -- finish POV editing
• January 14th -- finish continuity editing
• March 15th -- finish with Alpha Readers

Septology Project

This idea has just sort of snuck into my head and now it won't leave me alone. I haven't written a word down, but my head has just spiraled away with what this story is and where it will go. 

Here's what I know:

- Besides those four characters I outlined briefly in the earlier post, I have a bunch of spare characters floating through my head that had books/series' at one point but nothing substantial and so now they're waiting for homes and they would all fit in here pretty nicely.

- While there will be both male and female main characters, the only characters with POV points will be women. That's the plan! And that sounds kinda easy, but guys, can you think of an epic fantasy series that only relies on female narrative? I can't, at least not one of the extent to which I'm imagining for the breed of fantasy I want to write.

- It's going to be a cross between Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and Throne of Glass. Okay I hate when publishers describe things like this, but those are the big influences on the series right now. It's not really a cross between any of those things but it's also definitely heavily influenced by those three.

- It's as much sci-fi as it is epic fantasy. So it's epic sci-fi (I guess??). Basically, there are at least four planets and each of them is a fantasy world (along the lines of Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings so like "epic" fantasy worlds) and they do communicate with each other. There will be a way for cross-planet travel. I'm thinking maybe ships (but not the rocket kind, the ocean kind except in space!)

- It's going to be massive. Like the size of Game of Thrones (I keep tossing that one around, huh? yeah, I was talking about it with someone and it spurred some ideas into action). Each book will be probably be around 300k a piece if not more. The store is huge because there are at least four planets to tackle.

- The plot is a huge work in progress, but I know basic character arcs and I know where I want the first book (and the second) to end for many of the characters.

When will I have time to work on it? Well, it will be reward, I guess. When I reach a certain amount of writing in my main project I'll let myself dabble with these books and these characters. I don't want to go full steam ahead, though, because I don't want to dedicate all my time to the series quite yet. I have so many ideas clamoring around my head and only so much time. I want this series on paper, but it's going to be slow going.

Also, regarding the all-female narrative for this epic sci-fi series, I really love this idea. BAMF women are my thing. But there are a lot of interesting men in the series and I wouldn't balk at writing short stories or alternate scenes from their point of view that wouldn't be part of the main book.

Well, that's what I've got so far for Septology Project.

An idea and where I'm at

I've been posting a lot lately, this is strange! Strange in a good way. I hope I'm not too annoying, haha!

So, you may have noticed that TQR is at 70% now. Yay! I'm almost done and that's so awesome. I'm still behind, but not by as much, and writing, once I sit down and start doing it, has been really easy lately. No idea why but the words have just started to flow.

In my original plan I was just going to do some light edits, on a hardcopy, before sending it off to some friends to read, but because of all the continuity issues and the fact that I want to completely change the POV, I think I'm going to be doing some major rewriting instead of the light edits. It'll be a bit of a time crunch, but it's not going to involve me coming up with a story, just making the story better with clearer details and patching up all the major issues.

And recently I've just had another idea. It doesn't have an exact plot, yet, but it has a shape and it has at least five solid characters, that would all be viewpoint characters. I'm not sure if it's going to be YA or NA but it will hover somewhere around there. I almost want it to be NA so that I can play around with things in ways I can't with YA. I do know that right now it looks like there will be seven books.

I can't say much about it, but I really love it so far (at least in my head) and it's such a wide world I think I could have fun there. When I have spare time between writing TQR and starting back up on my prewrites for WaC I want to work on this one. For the sake of things let's just call it Septology Project.

Here's a little peak at the characters (each line is a character and I have them each based around the idea of duality):

The Soldier/The Coward
The Lover/The Thief
The Hero/The Villain
The Healer/The Assassin
The Queen/The Prisoner

What do you think?