April 29, 2021

Hello again. With the second quarter a third gone — good Lord, time flies — I thought it was time for an update, a progress report, a spillage of beans, the release of the cat from the proverbial bag . . . y’all get it.

First off, in my last blog post, I discussed the need to reorganize my schedule because of the abundance of time afforded me by working from my phone. Well, in this post, I’m happy to bring said new schedule. But, there aren’t any major changes from my last reshuffle of work — which was fairly recent, haha — so don’t expect any life altering stuff.

1. I’m still separating my weeks by project — two weeks are dedicated to Echoes in Reed House, while one week will alternate monthly to work on the second book in Our Holy Mother and the collection of short stories in volume one of Project Apocalypse. However, with my increase in time, I’ll test myself by striving for four chapters a week instead of three. The daytime will see the first drafts written, while the following mornings will see them edited to draft two on my walks. If I can’t finish editing the chapter by the end of my walk, I’ll set it aside to finish after I’ve drafted that day’s chapter. This means Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will be dedicated drafting days (baring emergencies, of course).

2. With my weekends now blown wide open, I plan on filming at least one video for my YouTube channel (the one I’ve been planning on doing for a year but haven’t touched? Yeah, that one) every Saturday. Video editing can take place throughout the weeks in my spare time (‘cause I’ve got plenty, obviously) possibly Sunday afternoons, or Monday evenings after I get off work.

3. The drafting days will be flexible. Because I’m not dedicating an entire day for editing, anymore, It actually gives me Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays as optional work days, meaning I have some wiggle room. I.E., If I have burnout on Thursday, I’d allow myself to work on other things besides drafting — making a blog post, writing character bios for the site, etc. — but Friday and Saturday then become dedicated drafting days to compensate.

And that’s it.

I’m still giving myself the freedom to choose which week is dedicated to the secondary project — whether I start the cycle with the project, squeeze it between ERH (Echoes in Reed House) weeks, or end the cycle with it. I’m still editing each chapter I write in the same week it’s written, I’m just editing it the next day and adding one chapter load to the week.

If this works — because, I’ll readily admit, this is still just an experiment and could change very quickly — then it’ll increase my chapter count from nine to twelve per cycle and take off a good deal of work in the final cycle before my seasonal job, The Hippo Events.

O God . . . it’s the end of May . . . that means the end of ERH is only a couple of months away. I was so wrapped up in my scheduling I didn’t even notice the dates. My baby is almost ready to walk . . . y’all, I don’t think I’m ready for this . . . hold me, haha.

But, setting writing aside for a moment — my Lord, what madness is this? — let’s chat about filming YouTube videos on Saturday.

Filming doesn’t equal uploading — I had to pound that into my own skull for months. I plan to film the first video next Saturday (promises, promises) and edit as I go, but I won’t upload videos until I have around ten edited and ready to go.

This is to make sure I, 1) get into the flow of filming, and 2) generate a stockpile from which to grab so I don’t have to film, edit, and post the same video all in the same week. If I tried that, I’d get no writing done, and I might as well become a lets-player or something. Not the worst thing in the world, but not my passion either.

If anyone has ideas for things that would make for interesting, writing related video content, leave a message and let me know I’m the only one on here.

* Picks up writing and cradles it * I’ll never set you down again, baby — no I won’t. * Stares at y’all * what? Don’t y’all love your children?

. . . in . . . other news. I have something exciting to announce! I must’ve eaten something that imbued me with the glorious power to give names to my work, because OHM b2 now has a working title! May I proudly introduce y’all to the book formerly known as Our Holy Mother book two, Our Holy Mother: Secrets! Or, OHMS for short.

It’s so good to finally have a name for this thing, especially considering it’s around half finished — it saw an increase in chapters from thirty to forty, so it’s still around half finished despite the progress, haha. Now, all my most important babies have names! (Don’t worry PA, you’ll get a name one day . . . eventually . . .)

And, last but not least, I have an update on when exactly I’ll be adding the lingo info and character bios to the site . . . I don’t know. That’s a sucky answer, but an honest one.

The reality is, it takes a long time to create detailed character bios that don’t give away the juicy bits of their story, the devices I use to cast my characters through the plot, or the dadgum plot itself. Couple that with a cast of six POV characters and something like five important secondary/side characters in one book in a series of four — each introducing someone new — and that I plan on making art for them all? It’s quite a bit of work for me to get done in just my spare time (there’s quite a bit of things I’m relegating to my spare time . . . I won’t have much of it if I keep that up.) It’s work I’m happy to do — I love worldbuilding more than writing, sometimes — but I am only one person, and I only have so much time.

That being said, character bios and lingo pages will be created/updated, but slowly. Some will be finished, others half so, and some will be completely blank until I can get around to drawing and typing up everything. It’ll be slow at first, but I will get it done — one way or another — with the amazing assistance of my friend Shelby, who’s helped me with my website from day one . . . literally.

Tech support, alpha-reader, idea-bouncer, hangout pal, a girl that helps me improve this site every time I ask — Shelby, you’re a cool cat. I hope you read this, haha.

Alright y’all, I think that’s everything I had to unload today — if not, I’ll vomit it somewhere else, haha. Stay creative, keep up the good work, and never beat yourself up for your shortcomings — we all have them (I have the most, but that’s my opinion) so don’t feel alone in failure. We’re all failures at something, so who cares? Just stand back up and try again. If the inventor of peanut butter can fail to make a lightbulb one-hundred-something times and still persist with a positive attitude, so can we.

Bye!

April 18, 2021

Hello and welcome to this episode of Charlie’s Chat: the slow progression of insanity we all know is coming, but ignore with all our strength. I’m your host, Charlie Thomas, and on today’s show, we’ve got a few topics planned.

Right, so first off, how I plan out my days might just have to be altered. I was finally able to start working on my books from my phone so I could take my work with me — so long as there’s WiFi — and not lug around my laptop and risk the destruction of my babies. I initially thought I’d hate it — and where drafting’s concerned, I do — but after the first week, I must say, editing from my phone has become my preferred device to edit on.

Usually my days would begin with a walk for a few hours to get the blood pumping and prevent my hours of sitting to give me blood clots. I’d plan out the work I needed to get done that day and project into the week so I could mentally prepare myself, and then I’d watch a little YouTube, some news, and check out the socials. After reaching 10k steps, and only then, I’d sit down and start working on my stuff — drafting, editing, plotting, worldbuilding, marketing on my socials or here on my blog, whatever.

The thing with having access to all that on my phone, means I can start three hours earlier while I’m on my walk and be done with my editing goals for the day before I’d usually sit down to start.

This has revolutionized my work. It means that I can get more than twice the work done in a day than before — edit on my walk, work on other projects when I actually sit, or I can work solely on my marketing, or on character charts for future stories, or working out plotholes, finishing conlangs, whatever I so desire. It’s liberating . . . but, in classic human fashion, there are too many options at hand at once and it’s leading me to doing less. I don’t like that.

Hence, my schedule needs tweaking. I have yet to actually plan out a new schedule, but I only just decided to do this this morning, so give me a hot minute to think this out, y’all haha. This probably means that every day will be dedicated to drafting something in one form or another — so the first three days are for drafting one project, then the next three days will see those edited in the morning while other projects get written afterward. It would increase my productivity and, despite sounding like doubling the work, it shouldn’t feel like too much more work.

Mind you, I’m basing that entirely off an ideal, unpracticed image in my head, so it very well could feel like twice the work. But I won’t know until I try, so I’m giving it shot.

In other news, two major things to come from the extra time by working on my phone has lead to some exciting progress. Firstly, I think I may have a title for Project Murder House — it may not remain the title i put on the cover when it’s published, but it feels good as a working title. So, may I introduce y’all — with no small amount of pride — to Project Murder House revamped: Echoes in Reed House.

Like I said, I don’t know if this the final title that’ll see it through to the published cover, but it just feels right — it makes sense in context, it aligns to content in the book, it’s based on a reoccurring element of the story that might as well be the thing that launches the protagonist into his plot. And, not to mention, I like it.

Secondly, but just as exciting (for me at least) I’ve been fleshing out the world, history, and characters of a story that’s sat in the back of my head for a while. It’s not something I’m prepared to write at the moment, nor something I’ll allow myself to write — too many spoilers for my shared universe — but it’s good to do the leg work now so I can pick it up and start writing when I’m ready. Although, I may have to start drawing with this one, too.

I was struck by inspiration years ago when I was browsing Deviantart and stumbled onto an artist called Reykat — give them a look, their style’s amazing and content is interesting (it sent me into story building mode, so maybe it’ll inspire you, too.) I could see characters and events so clearly in my head, made things so distinct and visually appealing to me, that I knew I couldn’t scrap the idea — so I didn’t. However, it wasn’t until this year that I’ve toyed with the idea of a heavily illustrated book, or possibly a graphic novel to communicate the visuals in my head with precision, which words may fail to convey. But I’m nowhere near the skill level required to create a graphic novel, so that’ll either mean I need to practice my art, or look into hiring a professional artist. Although, with the popularity of webcomics, maybe I could work with an artist to create my vision there and publish it later?

Who can say?

But, speaking of new stories to consider for the future, I can’t help but think of what story I’m going to write next when Echoes in Reed House is finished . . . and I have no idea. So, let’s talk about that.

(DISCLAIMER, I have no idea what works for your process — I can only tell ya what generally works for me and my process thus far — so take this with a grain of salt.) Alright, picture this; you’re nearing the end of drafting a project and you need to start considering what you’re working on next. You’ve got some ideas written down — maybe even a few you’ve fleshed out a little because it was gnawing at your head — and nothing new springing to mind (which is fine and normal, by the way) so you look through them. But, there’s a problem — you love every single idea equally.

Here’s where we, as creatives, need to remember that if we’re trying to sell what we’re making, we’re not only artists making something we love for the heck of it — we’re entrepreneurs, running our own business as boss and factory line, and thus we must act the part. So, switch brains from “artist who loves all their children equally” to “business owner who needs to hurt feelings to meet the bottom line.”

1. Separate your ideas. What categories you choose is ultimately up to you, but I divide mine twofold — how complete is the idea (is it a premise, just a world, a collection of scenes, is there a plot?) and how much am I drawn to the idea. For the former, this is a practical decision. The less work I have to do to get another project going, the better — there’s plenty of time between now and the end of the new project to work on developing existing ideas in the background, but the project that’s consumed you for months is going to be done in three weeks and I need The New Hot Thing, asap. For the latter, this an artistic decision that has practical ramifications. The more I love the idea, the more it revs my engine and sends me barreling down the plot at a million mph, the more effort I put in, the more attention to detail I give — it’s all connected. And, with all that, the story’s better for it — readers can tell how much a writer loved a project by how much care and effort went into it. Like with food, books written with love will always be better than not.

2. Once you’ve decided which project you’ll work on after the final word’s written in the old project (for now. C’mon, y’all know you’re coming back to it a hundred more times), assess what needs to be added to make it a story. If you have a plot idea with a general setting and an amorphous blob of a cast, then develop what’s there and grow it — see where it takes you. You may start out with a contemporary that has three main characters centering around a love triangle in a small town when a bad-boy comes to town claiming to be a long-lost relative, and end with a sci-fi trilogy surrounding a cast of twenty, spread across planets as three characters fight to reunite and help the long-lost, rightful heir to the galactic empire seize control away from his his dead father’s former bestfriend. Plant a seed and see what it becomes. But whatever your idea’s lacking — plot, setting, characters, themes, character arcs, etc. — work on adding one and the rest should come naturally because every element of a story, like in real life, is connected to every other in ways we wouldn’t expect.

3. Got all your parts figured out? Think you have everything? Good. Now plot the daggum thing! Write down everything that happens to/by every character so long as it’s relevant, even if it doesn’t have page-time — the author needs to be as close to omniscient with regards to their story as possible. Organize that stuff. Decide what you want to be in the book. Divy it all into chapter content. And do the writer thing.

Now, all that will only apply to plotters, but I am one, so sue me. To all the pantsers out there, I know you hate it, but a little plotting, even if it’s just a basic outline, can help keep you from writing a 900k word tome that no one will read. Regardless of your writing style, that’s how I recommend going about choosing your next book. Follow it, or don’t — I’m not your mom or personal assistant. You’re capable of making your own choices :D

Alright y’all, I hope you enjoyed this post, I hope you found it a little helpful — heck, I hope you found it hahaha. See y’all later! Bye!

April 8, 2021

With the start of a new quarter, comes the start of a new cycle, but things'll be a little different…

I've found some kinks in the writing schedule I built at the end of last year, which was expected given how green of a writer I am, and most welcome — if I know what's wrong, I can fix it. In the previous method, I contributed to three projects a month — six chapters of PMH, and alternating between two and one installments of PA and OHM. This fulfilled its purpose — I got nine chapters done every month — but it stretched me thin and kept me flipping between worlds; words were written, but I couldn't focus enough on one project to animate it, so to say.

My solution, then, is this:

• Focus on two projects a month, alternating PA & OHM monthly instead of weekly.

• Dedicate an entire week to one project instead of filling each week with both — two weeks for PMH and one week for PA or OHM. The order of the weeks doesn't matter right now, so I could begin or end a cycle with a project other than Murder House, or sandwich it between. (This may change if I don't like it in the future.)

• Each week must still see the writing and editing of three installments, barring emergencies that require my attention, so I don't lose the amount of work — it's just spread around.

This format is much simpler — on paper and in practice — and will help me focus on one world at a time for far longer, therefore adding depth and attention to the story and characters. It won't cost me any time or work — it's still nine installments a month, and PA and OHM will still be produced at a rate of three chapters every two months — it's just…nicer.

However, this week, which I have dedicated to OHMb2, will not see three chapters written — it will see two. This has nothing to do with implementing my new schedule late (I thought about the changes last month), it's because of glaring errors in OHMb2's timeline.

When I created the timeline for OHM, plotted out everything, and divied up the chapters…well it turns out I had no idea what I was doing. OHM: Evercrown didn't suffer from this because it's based off a novela I wrote years ago — everything's already laid out — but its sequels are totally new. At the time, I wasn't even considering writing books, so how I wanted to progress the story was amorphous at best. When I finally sat down and laid everything out, though, I knew what I wanted…I just didn't know how to put it on paper yet.

Everything crucial, it turns out, is there — sometimes in the wrong places, but at least I wrote it down — but there are gaps of literal months between chapters for some characters and only weeks or days for others. It's a hot mess (dare I say dumpster fire?) of a timeline that I didn't even realize was burning. So, today, and the reason why this week will only see two new chapters in OHMb2, I will be putting out the dumpster fire and organizing the timeline for Our Holy Mother book 2.

Wish me luck, y'all, I'm gonna need it.

Bye!