A couple of months ago I finished the first draft of Wildwood and put it on the backburner for two months so it would be fresh when I went through to edit it. Yesterday marked the two months as up, but I won’t be returning to it straight away as I’m working on the related projects as the moment and they will help form what needs to be changed in that book. I thought now would be a good time to update you on what I’ve been doing in all that time, besides writing up the lore of a world.
Cinder – the first short story was finished and has had four out of its nine sections edited. It deals with some dark stuff but has quite a bit of humour to it. The story is mostly a journey as a man tries to make it home to his family, and some of the landscape (as well as the history behind it) will be shown off in this. I’ll be working on editing that fully over the coming weeks.
Forge – the second short story was finished and has had five of its ten sections edited. This is a bit more serious in its presentation, but there is still some (mostly cynical and sardonic) humour to be found in it. This takes a look at city life as well as some mythology in the world. I’m editing that alongside Cinder, going through alternating sections in each.
Dreadful – the third short story has sections that are twice the size of the other stories, so far. This is by far the story which has the most humour, almost to the point of being slapstick. It chiefly deals with magic in the world and the way mages interact with the outside world. I’m about halfway, maybe two thirds, done writing this tale and loving the characters I’ve created in it. I had so much fun with one of them that I rewrote the lore to include more of his kind.
Once I’m done with Dreadful there are two other short stories that I’ll be working on as well. I’d assumed that these stories would be standalone at first, yet they’re tying together into a more flowing narrative as I write. The connection isn’t always apparent but, by the time the reader has reached the end of all of them, the background events in play will have brought the characters together for their later appearance in Wildwood.
And then I’ll go back to the book and start editing that, with all the specific language, culture and lore that I’ve created in these shorter tales ready to call upon if I need to.
The Dark Furie 
So it’s still going to be a while before any of it makes it to the Amazon best seller’s list?
Oh definitely. Possibly forever. 😉
The way this is worked out, I will need to have the main books finished and the surrounding storyline done before I think about publishing anything. There is so much that interlocks between the stories and to do that so that it rewards those who read every part without punishing those who only read the main parts is going to be the biggest challenge.
Oh, I thought I already commented here… :doh:
Three of them plus the big one. You are not wasting time 🙂
I thought you had too. Maybe it’s just being glitchy.
I’m not exactly hard at work doing this. I’ve been at it for about eight months and in that time have been playing video games, occasionally writing for this place, keeping up with forums, and generally doing what I do offline (mostly eating chicken). In the times I’ve been writing I’ve managed just under three short stories that are almost forty thousand words between them and a ninety thousand word book. Considering my latest post on my personal blog was over three thousand words and written in an hour yesterday, it’s not all that much.
The big one will be edited at some point, plus there’s a load of new content to write in for it and a lot of character clarification has been done in these stories. I’ve got a lot of notes so will probably do the new content first, rewriting most of the third person stuff. Then the editing run will be a lot smoother and the immature writing (in terms of how my writing itself has matured) should stand out against the newer stuff.