If you’ve read and enjoyed the Rymellan series, I’ve love it if you’d spread the word by sharing the files with your friends, on social networks, and in any groups you belong to. Word of mouth is super important when it comes to letting people know about my work. As you’ll see on the title page, I’ve granted permission to share the files, as long as you don’t modify them.

You can simply point people to Rymellan 1 – The Dance, or email the files around. Whatever works best for you.

If you haven’t tried the Rymellan series, here’s your chance.

I’ll focus on short stories, novelettes, and novellas for the remainder of the year.

Depending on who you ask, I’ve already blown that. This morning, I finished the first draft of a story that clocked in at 59,379 words. At that length, most would view it as a short novel. The word count will change during my editing rounds, but not enough to make a difference.

In the same post, I also said:

When I know if/when a story will be published, I’ll post about it on my blog.

And here we are. I don’t know when the story will be released, but I’m planning to release it.

Earlier this week, I added an FAQ to the site. One of the questions and answers is:

What are you working on now? The first book in a new contemporary fantasy series.

I wish I could narrow the genre down further, but the story doesn’t fit nicely into any of the fantasy sub-genres (except the broad “contemporary.”) It’s set in our time and world, hence contemporary fantasy. Maybe it’s urban fantasy, but based on the definitions I’ve read, I don’t think so. It has a lesbian main character, but I don’t consider it lesbian fiction. More on that later.

Writing this story didn’t follow my usual creative process; in fact, I almost didn’t write the story at all. When I’m ready to start something new, I open my running ideas file, read the list, and see what jumps out at me. In January 2011, this story begged to be written. But there was a problem. To start a story, I usually need a good idea of the beginning, a vague idea of the end, and a couple of key plot points in between (which is also a question/answer in the FAQ!). I didn’t have the key plot points, but I decided to try, anyway.

It didn’t work. I flailed around. The story was there, just beyond my grasp, but I couldn’t see it. I was trying to catch air. So I abandoned it and went back to my ideas file. A time travel idea jumped out at me, and Threaded Through Time was the result.

Fast forward to January 2012, when it was time for me to choose a new project. I don’t usually go back to projects I’ve abandoned. There are already enough ideas in my file to last me the rest of my life, and I’m constantly adding more. If an idea hasn’t worked out, so what? I have tons more to choose from. But this story had continued to nag at me—whatever the story was supposed to be!

So I thought, “Okay, let’s go back to basics.” Instead of fretting over what I didn’t have, I decided to finish the scene I’d literally left hanging in 2011, and then to ask myself, “What happens next?” Forget about trying to see ahead; just take it one scene at a time.

So I did. And I kept doing that. And eventually the answer to, “What happens next?” gave me the key I’d been missing. It turned out to be a character, not a plot point. Suddenly she was there, and it was a watershed moment. The lightning bolt had struck. It was smooth sailing after that.

Have a good weekend!

Sometimes I’ll hijack the normal usage of a word. The word joined is a past participle, i.e. the past tense of a verb. In the Rymellan world, I use it as an adjective. I also capitalize it, because Joined has a significant meaning in Rymellan (another made up word!) culture.

Last night, I finally settled on what words to use for certain groups and people in the story I’m currently writing—and rather late in the process, I might add. I’ve almost finished the first draft, but before I went word hunting, I wanted to have a solid feel for what the words should represent. Up to this point, I’ve been using generic terms, which I’ll replace during my first round of editing.

Given the nature of the story, at first I thought I’d go with Latin words or combinations thereof, but after playing around with that for a while, I decided to hunt for good old English words.

When doing this, my two most important tools are a dictionary and what’s probably my favourite reference book when I’m writing: The Synonym Finder. This book is absolutely indispensable (and also the sort of book you must have in print). At 1300+ pages, it’s also huge. Drop this baby on your foot and you might have to pay a visit to emergency.

I’ll often start with a seed word and look up its synonyms. A few will jump out at me, and I’ll look up their synonyms, and so on, and so on, until I suddenly spot a word and think, “That’s it!” or “That’s part of it!” As I do this, I’m constantly checking meanings in the various online dictionaries.

When the dust had settled, I’d found all the words I needed. I hadn’t made up a single word, but I will be hijacking the normal usage of one word and capitalizing it.

Today’s word is: deiform.

deiform: godlike or divine in form or nature — Dictionary.com

I’ll use it as a noun.

As I was looking up various words in online dictionaries, I came across this, which gave me a chuckle:

Methinks the Christian dating service in question might want to take a look at the keywords it’s using to target its advertising.