Tag Archives: serpent in a cage

The Pacing of Plot.

As I plow forward in my desperate attempt to get this latest draft of Serpent in a Cage finished in time for a decent publication date, I find myself obsessing a little too much over certain details. I’ve been a trooper when it comes to pushing aside the doubts and striving forward, if only to finish the first draft and then worry about the details, but one of the issues has been weighing more prominently on my mind, and that is the topic of pace.

For me, especially with fantasy novels, the pacing of a book can make or break it. If a story moves too slow, I lose interest in it. Sometimes, though, a story throws so much at you so quickly that you never really feel a connection. It’s definitely the latter that I’m worried about in SiaC. I’m about four chapters into it, and, in the first three chapters, there’s an awful lot of encounters. Some of those encounters are about to swing back around and turn into bigger plot points, but I’m worried that it’s almost too much at once. Will readers find it irritating to have my characters encounter someone, move on, encounter something else, move on again for another encounter before some it starts to tie together? I hope not, and I’m thinking if it does feel like too much, I can always go back and slow the pace down in the revision, with some other perspectives or whatever else might seem fitting.

That’s just the thing, though, these encounters and how I have them set up all seem fitting. It’s hard to tell from my own perspective. I know a great deal of my inspiration and my wanting to write in the first place is based heavily in video games, mostly role-playing ones such as Final Fantasy and Baldur’s Gate, where encounters are basically imperative to moving the plot forward. But I know a common mistake a lot of authors make is to introduce too many players too quickly, and the wealth of personalities in SiaC has been a common criticism in previous drafts.

Do you find yourself distracted when an author has a fairly quick succession of events to throw at you? Do you wish they’d sometimes slow down? How often do you feel they slow down too much? Just some questions rolling around in my brain. I’m throwing in a chapter from a different perspective, happening in the other part of the book, before returning to the busier point-of-views, so maybe that will help. Although that could also just completely interrupt a perfectly good, steady pace with the others! It’s all such a balancing act and I hope I can just manage to get it right…

Preparing for RoW Wednesdays.

It’s been a long time since I’ve participated in A Round of Words in 80 Days, which is a real shame, because I truly believe that the sense of community and encouragement with that group is what ultimate lead me to publish my book last year. As I’m struggling to get off on the right foot for my next book, I’ve been wanting to return to this fantastic challenge, immerse myself back into the productive RoW80 culture, and finally get some more work done!

Now, RoW80 is currently on the tail end of its current round, with the next one starting on April 1st. You can join at any time (my very first round, I hopped in right in the middle), but I’m going to spend the next few weeks really focusing on what I want to be my goals and how I intend to accomplish them. Clearly, it’s going to involve the (hopeful) completion of Serpent in a Cage. I really want to get a grip on what I can set to have this latest draft finished by the end of the round. Too ambitious? Perhaps. But this is the third first draft of this WIP, so at least I’ve had plenty of practice?

Chances are, I probably won’t be able to swing the Sunday posts, just because of my limited computer access, so I’m focusing mostly on Wednesday posts. Therefor, the next few Wednesdays are going to be “RoW-prep”, getting myself in the habit of posting about RoW on Wednesdays. Any suggestions or tricks for setting goals will be welcome; I’m going to have to give some thoughts to what will get me from 50 pages to 250 pages in just 80 days. A challenge, to be sure, but it’s got to be possible.

10 Characters Meme.

I was trying to think of something a little light, a little fun, to do on the blog today since I’m definitely out of practice with regular posting and thinking of things to write. With the reclamation of the previously missing draft of Serpent in a Cage, the book has been pretty strong on my mind, too, and I just want to babble about it. For the sake of my poor readers, I wanted to at least give my babbling a little bit of an interesting twist, and so that means a meme. Specifically, the 10 Characters meme.

I’ve seen this used a lot in fan communities and in role-playing games, but there’s no reason I can’t go and apply it to my current WIP. So, here’s how it works. Below, you’ll see a list of ten characters from Serpent in a Cage, and, below that, there are questions, that I have no looked at prior to composing the list, about those characters. It’s a cool exercise in putting them into situations or thoughts you wouldn’t normally conceive of, and…okay. It’s an excuse to let me talk about my characters. Shhh.

The fun with the meme is that you don’t know which characters are going to be thrown into which situations, so if you want to swipe it and do it yourself (which I very, very, very strongly encourage), do so before reading my answers, or at least randomly switch the numbers to prevent predictable results. I know I’d definitely love to see this pop up in a few other blogs for a few other WIPs out there…

Anyway, onto the Serpent in a Cage bunch…

1. Locke Mandrake Battarack
2. Gilferen Allok
3. Auferrix Ferrore
4. Tayahyla Ma’a'goric
5. Estialog Emereson
6. Taluin Sera Cohl
7. Knolan Rszbeki
8. Awngel Demarkus
9. Tenenshe’ean Madean
10. Jaxson Devoii

1) Describe the children of #3 and #7? Are they good parents?

While I find it pretty difficult to imagine Auferrix and Knolan having children together, we know for a fact that Knolan is a capable parent, having raised Gilferen and Locke from babies into adulthood by himself and with hardly any resources. Auferrix is not likely to be as strong a parent as the more experienced Knolan, but, since she did witness her own parents’ death at a young age, she is likely to be very protective and very caring toward whatever children she may have. If these two were to procreate, I don’t think it would be a one-time thing. They’d probably get involved, have at least a few children, who would all be strong-willed and stubborn, capable fighters and strategists, though they’ll probably always feel a little bit at odds with their place in the world. Both their parents would try to ensure that they certainly had a place, but both parents spent a majority of their lives outside of the box they were meant to be in, and I can see that rubbing off on whatever offspring they might have.

I have to admit, exploring a sort of romance developing between these two fascinates me a little more than I should, and I’m creating this whole crazy AU in my head at the moment, involving a father-complex and a love triangle pulling in her current father figure, Kadue. Yikes!

2) Describe #5 and #1′s first kiss.

…

Do you mean besides completely accidental? Although I am now imagining a scene where Estialog has Locke in a vulnerable position, and the best way to kill him is with a spell that could only be executed with a kiss. Because an old Majani trying to kill you isn’t enough; it has to be overlaid with blatant homoerotic sensuality, as well…

3) How would #2 react to if #6 is pregnant with #10′s baby?

Shocked, offended….and incredibly impressed, not to mention a little bit jealous. Up until Jaxson joined the Battaracks, Gilferen was easily the ladies’ man of the group, and he mostly is, but Jaxson has a certain ability that makes him jealous, whether it be with knives, women, or general charisma. He can’t understand it entirely…but in a way, it makes sense. So he’d have to mentally give Jaxson a high five for that one, although he’d be left also thinking that he thought Taluin would be smarter than to be seduced by Jaxson. Especially since Taluin so deftly managed to spurn all of Gilferen’s own attempts to seduce her…

4) How does #8 convince #7 to go with him/her on a date?

Boy, so far, Knolan’s getting quite a bit of attention in this meme! However, Awngel’s got a pretty good job with this one…All she’d have to do is bat her eyelashes, twirl her parasol and smile at him and she’d pretty much be able to get him to do whatever she’d want. Historically, Knolan really is mush when it comes to pretty women…and Awngel is very good at using her feminine wiles to get what she wants out of a Battarack…

5) Where would #9 and #6 go for their honeymoon? How is #4 going to sabotage their honeymoon?

So, Taluin’s getting some action, too, it seems. This is a good meme for the old-school Battaracks! Well, if you can call marrying Tenenshe’ean a good thing, which I probably wouldn’t. There was probably a lot of manipulation going on there…if anyone other than Tayahyla was trying to stop it, it would probably be because Taluin was being swayed into an evil trap! The fact that Tayahyla wants to stop it, though, is probably because she’d be the one wanting to go on a tour of ancient Kassirian ruins with Tenenshe’ean. And she’d probably sabotage it fairly well, considering she was raised in the deserts and could track them better than anyone else. She’d probably wind up snagging Taluin and threatening to kill Taluin, which Tenenshe’ean would allow unless he hadn’t gotten whatever it was he wanted out of Taluin yet.

…So maybe not so good for old-school Battaracks after all…

6) #6 is in love with #1. #3 confesses his/her love to #6. Whom would #6 pick? Does #8 think s/he made the right choice?

That needs to be broken down a little. Taluin is in love with her dead best friend’s son. That alone is enough to pause. Then Auferrix confesses her love for Taluin (I could be down with that…). Taluin most definitely chooses Auferrix, because she’s smart enough to know that it’s weird being in love with Locke, especially since she’s constantly thinking about how much Locke looks like his father, which then makes her wonder if she just really has a thing for her dead best friend’s dead husband who she thought she hated…Auferrix, meanwhile, is the first Asyentai who she has sworn to bring into power, and that’s a pretty great way to be at her side to make sure that happens. As far as Awngel’s opinion in all of this…she’d easily support Taluin’s choice, because she’s had enough drama in her own life to want the people in her life to be without drama as well.

7) #5 and #2 must pretend to be a married couple. Why?

I have no idea, but I bet it has something to do with with when Gilferen gets to the Majani Tower and wants to fend off the advances of another young male Majani. “See, we can’t date, I’m already married.” “…To who?” *Estialog hobbles by* “..uhh…Majani Emereson! ..wait…crap. Ahaha, hey, honey!”

Meanwhile, Tayahyla cannot stop laughing to save her life.

8) #10 is moving in with #9. What do they fight about the most?

Which one of them has the best wardrobe…

9) How will #4 prove his/her love to #1?

Tayahyla would most likely prove her supposed love to Locke by not killing Gilferen, as much as she would very much like to. After all, what says “I love you” better than “I won’t murder your best friend”?

10) #7 and #4. Love at first sight?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. …no. At first sight, Knolan finds Tayahyla to be an immature, petulant savage that he’d rather never have to deal with ever. And, although Tayahyla probably wouldn’t mind getting with Knolan if she had the chance, it would be more likely in an attempt to get under Estialog’s skin than out of actual attraction.

11) What would #2 give #9 for Valentine’s Day?

A sword in the belly and a swift kick to the head…Happy Valentine’s Day, Douchebag Trying to Take Over the World by Kidnapping, Torturing, and Raping Young Women!

12) Under what circumstances could #3 and #5 have a happy end?

Ooooh, now this is a great idea for an AU! The whole focal point of Serpent in a Cage balances on which group gets to help Auferrix first. Depending on who you ask, if Estialog and Tayahyla were to prove victorious, the happy ending for Auferrix could also easily happen, it’s just that she’s helped by different people and another faction is the one that wins. My whole over-arching theme in the Aryneth books is that the lines between good and evil are actually quite blurred, and the idea that the Black Majani aren’t the evil ones, that DiraSkyria truly is the Savior of the World rather than the destroyer of it, that the people trying to stop her are really the evil ones is fascinating, and the point is, if Estialog truly was the one to save Auferrix and she raised up the kingdom of A’aefar with him, it would still be a happy ending for the both of them…though not for the people who were trying to save her first.

Writing the book with the other side winning could be a very interesting exercise…

11) What would #8 like to change about #10? Does number #10 approve?

I’m actually tempted not to answer this one because it might ruin a surprise within some future volumes, so I’ll just leave it at mentioning that Awngel would like to change quite a bit of Jaxson’s past, which she’ll make quite clear to him in the future, once she figures out who he is and how they’re connected to each other. And he makes it quite clear that he doesn’t approve of her disapproval; he has no remorse for his past. Sorry ’bout it, Awngel.

12) #2 and #7 are together. Who is more protective of the other?

Well, this one’s a little easy, since Gilferen and Knolan have spent their whole life together. The idea of that turning into something romantic, as I’m sure the question is implying, is a little weird for me and treads on some pretty twisted psychological territory, but Knolan is definitely the more protective one. Their whole relationship is centered on the fact that Knolan has spent his whole life protecting Gilferen.

13) Who is first going to say “I love you”, #1 or #9?

I’m pretty sure Tenenshe’ean would cut out his own tongue before saying “I love you” to anyone, so I’d have to go with Locke on this one. We all know he’s actually a real softie inside.

14) Describe #10 and #4′s perfect romantic outing.

The two people on the list with possibly the most skewed ideas of ‘romantic,’ other than Tenenshe’ean, of course. It involves finding a bar…a nice one, a classy one, not some shitty hole in the wall…starting a game of poker, drinking a lot of alcohol, winning some money, and then going and frexing until they pass out. Not a bad evening, really…

15) Who suffers from pre-wedding jitters, #3 or #8? How does bridesmaid/best man #10 soothe them?

That’s an easy one; Auferrix is general unconcerned with matters of the heart, while Awngel has jitters about everything tied into relationships. Considering who Awngel ends up marrying, the idea of Jaxson as a best man makes me laugh, but his method of soothing the jittery bride is likely booze-involved, a release of sexual tension, or a threat with a knife…Yeah. Jaxson’s more likely to increase Awngel’s anxiety, not soothe it…

16) #6 is a secret admirer. What presents will they make the wo/man of their dreams?

Taluin would more than likely find some rare old book of poetry, dress it up with a ribbon, and pass it along. It’s a true sign of affection when a bibliophile willingly hands over something they’d love to just keep to themselves!

And there you have it! A lot of these situations were pretty absurd for this cast; Serpent in a Cage is hardly a romantic book, but that’s part of what makes it so much fun. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go ahead and get back to finishing the book so that you can all read it and see what I mean by these answers.

Art Nouveau and Aryneth.

One of the most notable after-effects of a trip to the Art Institute is that it never fails to inspire me to try my hand at art again. Now, writing has always been an obvious choice for me. I love it, I’m fairly good at it, I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life. However, I’ve also dabbled a little bit in other artistic forays, including drawing and such…nothing much, but I like to think I have a decent enough hand.

Decent enough to produce my own cover art? Probably not. Then again, I’ve been wondering about that recently, in light of seeing some covers out there that easily make me think, “I could do that/better than that,” if I may be so bold. While I’ll most likely turn all my cover art to friends more capable, the thought of at least sketching a draft for them to go off of has crossed my mind, and, heck, maybe with a little work, I could make it good enough myself.

In considering the potential covers for Serpent in a Cage and subsequent Aryneth novels, an interesting thought came to mind. I want something a little unique and different, and, to this point, I had been considering just a really simple, stark design, much like the designs for the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin. But that wouldn’t be very different, would it? I got to thinking that I’ve never really seen Art Nouveau style covers for much of anything, much less fantasy novels, and thought that would be such a cool design.

What do you think? I’m a huge fan of art nouveau, though I’ve never tried the style myself. Last night, after my foray into the Art Institute, I got out my pencils and papers, pulled up some reference images on my Kindle, and started to sketch a few potential designs for SiaC. The one I really took to still needs a lot of work, but I’m really stoked about this approach, the cover to SiaC featuring a stunning design with Auferrix and a serpent in a sweeping art nouveau style, not dissimilar from this image.

Do you think this design is a good move? Would you be intrigued by a fantasy cover in this style, or turned off? I know it’s becoming pretty popular to see all sorts of characters done up in art nouveau style (I even own a nouveau Samus Aran shirt). Is it too much of a fad, or is the style classic enough that it can rise above the current popularity? Any thoughts would be welcome. I thought of taking a picture of the sketch so far, but it’s no where near completion enough, I’m afraid.

Back to Blog.

So, some of you may have noticed that things have been pretty quiet here at lsengler.com.

Okay, maybe not “pretty quiet.” More like “dead.”

You see, about two months ago, my computer went kaput thanks to an icky virus, and, as a result, I haven’t been able to have very good access to ways to type up posts and keep up with the blogs I like to follow. And, really, the longer you stay off the wagon, the harder it is to get back on. Thankfully, I have a roommate who doesn’t mind me sometimes ganking her laptop when our schedules have us home at different times of the day. Add to this the fact that I’ve just taken a pretty big promotion at work that requires a bit more time on the road and energy into the occupation, my brain hasn’t been as keyed into the strive for my writing platform as it used to be.

But it has gotten to a point where I’m ready to change that. I’m ready to get back to posting and back into the writing community that I’ve missed so much. There’s a lot to catch up on, but hopefully the usual patterns will come back quickly. I definitely won’t be posting as often as I used to, but I’ll be posting a lot more than I have been.

If anyone’s been wondering, I’ve been working on a few projects, too. Serpent in a Cage has taken a slight pause, partially for NaNoWriMo, which started out as a time travel/world jumping novel exploring the lives of Emalia’s parents (from my short story “The Space Between Worlds”) and became instead a rediscovery of my Ace Cooper mystery novels, thanks to a recent viewing of Skyfall (which was incredible). My horror story, tentatively titled Rosewood, is continuing along, as well. I’ve been reading a lot and I’m pretty far behind on reviews, so maybe a few of those will be coming up soon.

Speaking of reviews, I’d like to also send out a very big thank you to Grace over at Books Without Any Pictures for her wonderful review of my short story collection, Bowlful of Bunnies. I adore Grace’s reviews, and it’s a real honor to be among the great things she takes the time to read and appreciate. Definitely the sort of thing to make me want to get back in the game and assure my readers that I’m still in the game and striving to get out my next book.

Happy writing, everyone! See you around.

The Chronicles of the Missing Notebook.

So, an interesting thing happened two nights ago, as I sat down and went to type up my “at least a page” of Serpent in a Cage. I was typing away, frowning a little to myself because things weren’t panning out as I thought they had. At first, I chalked it up to that distance one gets between drafts, when the details need a lot of attention and hemming so that they fit in with the rest of the piece better. As some of you know, this version of SiaC I’m working on is actually the third draft. I had the first draft that I finished sometime in 2007 (I think), and then I was rewriting it in an attempt to revisit it. Then I decided toward the end of that draft that things weren’t working right and I scrapped the entire thing and started putting the pieces of the plot together in a different way, one that worked much better, made more sense, and was generally more enjoyable and better crafted. The evolution of this book has been astounding, and I’m pretty sure there’s more evolving ahead, too.

I’ll be honest, though; I was troubled. Anyone who follows this blog has a good idea of how important SiaC is…it’s the opening act of an opus I’ve been crafting for over a decade. Yes, as I was transcribing the draft, things didn’t seem right. Here I had restructured the whole thing to avoid the wavering plot from collapsing, and yet I was getting those same feelings that made me stop with the second draft. What was happening? Did I need to reconsider and restructure the plot yet again, as the opening was struggling to reach the pitch that I thought I had accomplished in the rewrite?

And then a thought hit me: was this the rewrite?

Cue frantic flipping through the pages, hoping to find a part that I knew for certain was cut or completely changed. I find the evidence and realize that this whole time, more than 20,000 into transcribing it, I was working with the second draft the whole time.

And then another thought hit me: wait. Where’s the third draft???

Cue frantic scavenging through the library, which is currently still covered in strewn-about notebooks as though some literary hurricane swept through. My heart sank to the bottom of my toes as I realized I had located all of the little notebooks I used for that draft to discover that none of them contained the rewrite. It was gone. I couldn’t find it anywhere. Maybe it was elsewhere, but, right then, I had to bolster myself for the hard truth that Serpent in a Cage might have to find itself facing a fourth draft, and this one relatively from scratch as I wanted to follow the new plotline, not the old.

Maybe I knew things would work out well, or that I’d eventually find it, because I didn’t feel too stressed about it. Maybe it just hadn’t registered yet. But when I sat down at my computer and looked over and saw two other notebooks I had previous forgotten about because they weren’t in the library, my heart leaped. I reached for one, flipped it open, and let out a relieved sigh to discover those familiar words of the third draft staring back at me. The clouds broke and sunbeams burst down, despite it being night time by then, and the angels were a-singing. Hallelujah!

I only have to retype 20,000 words to be back where I was…

…Ahhhh, writing.

Considering the third draft is in tact and I don’t have to completely rewrite it, things turned out well, but it was definitely one of those moments that encapsulates, for me, what a weird profession this is. Has anyone else ever had this happen to them? Or other similar stories about missing drafts, working on the wrong thing for a certain amount of time, or just plain stupid things while writing?

I have to say, one happy side-effect of this whole adventure is that I”m even more excited to get to the actual transcribing now, with the scrapped second draft so fresh in my head! Wish me luck!

And don’t forget! There are three more days left for submitting your poems and stories to my autumn anthology! Will I receive enough to publish them? Time will tell! Get those submissions in!

Oh, Here It Goes Again.

So, I’ve taken a little bit of a break from writing and from the blog to have some well-spent time with a friend, which I have a feeling I’ll be doing a lot of on the weekends if this new schedule that gives me Sundays off stays consistent. From what I hear, this is typical for the position I’m going to be taking a different store, so I’m pretty stoked about that. While there’s more work and demands and probably a likelihood of having to more on any given week, a certain regularity to when I’ll need to be there will be kind of nice. I’m definitely excited for it…

…but I’m also excited that it’s Monday and I have at least the week to try to get back into the swing of writing and get some work done there, too. It’s definitely going to be an exciting week on that front; I got a letter from Amazon regarding my first royalty check coming through, which should happen any time this week, so I can officially say I’m a published, paid, professional writer. Booyah.

I’m still running my Autumn Anthology contest, though I realized that ‘anthology’ was spelled wrong in the title of that particular post, which probably doesn’t help my street cred too much. That’s okay, though; I’m embracing my laziness about actually fixing it. There’s also been an exciting change! I will be accepting all of your short stories and poetry fit for a thrills and chills Halloween-esque anthology! Honestly, as I told the Writing Poetry Group on Facebook, I’m surprised I didn’t think of poetry. I think I’d love to accept any images, too, especially for a potential cover. So, send me your stories, your poems, your artwork or photography for consideration! You have until September 30th to submit! I can’t wait to see what you come up with, and be sure to share the contest with your friends, too!

Other than that, I’ll be plugging away at Serpent in a Cage, reading a lot (as usual!), and trying to get a grasp on what I want to do for NaNoWriMo. I really want to be proactive and go out to the get-togethers they were holding last year in Naperville that I was too shy or spastic or busy to attend last year. This is definitely going to be the year I finish NaNo! I am determined. Besides, it’ll be good to have a finished draft just in case it looks like neither the anthology or SiaC are coming out by the end of 2012 (since I did that whole ‘going to publish two books this year’ plan and everything). I know there’s another round of RoW80 starting soon, so I’ll have to access my goals there, too.

I’m also looking forward to catching up with everyone and their blogs, but if I’ve missed something good and interesting over the weekend, let me know! How’s everyone getting on? I can’t wait to get to work this week.

Question Time!

So, I’ve seen this on a few blogs. No one tagged me for this, but I wanted to do it anyway. So there. It’s a collection of questions about you as a writer and your latest work in progress, so I thought I’d spend a little idle time and answer there, whether anyone’s interested or not. Because I love these things. Here we go!

What is the working title of your book?
Serpent in a Cage (potentially with The Asyentai Chronicles or The Age of Return involved in there, too)

Where did the idea come from for the book?
Sometimes, when you’ve been working on a book for as long as I’ve been working on Serpent in a Cage, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when inspiration struck. The first draft, which was completely and entirely different and nothing like the current incarnation except for the presence of I think two characters (out of a very large cast!), was written when I was in sixth grade, but it was such a different tale then that I don’t even know if I could count it. But, in my mind, the world that SiaC opens up to the world started when I was ten years old, in a memory that’s as vivid with meaning as it is hazy with detail. I hold in my mind traipsing around Mission Creek Woodland Park in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, pretending to be characters from the DragonLance book series, when all of a sudden, the characters started to change a little and become slightly different, and they grew from there into the vast world of Aryneth…A world of my own, a world yet unknown, a world that has stuck with me ever since and hopefully will for a very, very long time.

What genre does your book fall under?
Serpent in a Cage is definitely a fantasy novel, which is still hard for me to unabashedly admit since college tried to get it through my head that genre fiction is bad. I’m tempted to talk about how it’s more character driven with fantastical elements, and that’s true, but, I’m going to put down my foot, toss back my head, and proclaim, “Yup. It’s fantasy. Deal with it.”

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Since the cast of Serpent in a Cage is so large, it would be hard to cast most of them, so I’ll stick with the three main ones. I know, visually, the only ones I have in mind for Locke Mandrake Battarack and Gilferen Allok are models who have questionable acting skills, though one of the Phelps twins could do a good run as Gilferen. For Auferrix Ferrore, I can’t help thinking Frida Pinto would be glorious if it turned out that we can rough her up a bit and make her more bad-ass.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A plot to save a captured princess should be easy enough, but the Battaracks are about to discover a world that goes much, much deeper than they would have ever expected.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Self-published, baby! I always imagined myself trying to traditionally publish the Aryneth series, but now the thought is almost anathema, unless any publishers just happened to want to take it over because it’s doing so awesomely, lol, /dreaming.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
The ‘first draft’ in its completed form took me probably about four years to write, from the time I sat down with the new approach and dedicated myself to finishing it. I believe it was completed sometime in 2009 or 2010, and I started to revise it in 2011, only to discover I wanted to completely rewrite it. I’m still working on the second draft, though it’s going quite well. These dates are mostly just guesses; I’m feeling too lazy to look into the actualities of it.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Oof. That’s a tough one, since I try my best to keep myself from being comparable to other tales in this genre. I want it to be more like A Song of Ice and Fire, a big sweeping epic, but it’s not (yet). I suppose I could compare it to The Wheel of Time in that there’s the unlikely hero, the big prophesies, etc, etc, but again, I wanted to break the mold with Serpent in a Cage in that the first book is really a pretty simple tale, and it’s not a sweeping epic, though it will be…eventually. In that respect, I’d almost compare it to The Hobbit, in that it’s the little bit that starts up a much bigger thing later on. The style and the structure, though, I think, still lends an awful lot to the DragonLance books that originally inspired it so many years ago.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?
You can tell that there have been a great many books to inspire me along this path, and that this book is a long time in the making. But if I had to attribute this book to any one source of inspiration, I would have to say my father. It was through his own love of books, passed down to his eager, starry-eyed daughter, that I was able to discover and embrace this incredible power to create. Thanks, Dad.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Besides the fact that it’s awesome? Aryneth to me is a complete world, fully realized and exceptionally detailed, and I should like to think that it’s a world people will enjoy getting lost in. The characters are all unique, but relateable, on several levels. They’re regular people, in a fantastical world, in an extraordinary situation. To me, that’s what fantasy is all about, and I really hope I’m able to accomplish that feeling of wonder and relateability through Serpent in a Cage and the subsequent epic to follow.

I’m not going to tag anyone for the questions because no one tagged me. I’ll just leave it to whoever wants to talk about their upcoming works to tackle if they so desire!

I am going to take a moment, though, to thank my newest subscribers, Chris Martin and Patti Niehoff! Thanks so much for following!

The “Look” Challenge.

Over at Frame Tale, Kate did a challenge post that she had come across that I just had to give a stab at myself. I love these little games, where you get the chance to showcase a little bit of your work. It’s also pretty useful for those days when you don’t have much else to write about, either.

So here’s how it works:

Take your current manuscript and find the first instance of the word “look”. Then post the surrounding paragraphs as an excerpt of the book on your blog. Lastly, tag five more blogging authors who you think would be a good choice for the game.

What I have typed of Serpent in a Cage right now is a hot mess; I’ve been doing my thing where I inflate the paragraphs to whittle down into more concise words later, but it didn’t seem fair to skip it entirely since a variation of the word “look” appears in the first page. However, I didn’t want to leave it at just a really rough draft, so I’m including Bowlful of Bunnies to it, too. Which also has a variation of “look” right at the beginning. Perhaps something I need to look into not doing so much…

Anyway, without any further ado, here’s a little snippet of Serpent in a Cage‘s rough draft, built around the word “look,” which so happens to be the beginning prologue, heavy and dense as it is in its current unedited state:

      “When she pulled her arm back, tearing the blade away from the soft, warm body, she just wanted it to be over. She wanted to collapse and close her eyes and finally rest, letting the weight of her steel drag her down to the floor, where she wouldn’t have to get up again until she was good and ready. The sweltering heat of the fire was almost as suffocating as the thick smoke that filled the air and choked her lungs, made her eyes sting and start to water. Overhead, the rafters strained with a loud, threatening crack, struggling to keep the roof held under the intensity of the heat. Underneath, there were pitiful groans from the scattering of bodies left for dead. It was a nightmare, something out of a hideous dream, and she just wanted to fall back and let it finally end. Close her eyes and perhaps, when she opened them again, it turned out it was all just a figment of twisted imagination after all.
      But she couldn’t stop. She had to keep focused, she had to keep moving. She had to find the others and make sure they were safe. Auferrix Ferrore gave her sword arm a quick jerk, shedding off some of the wet blood from the blade before it started to stick. Splatters of it landed in the fire and hissed like serpents.
      “Kadue!” she lifted her voice, calling out over the chaos and destruction. Smoke rushed into her lungs, and she gasped from the sudden pain, fighting against a cough. Scanning the area, looking for him, was useless; her eyes were so damp from the stinging smoke that they rendered her blind. She staggered forward, exhausted but determined. If only she could find a way out! In the fresh air of the cool evening, she could collect her thoughts and her wits. She could breathe and begin to see more clearly.
      The smoke was so dense, so thick, that she didn’t even notice the big, hulking man in front of her until she had practically collided into him. She stopped just short of contact; he has his arms lifted over his head, ready to plunge his axe down into a figure on the ground. Panic swelled inside of her as she realized she had no idea if the attacker was one of her own or one of the enemy, but if she did not act, the person on the floor would be just as dead. She moved on instinct, trusting her gut feeling and praying to the gods that she was right. It was justice; it was defending those who could not defend themselves, not matter what their position in this crazy war might be.
      “Firae, give me strength,” she whispered, as she always did before she braced herself for an attack. The axe started to fall, but it didn’t get far. Every action except the bulging of the man’s eyes stepped suddenly as Auferrix drove her blade firmly through his shoulder blades, through his heart, and then out on the other side. The tip dinted against his armor, and she yanked her blade out again.
      A moment passed where the man seemed to be suspended only by the last thin thread of Life, and he fell into a crumpled mass at Auferrix’s feet. She looked down on the poor, lifeless bastard, feeling only a small bit of pity while the heat swelled behind her with a crackle of fallen wood. After nudging the body with her toe, he thrust out her hand to the cowering person she had just saved, hoping she had slain the right one.
      “Come on,” she ordered, firmly, but hurriedly. The smoke had cleared enough that she could now recognize the face gawking up at her. Not his name, but definitely the person, the owner of the tavern they were in, the owner of the tavern burning down into a bloody rubble around them. She closed her eyes a moment to thank the gods and pushed her hand closer when he didn’t grab it. He was in a state of shock, that much was clear, having expected to be cleaved in half by the man between them. Auferrix barked out her next words to get him back to reality. “We have to get you out of here.”

And, as a bonus, here are a few paragraphs surrounding the first instance of “look” in Bowlful of Bunnies, which happens at the beginning of the first story, Dragon Rising, which means it’s nothing special because it’s exactly what you’d read in the book preview, lol:

     Possum, Rabbit, and Prairie Dog had all gone to the river to do the washing, and I had followed to watch them. The sun was bright in the cornflower sky, and hot, so after they had dunked the clothes in the gentle rushing stream, after they had scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, they laid them out on the big flat rocks that had been soaking up the sun’s heat. There, the clothes would dry, basking like salamanders, and the girls would splash around in the water themselves, laughing and playing, tossing handfuls at each other until they were drenched and cooled. Then they, too, settled down in the long grass, turned their browned faces toward the sun and soaked it up.
     Quiet and still, I crouched next to a boulder too tall and round to be used for drying, underneath a fern for further shelter. I curled my tail in, which was the only way I could prevent it from twitching happily at the serenity of the scene. They had no idea I was watching; the three of them were such pleasure seekers that they had none of the carefulness and caution of their friends, who would have surely caught me. Rabbit was perhaps the most skittish of them, and her bright brown eyes flicked my way on occasion, her pert little nose wrinkling as it tried to pick up the scents carried on the wind. Mostly, though, it was just the sweet grass and the soap still floating by on the river, the fresh linen and the lavender flowers from up the hill.
     She looked at me at least three times, straight at me, without seeing me. My ears pressed back with the pleasure of my successful camouflage. The others wouldn’t even believe me when I told them that I was peering into the intimate, quiet respite of these three bright-eyed girls, knowledge so valuable that I would instantly be skyrocketed up in their ranks. If only Deer and Fox had laundry duties today! They, out of all the girls in the village, were easily the most eagerly sought after. Next time, perhaps I should try my stealth in the kitchens or the temples to see what other wonderful things girls did when they were alone, but I couldn’t imagine anything as splendid as their splashing and laughing, their hair catching in the sun as they tossed it freely around.
     And then they began to talk.

So there you have it. Apparently, “look”s appear pretty quickly in my work, and I hope you all enjoyed this…look (ah-ha!) of Serpent in a Cage. Don’t forget, I’ve got a really cool scary story/mystery contest running until the end of September. I’ll even give you a new prompt with the following picture, found at favim.com, accompanied with the word “clandestine“:

And, lastly, I have a few new subscribers! Hooray! So a shout out and a thank you to Meghan Elizabeth, Amber West, and Cheryl Moore! So good to have you all along!

RoW80 Check-In: More Like a Catch-Up.

“‘I smell Ssark on the wind,” Tayahyla said, her face made of stone. ‘That reek is unmistakeable, a hunting party, though a small one. Still, we’d better move quickly before they start taking to the idea of Human flesh to break their fast.’”

As you may have realized, not only did I skipp Sunday’s Round of Words in 80 Days post, but I’ve also missed a few regular days of posting in between. Sometimes, it happens. Sometimes, it happens especially because a person’s life is so busy she barely has time to do anything else except what’s going on. There’s been socialization. There’s been print copies to review. There’s been a trip to Michigan to plan. There’s been a lot of stuff at work. Oh, yeah, and there was a Labyrinth party.

Needless to say, I’ve been pretty busy. RoW80 is the writing challenge that “knows you have a life,” and that’s definitely become evident these past few weeks for me. So particular goals have gone right out the window, and I’ve been working more on vague projects instead. Here’s a look at what I’ve got going on and, once things settle a little, will have coming up:

-Serpent in a Cage: I’m plugging along at SiaC as usual. I’m just heading into a battle scene, which moves things along nicely, but shortly after this is another battle scene, and then that leads us into the BIG battle scene, and I wonder if it’s almost too much action. There’s stuff happening in between, though, so I guess I’ll see when it’s written! Since my trip requires a six hour train ride, I’m hoping to really blow through the rest of this chapter later today when there’s little else to do but watch the scenery fly by.

-Bowlful of Bunnies: The second print proof for BoB came in yesterday and it is perfect, so I’m estatic and excited and wish I had more time to sit down and actually formulate a marketing approach for it, but I’ve had no such time. I know I want to do some contests, maybe a give-away, that sort of thing, so planning that is on the agenda for my little “retreat,” too. It’s currently available at the CreateSpace store here for $5.99 USD, with eventual Amazon listing to follow in a few days. It looks phenomenal. I couldn’t be happier. And I’ll bet you’d be hard pressed to find cuter page markings than these ones, too.

-Potential Anthology: In a conversation with my roommate, the subject of a special, brief Halloween horror anthology came up briefly, and I’ve been toying with the idea of making it a contest instead of just a collection of whatever I could clomp together before October 31st. I still need to hash out a few details, but I would love to know if this would be something anyone would be interested in. You could submit whatever, there’d likely be a Kindle and print version, and there may be daily or occasional prompts for inspiration, ala the contest Morgan Dragonwillow ran not too long ago that had left me so inspired. Thoughts would be appreciated! If I decide to go for it, I’ll likely have more information available next week.

Those are the main three writerly things that have been occupying my mind in the (very) rare moments lately when I have time. Even today is jam packed with stuff (laundry! cleaning the cat box! job interview! packing! get to the train station on time!), but I’ve made myself take some time to do a little scribbling and a little reading, because I’ve missed the chance to do that and I’m so looking forward to this train ride at four so that I can do nothing but just sit and relax. Ahhhhh.

Still, I won’t complain. It’s been an awesome last few weeks, and I definitely can’t gripe about a day that includes the arrival of a perfect print proof and a phone call I’ve been waiting about for an interview for a promotion, with a brief little “mini-vacation” to follow. Life’s pretty good right now. A whirlwind, but I’m willing to let it sweep me up.

Needless to say, I haven’t been able to keep up with my fellow RoWers lately (though you can do so easily here). How is everyone else doing? Are you planning to get in some Happy Writing?