Snippet Sunday is a weekly post in which you share a snippet from your current writing project. This snippet is from Scarred Flawless, (my YA fantasy novel).
“Blood magic was a vile, twisted thing that never failed to make him ill–Cobalt or no Cobalt.”
Snippet Sunday is a weekly post in which you share a snippet from your current writing project. This snippet is from Scarred Flawless.
“Vivian Devereaux did not like cold, dark places, therefore she had a special kind of hatred for the catacombs beneath the Council Hall. Tonight, however, she was going into them whether she liked it or not since that was what the Campaign demanded of the Devereauxs, and Niko had ever so helpfully vanished before he could be called upon to assist.”
Hello, people of the Blogosphere! I disappeared from the internet for a very long while! To those of you who messaged me to ask if I was still alive: thank you! Y’all rock! To those of you who didn’t notice my absence: it’s fine! I’m not bitter at all…
Why did I disappear, you ask? Well, to cut a very long story very short, life happened. I started college in August, and let’s just say that being blind as a bat and having a variety of other strange medical disorders made transitioning to college… interesting… for lack of a nicer word. Because of that, I didn’t have the time or energy to dedicate to blogging or really anything other than classes and just enough writing to maintain what was left of my sanity. Next semester should be a lot smoother though, so to kick off 2019, I am going to attempt to return to the Blogosphere and the Twitterverse because I miss writing for an audience rather than just filling pages upon pages of composition books with words that will probably never see the light of day. I seriously doubt that I will be able to maintain a regular posting schedule like I used to, but I’d like to try to post at least twice a month. We’ll just see what happens…
Anyway, (life updates aside), it's New Years Eve, which means it's time for me to tell the world whether or not I accomplished my 2018 writing goals and outline some writerly goals for the coming year! Spoiler alert: I sort of achieved my 2018 goals, and my 2019 goals are probably a bit too ambitious, but I'm a Slytherclaw, so it's fine!
I had three writerly goals for 2018. They were:
◦Finish the beta reader process for Scarred Flawless
◦Outline Fractured Faith, (Scarred Flawless Book 2)
◦Outline Nevermore Forever
Yeah… okay… obviously the first goal didn’t happen! The fact that I thought that was doable is beyond laughable! Scarred Flawless really needs an update post of its own, but I’ll try to condense it for now. Basically, fictional geography is one of life’s great mysteries, and fixing the disaster that was my first attempt at creating a fictional world is proving to be WAY more difficult than anticipated. I had to resort to making maps, and maps made by the blind girl are more entertaining than useful! I have world building woes, okay! I don’t know when Scarred Flawless is going to be ready for the eyes of other humans, but thank you to all the people on Twitter who have inquired about it! It makes me very happy to know that other people want to read my book based on a couple of quotes from it. In all seriousness, I do hope to have Scarred Flawless ready for betas by the end of 2019. I am currently in the process of finishing what I hope is my final read-through before I start making the final revisions.
My second goal was a bit more of a success. I don’t quite have a scene by scene outline for Fractured Faith, but it is detailed enough that I could start drafting if I so desired, so I’m calling that one a success!
My third goal is a bit more complicated. I did not outline Nevermore Forever, but I did start outlining Unmarked instead! The original idea for Nevermore Forever is still sitting in a Scrivener file somewhere because I do want to come back to it some day, but I care about Unmarked more right now. Unmarked is a young adult thriller, which is not something I ever expected to write, but I kind of love it! The fast-paced vibe is very refreshing after the deep darkness of Scarred Flawless. The outline for Unmarked is nowhere near done, but I have the big picture and a few drafted scenes, so I’m calling this goal a partial success.
I only have four writerly goals for 2019. They are:
◦Finish editing Scarred Flawless
◦Start drafting Fractured Faith
◦Start outlining Scarred Flawless Book 3
◦Finish outlining Unmarked
Honestly, I will be more than happy is I only achieve the first goal. Scarred Flawless is my priority right now, and I am ready to be able to hand it over to other people. Outlining and drafting will be my reward for the many hours spent resolving my world building woes.
Did you accomplish your goals for 2018? Do you have any writerly plans for the coming year? I want to know in the comments! Also, please let me know if you want to see any specific kinds of posts from me in the near future. I need quick and easy stuff that I can write and schedule, because school is starting again soon.
Snippet Sunday is a weekly post in which you share a snippet from your current writing project. This snippet is from Scarred Flawless, (the young adult fantasy novel that I am currently editing).
“The soundlessness swirled with the kind of simmering, viscous energy that forms when many people collectively hold their tongues out of fear, rage, and raw, untempered hatred.”
Snippet Sunday is a weekly writing post in which you share a snippet from your current writing project. This snippet is from the young adult fantasy novel that I am currently editing: Scarred Flawless.
“My mother was a Faery–the Unseelie kind. She disappeared a long time ago. I don’t remember her.”
Snippet Sunday is a weekly writing post in which you share a snippet from your own writing. This snippet is from Scarred Flawless, (the young adult fantasy novel that I am in the process of editing).
“Fire is a fickle thing. It smolders, flares, and fades upon its ever-changing desire–answering only to those who hold power over it. Vivian Devereaux holds such power. She wears flames like cloaks and sparks like diamonds, but the only eyes that will ever rest upon her fiery splendor are her own. There are two kinds of fire in this world: one is wicked; the other is sacred. Vivian’s fire is the wicked kind.”
Greetings, writers!
It is time for me to do my annual writing recap and announce some writerly goals for the upcoming year! This year has been pretty crazy, so…
I had three writing goals for 2017:
◦Finish the rewrite of Scarred Flawless and have it ready for beta readers by January.
I’m calling this one a success! I had the rewrite, (I had to put it in third person instead of first), finished by April, and I should be finished with the last round of edits tonight! I still have to export it from Scrivener and make sure everything is formatted correctly, but I technically accomplished my original goal. I hope to be starting the beta reader process in the next couple of weeks.
◦Outline Fractured Faith, (the sequel to Scarred Flawless).
I sort of accomplished this? Kind of? Okay not really! I have a few scenes written that I know I want to include, a big-picture plot, and a rough summary, but I do not have an official scene-by-scene outline.
◦Write five short stories.
I technically did this. I finished the first drafts of five short stories, but only two of them got edited because I turned them in for class work. The other three are in some random folder that I will probably never find again.
I only have three writing goals for 2018 as well because… three is a magic number! They are:
◦Finish the beta reader process for Scarred Flawless and start seeking publication for it. insert terrified emoji
◦Outline Fractured Faith because I didn’t do it last year!
◦Outline my new novel idea that is currently under the working title, “Nevermore Forever”. I haven’t talked about this much because it was literally a tiny spark of an idea until two nights ago, but I will have a post up on it soon!
◦Read a minimum of thirty books. That was my goal for 2017, and it didn’t happen, so I’m trying again!
◦Keep up with writing book reviews instead of getting eight reviews behind like I am now.
◦Actually use Goodreads. I have a terrible habit of not updating Goodreads for months at a time and then spamming the feeds of my followers with a million updates at once. It would be really nice if I could end that this year!
If you have writerly goals of your own, let me know what they are in the comments, or drop me a link to your own blog post! Also, if you’re interested in beta reading Scarred Flawless, keep an eye on my blog and Twitter feed because I will be posting updates.
Beautiful Books is a writing link-up created by Cait @ Paper Fury. Today’s topic is, “How’s the writing going”?
Overall, how is your mental state, and how is your novel going?
My mental state is pretty frazzled at the moment. It is day five of NaNoWriMo 2017, and I have 1057 new words to my name. That isn’t even the recommended word count for day one… Because of this pathetic excuse for a day five word count, I have switched my goal around a little bit. Instead of trying to edit Scarred Flawless and draft 50K words of the sequal, I have made my primary goal to finish editing Scarred Flawless. This is WAY more important to me than drafting a new thing right now because I want to have it in the hands of beta readers by January. Therefore, I’ll be counting every thirty minutes of editing as one thousand words for NaNo this year.
What’s your first sentence (or paragraph)?
The Counsel Hall was no place for the innocent or kind at heart. So much innocent blood had been spilled upon the tiles that it was a wonder the floor was white instead of scarlet. Niko Devereaux had watched every drop of that innocent blood spill a thousand times over, and sometimes the presence of the unseen in the Great Room was so strong that it was difficult to tell what was tangible and what was non-corporeal.
Who’s your current favorite character in your novel?
The proper answer here is, “Please don’t make me pick a favorite fictional child”, but I’ll be honest… Niko is my favorite.
What do you love about your novel so far?
I LOVE my characters! The characters actually came to me before the plot, so they were extremely well-developed before I even started writing.
Have you made any hilarious typos or other mistakes?
I haven’t made any hilarious typos myself, but autocorrect did a number on my first draft! I didn’t realize it was on, and for some reason it insisted that my main characters name should be, “Nero Develop”, instead of Niko Devereaux. Let’s just say I spent some quality time with the find-and-replace feature before I did my first read through… 🙂
What is your favorite to write: beginning, middle, or end — and why?
Beginnings are my happy place! Nothing has to make a ton of sense in the beginning because the rest of the story is there to explain things, but middles and ends require logic! I don’t like it when writing and logic collide!
What are your writing habits? Is there a specific snack you eat? Do you listen to music? What time of day do you write best? Feel free to show us a picture of your writing space!
I don’t eat while I write because food and keyboards should never mix, but I do drink coffee or tea depending on what I’m up for that day. I do listen to music while I write, )you can click here to view my Scarred Flawless playlist on youTube). I write best either late at night or early in the morning when no one else is awake.
How private are you about your novel while you’re writing? Do you need a cheer squad or do you work alone (like, ahem, Batman)?
No one gets to know about my writing except my closest writerly friends until the first round of edits are over.
What keeps you writing even when it’s hard?
Other people did it, so I can do it too!
What are your top 3 pieces of writing advice?
◦Don’t chase after any shiny new ideas unless you are absolutely sure that your current project isn’t going anywhere. You’ll never get anything published if you don’t stick with something.
◦Write about something you are passionate about. If you love something, you’ll probably also enjoy writing about it.
◦Writing has no rules; don’t let anybody tell you otherwise!
Cheyenne Raphael Writes 