Winter Update



'tis the season! 

 For the next two weeks, I'll be off of work. I'm all caught up on my TV shows: the Dexter season finale was this past Sunday. Boardwalk Empire is finished for now. Walking Dead returns in Feb. Game of Thrones comes back in March. Mad Men will be 2013 sometime. I have a couple movies to see (Argo, Les Miserables and Django Unchained). I'm at the tail end of The Eye of the World (less than 200 pages left to read, will most likely finish on or by Saturday.)

 So what am I to do over the holidays?

 When I'm not with family and friends for gatherings, out to movies, or the like, I will be writing. And I don't mean blog posts, I mean immersing myself in, and creating more of, Kalvel. 

 First up is 'The Gameplan'. Well, I have mentioned before that my series will be five Volumes. With possibly a sixth, if I need it. Well, I'm going to form an outline of what I want to happen in which book, and to who. Example: "I want character X to do Y by point A in book B." Laying out the dots, more or less. It's like a roadmap. You know where you want to go, but how to get there (the actual writng itself) is up for grabs, as there are a few different routes to take. I normally don't 'plan' too much, but a five Volume series (with none of them being 'sequels' but 'continuations') I have to know what will happen by various points throughout the books, or else my series my expand too much. Sure some chapters may get moved from one book into another. I won't 'delete' anything, just move it or save it for later. Editing will be minimal. Once done writing Volume 1 completely, I'll go over it again as a reader and make it look as nice as possible before it lands in an editor's hands. So, the goal is, each of the five volumes will be about 600-800 pages in standard hardcover trim size. If I need a sixth ("oh, this won't work in Vol. 5, it jsut dones't "feel" right or something") I expect that one to be 500-650 pages if I were to guess. The shrotest in the series and basically Part 2 of Volume of 5.
  
So once I organize my thoughts better and 'define' where I want Vol. 1 to end, and Vol. 2 to begin etc I'll strive for my goal of....

 Five Chapters by 2013

 This is a possible goal...I would love to reach it. Once my outline is done (working on that Fri & Sat actually) I resume writing. There is still research and development to be done on the world of Kalvel itself, but I'll do that as I write. If I think of archers being used in a  battle, for example, time to research bows, archery skills etc.
Five is the goal. At the very least I'll most likely have two to three and a half chapters done by the new year. 

 Five Volumes is a somewhat large endeavor. It may not be the first thing I ever publish (should I be published.) I do hope to bring Kalvel to print whether it be in five years or more. I may have to do other stuff first to get my name out there, then begin the task of trying to get my world of Kalvel, with the sell of it being a five volume fantasy series. It may be a while once I finish writing it to it become a book, but I'll always keep it and hold onto it. And who knows, as my writing skill improves over time, I may continiuosly revisit it over time until it's published. Not in a George Lucas manner, but making it the best it can be before it comes out of a printing press.

 So what are my goals for 2013? Right now I can think of one: to write 250 words or more a day. A friend of mine and fellow writer has started that trend recently and it's quite good to follow. I'm not sure what counts as 250 words for her, but for me it'll be a daily total. Whether it be for my blog, or writing my novel. She has a blog too, and it can be found here:
http://kogoshuko.wordpress.com/
I've got to thank her, as I have discovered Goodreads because of her, and she has passively motivated me to write more. We may not agree on a few things (TV shows, tastes in books, reading and/or writing habits) but I've picked up on a few things and would like to thank her for that. 

 That's it for now, keep checking the blog. If I don't get another post in by 2013, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and enjoy the holidays no matter what you celebrate. Don't forget to both have fun and be safe.

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