Oh, and a writing update! Song of Leira has reached the whopping length of 81,838 words! Hooray! It’s coming along well!
Oh the glories of writing on a cold winter’s day…
Only a few days ago, I was outside in shorts and a t-shirt, now there’s snow on the ground (unheard of in my neck of the woods) and it’s bitterly cold! Texas weather never ceases to amaze me. Feeding the horses this morning in the midst of the whipping wind and snow flurries was quite a chore!
But now, I’m safe and warm inside and ready to write! I’ve been doing quite a lot of writing lately and my novel Song of Leira has grown to 75,000 words! It’s drawing closer to my original word count estimate of 100,000 words – but knowing me it will probably be longer than that!
Some interesting things that have happened lately:
I was in the middle of writing a very important scene (and I’d just reached 70,000 words) when a notice flashed up on my screen from Microsoft word. It said that there were far too many spelling and grammatical errors in my novel to continue to display them. That made me laugh. Yep, that’s what comes of writing fantasy with made up names and places and characters with strange accents and even funnier ways of speaking!
A few days ago, I decided to have my characters take a detour into a little town (to escape a storm, they thought, but really so that they could meet up with another important character! *winks*) This incident was supposed to take up a chapter or two at most before they were on their way again. Six chapters… multiple close calls, escapes, and battles later, they still haven’t made it out of town! I think that’s called letting the story run away with you! I like what’s happened and it adds a great deal to the story, now I just have to get it back on track…eventually.
Unfortunately, I’ve just thought of another plot twist that I have to throw in… I would have ignored it and kept to the original plan (or was that plan B?) but it is kind of important and affects what will happen later, both in this and future books (plus it will make my characters’ eventual escape from the town more plausible)… and it will be so good! So, I’m afraid I’ll be stuck in the town of Kerby for a wee bit longer. *groans from characters*
Well, I’m back to writing… perhaps later I’ll brave the cold again and enjoy the winter snow!
~ A Servant of the King
Home from Haiti
To borrow Sam’s words from the last page of the Return of the King, “Well, I’m back.“
The trip to Haiti was awesome. I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to go and I can’t wait to go back sometime soon! Although I missed my family, ten days was far too short a time to spend in Haiti.
The little village children who came to play with us and attended camp were precious! Unfortunately, I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I would have liked. For one thing, I always forget to take my camera around with me, and for another, whenever I was playing with the kids or working I was simply too busy to stop and take pictures! Thankfully there were lots of people on the trip who were much better in the picture-taking department that I was! ;)
Stars in the Universe – my other blog – is where I’ll be posting the stories and some photos from the trip! The first three days worth of updates are already posted (click to read them here: Haiti 6 Log) and I’ll be adding the rest of my trip log throughout the week!
And now some extremely exciting news! Obviously I did not have internet access while I was in Haiti and so I did not check my email until I got home two days ago. I found a response to the queries I sent out two months ago, inviting me to submit my full manuscript Out of Darkness Rising! The email arrived the day that I flew out for Haiti.
So I hastily performed a final editing of the manuscript, packaged it up, and shipped it off this morning! This doesn’t mean that the publisher will necessarily choose to publish my book, but at least it’s a step in the right direction! I won’t hear back for several months so I’ll just keep plugging away with my other project Song of Leira – it’s coming along quickly now and I’m getting more and more excited about it!
Orevwa!
(I keep accidentally blurting out the few Haitian Kreyol words and phrases I know in random sentences… it makes for interesting conversations! I’m going to be looking into purchasing a Kreyol dictionary soon so that I can learn more before I go back next time!)
~ A Servant of the King
To the praise of His glory!
2011 Here We Come!
Happy New Year everyone!
Already, I went to write the date this morning and put down December… before I remembered that it’s January and it’s 2011!
I pray that as we all go into this new year, we would remember the great things that God has done for us throughout the past year! That we would enter this new year, knowing that no matter what happens, the Lord is in control. That our hearts and hands and minds and lives would be open to Him and to His service.
I don’t know what this new year will bring for me personally – as far as where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing a month from now… let alone 9 months from now. In fact, none of us know, even if we think we do! But I do know that the Lord knows what will happen and He is in control and His plans are far better than anything I could ever dream up! So, as we come into the new year, we can rest in the assurance that our loving Father holds us close to His heart (Isaiah 40:11) and no matter what, He is by our side.
I want to live this verse this year: Psalms 130:5-6 “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.”
Now, in honor of the New Year, I have made a page about my newest writing project: Song of Leira (you can access it at the top of the blog page beneath the header or you can click here) I have a short summary of the story posted as well as the prologue AND as a special bonus for the New Year, I have hidden a short excerpt from one of my newest chapters at the bottom of the page. Shh, it’s a secret! ;) It will be there for 3 days only, so enjoy while you can!
Happy New Year everyone and God bless!
~ A Servant of the King
To the praise of His glory!