An Overdue Update

Well, I’ve been a bit quiet on the website front recently. However, there has been a good reason for this. I recently got married and went on my honeymoon. Also, it is a very busy time of year for my day job. Having said that, I haven’t been idle as far as my books are concerned. Here are some of the upcoming posts / things I am working on:

1. Concept art for the characters from Shadow of Aether.

2. Preview excerpts from both Shadow of Aether and Nomadic Guardian.

3. A short story from my upcoming anthology.

4. More information regarding the publication of my books. First up will be Shadow of Aether.

Work Page – Updated

I have updated the Work page of the site will the following pieces of information:

Shadow of Aether – I have included the blurb for ‘Shadow of Aether’ and have moved it to the top of the Work page in a new ‘Coming Soon’ section. I will add links to the page for orders as soon as they go live.

CEA Greatest Anthology – I have replaced the old link with a direct link to the Amazon page where the book can be ordered from.

Untitled Anthology – I have added the anthology about Orbis to the ‘In Progress’ section. This is a project I am particularly excited about, however my plan is to release this book after ‘Nomadic Guardian’ so it will be a while until it is released. Due to the nature of the book being an anthology, I will release small snippets of it on my website over time.

Project Updates

It’s been a while since my last update and during that time I’ve been working hard on various projects.

Shadow of Aether – An exciting development regarding my novella is in the works but I can’t talk about it yet. As soon as I can, I shall post it here on my website.

Nomadic Guardian – I have gone through my previous draft of my novel and made notes regarding the next draft. I now have a clear plan of action with regards to this project and it is moving ahead smoothly.

Anthology of Short Stories – Closely linking to the above, I have cut some minor sub-plots from the novel in the interest of streamlining the plot and telling the best story possible. However, these sub-plots have not been forgotten. They are going to be reworked into short stories of their own and will be published as part of my anthology to help flesh out the world of Orbis.

Other – As any author knows, many ideas pop into our heads. Some are forgotten and others flourish into fully fledged stories of their own. One of these ideas, a potential sequel to Shadow of Aether, has already been bullet pointed and jotted down. I won’t come back to this now until after I have finished work on the redraft of Nomadic Guardian, but I am excited about continuing the stories of the characters of Shadow of Aether.

More information, particularly with regards to Shadow of Aether, will be posted soon.

Shadow of Aether – Blurb

On my last post, I provided some information about my upcoming novella – Shadow of Aether. Now that the blurb is ready, I am ready to share it. So here it is:

Shadow of Aether – A Novella

Paradox is known throughout the sprawling metropolis of Aether for three things: her superspeed; her ability to see visions of the past, present and future and her less-than-charming personality.

When she has a vision that shows her a mysterious force taking over and corrupting her homeland, she decides to take matters into her own hands.

During the mission, she comes across someone who changes everything.

Now, Paradox must do whatever she can to put things back to normal.

Shadow of Aether – A Novella

I am currently editing my novella, as well as writing another short story, and during this process I have decided upon a name for it.

The novella will be called Shadow of Aether and will be self published on Amazon.

Shadow of Aether stars Paradox, from my previous short story. After a vision that she interprets as a warning, Paradox quests to prevent a corrupting presence from destroying her world.

A full blurb will be coming soon and will then be posted on the Work page of this site.

Current Projects

This post is intended to clarify where I am with my current projects and my intentions for each project.

Just Another Day – My short story that has been published in the CEA Greatest Anthology Written. This can be read by purchasing the book from here.

This short story serves as a prequel for an upcoming series. The series in question will be published online episodically. It will be available on several websites for free, including this one. The current working title for the series is Omega.

Currently Untitled Novella – The Novella is coming along nicely and is currently being edited and redrafted. My intention is to publish it as a stand alone story on Amazon.

Anthology – As well as the novella, I have also decided to publish an anthology of stories set on Orbis. The short stories will focus on various characters in the world of Orbis, helping to expand the world. Speaking of which…

Short stories – One of these stories is called Aura, focusing on the first school days of the Unitas known as Aura from Nomadic Guardian, as well as the relationship between her and her mother.

Nomadic Guardian – Very little has changed since my last post about my novel. When the novella and the anthology are finished, I will turn my full attention back to this, making sure that the edits match up with the rest of the stories set within Orbis.

That about sums up all of my current projects. I will post updates whenever possible to inform you all about my work, but I intend to put my best efforts into each individual story. Therefore, it may take a while before the stories are published, but I believe that this is for the best.

Update

I’ve been incredibly busy lately, which is why the website updates have been few and far between. However, I wanted to take a moment to just post an update with regards to the various projects that I have been working on / a part of.

First of all, the CEA Greatest Anthology Written will be released on October 14th. My short story – Just Another Day – will be part of this anthology. Click here for more information.

Next, my novella is currently in the editing stage. After this and the necessary redrafting has happened, I will post more details on the publication of this particular project.

Finally, I have decided delay my novel – Nomadic Guardian. One reason for this is to make sure that I am 100 percent happy with the final product and due to my novella taking place in the same world, I want to make sure that there are no plot holes or inconsistencies. Due to Nomadic Guardian being at least twice the length of the novella, it may take some time to go through it to ensure everything is done properly. Rest assured, the novel is coming. But it will be after the novella is released. So, realistically, it won’t be until next year.

I will post more information both here on my website and on my Twitter feed for each of these projects in the near future.

Inspiration – Part Two

Click here to read Inspiration – Part One.

Last time, I spoke about how inspiration comes from many sources. As part of this, I am going to write multiple series of posts focusing on different aspects of inspiration. For example, there will be one series of posts about some books that have inspired me and one series of posts about some of my favourite characters, whatever they are originally from.

During each post, I will focus on not just what I like, but also how the topic in question has inspired me. The first post will be coming soon.

Early Ideas and Work

In my earlier post about inspiration – which you can read if you click here – I mentioned a couple of false starts. During my recent work, I was backing up some files when I found some old files from an old laptop. Delving further inside this digital folder, I discovered some old ideas and work of mine. Some of it, I won’t discuss as the ideas are still alive in one form or another in my current work. However, I did want to mention a couple of the ‘false starts’ that I happened to find.

I spent a lot of time coming up with ideas to write about and a couple of them developed further. One of them developed so much to the point where I had started writing it as a novel. It was only after writing the first few chapters that I realised something that caused me to stop. I was conducting some research for my novel when I saw a trailer for a newly released film. I watched the film and realised that the story was practically identical to the one I was writing. Objectively speaking, at least. At the time, I thought the film was probably better than the story I was writing despite being very similar, so I abandoned the concept. Hindsight is 20-20, but I am glad I made that decision. I was right. Perhaps I was never that passionate about the project in the first place, but I personally feel that it was just another step in the road leading me to the creation of Orbis and my current projects. Which I am very passionate about.

Plan

I’m currently fleshing out a plan for my next story. The plan is for a novella that will hopefully be roughly around 30000 words (although this may change to accommodate the needs of the story).

The story will be another that has Paradox as the main character, although it will be a one-off story of it’s own as opposed to a sequel. It is another story hoping to flesh out the world of Orbis.

The eventual aim is to self-publish the novella online as an e-book. This could potentially happen through Amazon, but I’m not going to rush into anything. First things first, though; write the story and give it the time it deserves.