Tag: His Wings

Awakened Week Two

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’ve written about ten thousand words in the last week and I hate the struggle. I came up with the loose plot four days ago and then forgot it all. It’s like hitting a wall.

My sleep patterns have changed because the noisy neighbour moved out. Today I realized it’s been a year since I slept properly. No wonder I’m now struggling.

This morning I sat down and wrote out a rough geustimate of the plot. I started at the end and worked my way back because there was this little gap I was struggling with and working backward was definitely the way to go.

I’m hoping I can get a move on again. It’s about nine more chapters or about another 35k words. I’ll get about 23k this weekend but I do believe Awakened will be my longest project to date. I think even Contract Claimed was shorter.

I found and joined a high word count group and they think I’m burnt out.

I mean… Full-time job and the move and the life changes and trying to meet a project, okay. I guess they’re right but that’s not a great thing. I’ve been doing so good! I’m halfway there. May is supposed to be when I struggle.

When I’m going to Mexico the first week, and flying out for a wedding the the third week. Second week? Something like that.

I will have to just take it as it comes. This isn’t like the struggle with His Wings, I want to finish Awakened and I’m enjoying writing it.

All told so far, between writing and editing the books I’ve wrtten, I’ve clocked about 80k words a month.

Or about 320k from November until the beginning of Marcg. That’s still pretty darn good.

Oh, in other news. I’m about to finish the read edit for His Wings. The final draft will be up sometime this weekend. That’s another project down to bed.

If I can finish Awakened, I’m going to edit Contract Gifted again and hopefully get that up. Maybe get it up the first week of April. That’d be fantastic.

Awakened Week One

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Just over 44k words in six days. I had to take today off writing because I feel sick to my stomach.

I’ve also been doing a read edit of His Wings on my commutes. It’ll be finished in time, but I’m going to avoid arranging a pre-order before the book has gone through the first couple of edits.

I haven’t been sleeping, working constantly. It’s no wonder I’m feeling sick and tired. But I’d sleep if my upstairs neighbour got evicted like they said he was going to.

Instead he does a bunch of drugs and stays up all night. Which keeps me up. If I could just sleep, I’d feel better.

Going to go curl up now.

Crop Week Three

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Crop is done! I even converted the files over but apparently forgot to check the word count. It’s probably about 66k words, but with autocorrect being labotamized I’ve found it less detrimental to the story to write it all out and then go back for the additional information. This is what I’ve been calling the description edit.

Or, alternatively, getting to the end and realizing you gave no one and nothing descriptions. Like. At all.

Ugh. It’s only been like fourteen manuscripts since I started chastising myself about the descriptions, you know. It totally takes forty before it clues in.

The plus side of such description edits is that I don’t have to stop and backtrack going, “what do these characters look like again?”

It never seems to stick. That’s what happens when you want to pump out stories to get the ideas down before you forget them.

The detail edit also lets me get really into the manuscript and paying attention to details and typos

I finished last Friday and proceeded to take almost three days off to drink wine and play video games. I got bored halfway through day one when I realized my controller didn’t have batteries and I was out and feeling lazy. So I didn’t get to play the games I wanted.

The third day, I set up the wrap for Seed and wrote two chapters of Harvest.

Yesterday, I edited four chapters of His Wings, read five chapters of Fragments, decided to rework the description of Fragments my next day at a computer, updated the Worlds on my website, started plotting Awakened, and began working on the cover for Crop.

Yes, that was all yesterday along with a full shift at the day job.

It seems I was suffering a B12 and D deficiency, both of which can lower energy levels and cause depression on top of my home situation which resulted in me being a lazy bum.

I’m back to myself again!

Except I’m not cleaning my apartment. It’s this whole thing. Landlord thinks I should live in a mouldy home and pay full rent while my ceiling is leaking in three places and I’m kind of hoping the leaks cause an electrical fire and take it all out. But not until I move my stuff out.

And cleaning it never feels clean thanks to the issues in the building. But I’m sure it’ll make good backstory for something.

Awakened is so far the contender for March. Mr. Wrightworth has walked away from Contract Delivered again. But it could be because once it and Contract Gifted are written, the world will be closed. Only because I feel like the stories have been told.

I will be writing Harvest at the same time, on commutes, after I finish a read edit of His Wings.

And I need to pack at some point. Right… much to do, sort of enough time to do it in. Basically, it’s crunch time.

Crop Week Two

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Almost forgot to update because work changed my shift for today. I don’t mind at all, in fact I prefer an earlier shift, but I’m a creature of habit so I almost forgot.

On chapter sixteen of Crop. I’ve been editing and working on cover design too. Might have a design for The Reaping trilogy.

It kind of amuses me that the current setup has the title Seed sitting between Kaz’s legs just below his crotch. Greatly amuses me, actually.

I finished an edit of His Wings on… Saturday? Maybe. Started the chunk edit yesterday and got distracted by cover creation and packing.

Movers are booked. Huzzah.

Back to work I go.

Crop Week One

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’ve gotten a whole chapter done! At this rate I won’t even be finished by April. Frick.

I have been watching what I eat since October, which always leaves me hungry by the time I get off work. I’ve noticed this past week that I can’t write when I get like that. So I need to come up with something to snack on after work that is light enough that I’ll eat when I get home.

That’ll fix about half the problem.

Once I’m done the description edit of His Wings in about three more days, I’ll be writing on my phone at home. I’m pretty certain if I put a game or something on my computer, I can pull it off.

Officially I’ll have six weeks off work.

Unless I get to the other side and they interview me and it just so happens the secondary boss has quit and they offer me that position. That’s the only emergency sort of scenario that would make me go back before all the hoops I have to jump through.

Yes, I’ll be able to sleep in, and yes I’m so looking forward to it.

But not having my stuff for two weeks is going to stress me out. Having to get my license back is going to spike my anxiety.

Going to Mexico for a week is a freaking bonus but I wouldn’t be in the country to work…

And then there’s a wedding that’s going to cause a lot of anxiety. I’m doing almost everyone a favour by staying home.

I’m thinking the first week, around family stuff and arranging my license, I’ll just play video games. Two days in I’ll get bored, I know it, and go back to work in some kind of manic filled manner. But stuff will get done and the game playing will be out of my system.

I’m thinking The Awakened or Contract Delivered for March. Want to get the second done and get on editing that trilogy and the stand alone. Get them up. They’re burning a hole in my usb.

I have to figure something out for May, as I will be without a computer etc for over half the month. I may start May’s project at the end of April’s. I do want to do one book a month, and in theory I’ll have a lot of free time because I will be working part-time then, but I like having plans in place.

Fifty-nine days to my last day of work. Sixty-six until I arrive in my new home.

Blood on both the ceiling and floor of the public washroom I have to use almost daily (stupid bladder the size of a pea) and a literal pile of trash in my front yard. I feel like the city is starting to fall apart, but I’ve loved it for years.

Crop

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I missed last week’s update because I was doing a read edit of Seed. This week happens to be the day before the first day of the month so I’m combining the two.

After a great deal of thought, I’ve decided to close The Ethereal. This means His Halo is being removed from the schedule and I will not be pursuing more books in the world. This doesn’t mean that I will never complete the trilogy, just that there are no plans to work on it.

I’m not enjoying writing or editing the books. Readers don’t get excited over them like they do with others so it’s time to call it.

I liked the covers though.

So it’s the last day of January, and His Wings is halfway through a description edit and sitting just shy of 80k words. It’s launching April 8th so I’m determined to get this done.

Seed has gone through the first read edit and I think I like it better than At Death’s Door but that could just be me liking a newer story better than an old one. Once I have the description edit of His Wings done, I will input the edits for Seed and get it off to the betas.

Fragments is almost halfway through a read edit. Once that’s done and Seed is off to the betas, I will input it’s edits and get it up for preorder.

Depending on betas, I might have three books launch across a month.

I’m also working on a side project that started bothering me called The Others which is a blog story? I’m not entirely certain. It is an experiment for sure. It’s just written as the whim takes me and in between things.

Which finally brings me to February. It’s project is Crop which has gone back on the rotation instead of being a floater. With about ten chapters left to write, Crop will likely take most of the month because of how it is written. Its word count is unknown, probably somewhere between 35k and 45k at the moment. I believe I had just started chapter ten.

I can only write Crop on my phone, which leaves the mornings, nights, and work breaks open. Hence where I’m getting all the other edits done. If I finish Crop early, I will launch into writing Harvest almost immediately.

Depending on other edits, I will also start the description edit of Crop right away. If Seed launches May 1st, I want Crop to launch no later than August 1st, and Harvest on October 1st.

No word on March’s project yet. I have to get Harvest written by April 12th. Hmm, 13th, let’s say. That’s when my long commutes end and I want to keep that… that kind of pace.

I’ll miss those focused times for writing on my phone. I’ll have to get a longer pair of headphones so I can plug into my computer once I move and blast music loud enough to drown my own thoughts until I can focus. Maybe that’ll work.

His Wings Week 3

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Yeah, unless something turns around in the next six months, I’m going to close The Ethereal. It’s just dragging on and on.

The first draft is about 3/4 done, is only about 44k words and is mainly dialogue. I will get this done.

I thought I was just having problems because of the stress of moving. It does all kinds of weird stuff to my head, like swapping… homonyms? The words that sound the same but are spelled differently.

I contacted the moving company and three times used higher instead of hire in reference to hiring movers. I know higher shouldn’t be used, but it still happens.

I’ve reached a point where Michael pulls out his flaming sword (But on the physical plane it’s not exactly flaming without his grace) and all of a sudden tv replaced sword four times!

Stress, man. Whoever said stress is just an emotion and to get over it needs to be stressed out, shaken really hard and then thrown into their biggest fear.

Over the last two weeks or so, I have created an escapism world. Called The Others, I’ve been sinking into it at every available moment. While at work, on the bus, as I’m trying to sleep.

Long story short on that, I have a blog up for it and wrote about 3000 words of setup and just over 2000 words for the first entry.

So it’s the world, not necessarily my head.

I’ve decided to take a break from The Ethereal next month. I still want to finish the trilogy in the next eight months, but I need something that gets a little excitement in the writing department. Something I’m stoked to write.

Debating between The Awakened (there is no plan…) Prototype (a rewrite. A massive rewrite) or The Visitors (lots of plot, no ending) for February.

The Others has no clear ending so it’s going to be an experimental project and is on no list.

About 83 days to the move. I just want to get it on and going. I haven’t started packing, don’t have movers packed (waiting to hear about that question) and I need to start purging some stuff I don’t want to take with me.

Broken furniture, my ex’s stuff… the old computer tower I was like “I can totally save this!”

Anyhow, I’m on Chapter Fifteen, and I am desperately hoping to have the first draft of His Wings done by Monday.

His Wings Week Two

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Let’s see if I can do this…

Turns out my issue with this story may be that I had a migraine coming on. Migraines are caused (for me) by a special kind of stress. They aren’t tension headaches and haven’t been diagnosed so the fact that I am vertical may mean they’re a different kind of brain malfunction.

Diagnosing brain malfunctions has always been difficult and I’ve watched others go through the steps only to be told by doctors there’s nothing wrong with them.

Even though they have multiple grand mal seizures in front of witnesses, pass out on a weekly basis, or have a different sort of episode where they go blank, their personality changes, witnesses say there was something ‘not right’ about how they moved and so on.

But no, there was nothing medically wrong with them. Even though six months to two years later like magic they are diagnosed with something that explains all of their symptoms because it was finally caught on a machine.

… I’d really like to get fixed, but it’s actually less stressful and seems more productive to figure out the triggers and then just avoid them.

I’ve trained myself to write down symptoms when I get like this, to try to help things out. And because before I started that each time it came over me I was completely surprised. Now I’ve got a little awareness and I know before there are holes in my vision and half my face goes numb.

I’ve been the only one looking after me so long that I can keep working through the symptoms but over the past couple years have stopped. No one is going to thank me for working through this agony and it just draws it out.

So now each time it happens I make a choice based on what’s going on. I should have called into my day job today but I’m going in anyhow.

Partly because my pills are in my locker. Mainly because with 87 days to my last day, I’m trying to train people to do my job.

Is it train or trane? Oh poop, there’s no autocorrect or spell check.

The drop off of word count ahould have been my first clue. Struggling to find my words while talking shouls have been the second.

A friend has a theory that I have temporal lobe epilepsy effecting my brocas area that results in my hypergraphia. Basically my word/language centre gets electrocute every once in a while.

The fact that I kept getting distracted by other work would have been the third clue. If I didn’t want to write the story a game or the internet ahould have distracted me. Not marketing and cover design such and so forth.

So… I’m a broken bunny. His Wings goes live April 8th and is currently just shy of 20k words.

The long and the short of this is that my move being three months off (The stress of living through those months and realizing just how unhappy I’ve been by myself, not the act of the move) caused an episode of some sort.

Its hard to tell through text, and what with the inability to express emotion given how exhausted I am, but I’m super pissed this is happening. I’d much rather be writing. Just getting to the good part!

His Wings Week 1

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

This is going about as I expected… it is only day three, but I also only have 300 words on His Wings. Yeah, I decided to start over so I technically went into the negative. There’s been something like 6000 words on Crop though. So I guess I have that going for me.

I had removed Crop and Harvest from my plan, they were just going to be spare books, but if I finished Crop in January I’m certainly not going to count this month as failed.

I also have a three-day weekend coming up and I plan to hit His Wings hard. I can write over half a book in three days, if I set goals and keep focused.

So… that’s not happening, but I’m still going to give it my best shot!

His Wings

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

As this is an obligation piece, it’s no surprise that His Wings is my January project. It’s an obligation because I have a trilogy planned, but His Grace is actually my worst selling book.

Yeah.

But, I have the trilogy planned out and I’m going to finish the damned thing. It could be that, because I have the trilogy planned, people are waiting for all the books to come out.

I have this one all plotted out, but came to hesitating at a m/m/f threesome for some bloody reason. Mind you, I don’t usually do threesomes. I think this would be the third I’ve ever written and the book requires two or three threesome scenes.

This may be my most challenging project because my heart isn’t quite in it. I want to see the trilogy through but I don’t feel like anyone cares about the book so I’m not as interested.

His Grace ends in a happy-for-right-now way too, so I could have walked away for a year like I did with Masked Intentions but I don’t want to drag it out like that.

D.o.t.A. may end up being my August book forever more. Which is fine, I don’t have a plan for that series really. Most of the books are stand alone.

Anyhow, going into this month, His Wings has a word count of about 9,000. Three chapters are complete, seventeen more to go which will total a minimum of 51k more words.

I have January 1st off, then work until Thursday and gave three days off in a row. I was supposed to have the 1st and 2nd off but the schedule was messed up. I had to fix it myself because everyone at work was perfectly okay with paying me an extra day.

Yeah… I get paid for stats.

But I had planned that day to get a handle on His Wings and if they wanted me to work an extra day they should have checked with me first.

So, I’ve got four days off in the first six of the year. I’m hoping to have His Wings complete by next Sunday because I need to dive into two more edits and one read through for Beth.

Not to mention the cover work I’ve been ignoring.

Lots of work to do again, not enough hours to do it in.