It’ll be an interesting challenge for me to pick up where I left off.
I began writing my Source Chronicles fantasy series in 1998.
It began with a scene out of classic epic fantasy: A lone sorcerer in flowing robes, staff raised, throwing his power around. It wasn’t long before there were more scenes, more characters, and a story that itself would evolve numerous times.
In the early 2000s, I hired my first editor. She didn’t just edit Seeker – she taught me more about the craft and how to be a better writer in more ways than I think any class might have done. It’s because of what she taught me that I have become a skilled editor myself.
Seeker was finished, Finder was completed, and as I wrote book 3 – Harbinger – it became so lengthy that cutting it in half made sense. Thus, Guardians came into being and my planned 4-book series became 5.
At the time, I was still looking to go the traditional route for publishing. I was sending queries to various agents to attempt to land representation so that I might get published by a known publishing house.
And then, an opportunity presented itself. A published author friend of mine was assembling an anthology of pirates and magic called Rum and Runestones. She offered me a spot as one of its authors.
My first published fantasy was A Treacherous Stone in 2010. In the next similar anthology, called Spells and Swashbucklers, my second fantasy story – The Vapor Rogues – was published in 2012.
These developments caused me to set aside the Source Chronicles. Though I chose to self-published the series starting in 2014, I didn’t touch the rest of it for years.
Until recently.
Recognizing how my writing has evolved
I published Finder in 2015. Even still, I moved on to create a whole world and start my Vapor Rogues series, and then my greatest love – sci-fi. I wrote and published the first 4 of my 5 book Void Incursion series and the 4 novels of my Forgotten Fodder series.
Still, my wife and some others requested that I return to the Source Chronicles. Harbinger has been complete since 2008. The time had come to edit.
This presented a bunch of interesting challenges. Firstly – my writing style has changed. While some elements remain as they were – the difference was notable enough to me that the editing I needed to do was rather thorough.
Secondly – my storytelling style has changed. More than once. Hence, there were 3 revisions of Harbinger by me – one in 2016, the next in 2018, and one more in 2022.
Thirdly – about halfway through Harbinger, it was super obvious to me where my first editor had worked on Seeker. Why? Because the shift in my writing style and character perspective, though subtle, was obvious to me.
Editing a story that I started and finished more than a decade ago has been a unique challenge. Now, however, I’m finally ready to send it to an editor, so that I might publish Harbinger and continue The Source Chronicles.
That, however, leads to a whole new problem.
Where did I leave off, anyhow?
When I initially divided Harbinger into 2 novels, I was still writing as a pantser. Hell, before creating Forgotten Fodder, everything I wrote was as a pantser (by the seat of my pants, if you’re unfamiliar with the term).
Guardians, the fourth book in the Source Chronicles, had reached almost 54,000 words when I set it aside in May of 2010. As I recall, I felt I was not quite halfway through the storyline.
Harbinger and Guardians span 10 years in the story. I had created timelines and other information for myself so that I would know what had passed, what needed to still happen, and maintain continuity.
What’s more, the series has dozens of characters. At least 5 are primary characters, and another 10 are secondary characters. The story is ramping up to some big events, and I’ll need to reconcile a lot of storylines within the overarching plot in Guardians – let alone setting up what is still to come in the planned final book, Healers.
How I write and tell stories has changed quite a lot in the intervening 12 years. Further, who I am as a person – and how I approach life, the Universe, and everything in general – has changed a lot, too.
Recognizing the value of planning my stories will need to be taken into account when I work to pick up where I left off. While books 1-4 of Void Incursion were written by me as a pantser, book 5 was planned and plotted before I even began to write it.
How do I pick up the story where I left off?
While creating a plan for Healers is doable – Guardians has a lot already written. Do I trash it and restart it? Or do I pick up where I left off, reach a conclusion (yes, I didn’t even end after a chapter when I set it aside), and then plan from there?
I probably should at least have ended the chapter I was writing. But I didn’t, and I can’t undo the past. So the question is – how do I pick up the story where I left off?
To start, I will probably need to rework what’s already done. While I could just continue from where I left off, I believe that with all the changes to my style and storytelling, it’ll best suit the story if I rework it to match my current approach.
However – I can’t disregard what came before. This is the continuation of an epic fantasy series, and I still believe in it.
While picking it up is not an immediate plan, once I finish having Harbinger – then have it edited and publish it – I can’t ignore Guardians and the rest of the Source Chronicles forever.
Speaking of picking up where I left off…
I am in the process of redoing the cover art for Clouds of Authority – the first of my Vapor Rogues Steampunk, sci-fi, fantasy epic. After all the worldbuilding I did for The Vapor Rogues short story, I started a novel series.
With that on the horizon – it begs a second question of picking up where I left off. I completed book 2 – Clouds of Destiny – in 2015. And then left it alone. I haven’t even assembled it into a full, single work (I save files in approximately 50-page increments), let alone edited it.
Planning and plotting
The reality is that if I do change Clouds of Authority’s cover, I should pick up where I left off and return to work on The Vapor Rogues. Similarly – once I publish Harbinger, I should get back to work on Guardians and the rest of The Source Chronicles.
On the one hand – that’s a lot of work. But on the other hand – this is my joy, my love. The stories I tell mean a lot to me – and hopefully will continue to find readers to whom they will also be something special and a means to open their imaginations.
To pick up where I left off will be a challenge. But I know that I will – because the stories I’ve started but not completed deserve to be finished, too.
And I do tend to enjoy a challenge. More to write, more to edit, more to publish. Picking up where I left off will be a unique and possibly fascinating experience.
Please take a moment to check out the collection of my published works, which can be found here.
Feel free to explore the rest of the website. Also, check out my weekly podcasts.
Enjoying the website and my endeavors? I’d be grateful if you would consider becoming a patron through my Patreon.
You can subscribe to my newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button to the right and receive your free eBook.
Follow me here!
You must be logged in to post a comment.