I began to work on my fantasy series, The Source Chronicles, in 1997.
I was at work, bored, and tapped out this scene that popped into my head. Then, two more scenes were written, and now I had three main characters, and the story began to take shape.
As I worked on the novel I first called Seeker of The Source, my characters took on qualities and identities I had not entirely expected them to. Before I knew it, I ran into a major dilemma. My villain ceased to be the bad guy.
My best friend from High School and I had a conversation when I was blocked, and he made a point that opened the channels, and the story continued. In time, Seeker of the Source was completed.
I edited this, to a point, and moved on. The prophecy I had written was broken into four parts, and I knew that meant there would be four books. I began to write Finder of The Source.
I had acquired for a time an agent. He did his best, but frankly when he took me on I was outside his normal genre. This made it very hard to get where I wanted to go, and in time we parted ways.
Editors can change everything.
Lone was a friend of a friend. She is a professional writer and editor, and agreed to edit Seeker of The Source. At this point, Finder of The Source was also completed, and I had begun to work on Harbinger of The Source.
Lone did more than just edit my novel. She taught me so much about the craft of writing, as well as how to edit writing, that my work would never be the same.
She taught me to choose a singular narrative, rather than jumping between characters without a break of some sort. Lone gave me insight into better world building, and the series got renamed The Source Chronicles (which is partially credited to Kristin, the friend who introduced Lone and I). She taught me how to do better sentence structure, stronger character actions, and more. Overall, I became a far better writer and editor, and cannot express how much this has meant to me over the years.
Since publishing the first two novels in The Source Chronicles, Seeker and Finder, I have continued to work on the series. Deep into Harbinger, it occurred to me that it would be a long, long novel. As such, I split it up, and Guardians was born. The prophecy received an edit, adding a fifth section to match the revised number of planned novels.
Two years after publishing Finder, and more than that after taking a break from The Source Chronicles to work on The Vapor Rogues, my Steampunk series, and the as-yet untitled sci-fi epic I’m currently working on, I returned to Harbinger to start editing, before I send it off to a professional.
I have concluded my edits. One of the most fascinating aspects of this process was finding where what I had learned from Lone got employed in Harbinger. It was a subtle shift, but I saw it rather clearly.
Writing is a practice.
Once I send Harbinger off to an editor (and I am looking for a new editor), I intend to continue work on the sci-fi novel. I also intend to continue Guardians, where I left off about five years ago. My goal is to have it complete within 2 more years, and then the final novel of the series, Healers, will be written.
I am striving to do as much writing as I can. In addition to my work on my novels, I blog three times a week at The Ramblings of The Titanium Don – my blog about Conscious Reality Creation. Positivity, Pathwalking, and Crossing the Bridges between the worlds I live in and have created along the way.
I will set up an e mail subscription service to this blog soon. Thank you for tagging along on my writing adventures. Welcome, also, to my new and improved website.
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