Doings at Drakenheath

Lumé love me, we're more than halfway through September already! Not sure how I feel about that . . . This year just keeps getting away from me. Not that it hasn't been a productive year, but I never quite feel that I make it through all the various tasks I have planned.

Anyway, the time has come for the newest Doings at Drakenheath post, and I hope all of you will enjoy seeing what we've been up to and what is currently on the horizon.

First of all . . . The Ridiculously Huge Project.

I introduced this project last month and have been working on it steadily ever since. I finished the rough draft of Book 1 in just 12 writing days, which pleased me, since my goal was 14.

However, the draft is VERY rough indeed, and I am already brewing such significant changes come the second draft that I rather doubt much of the original material will remain. Oh, well. At least there is a draft in existence.

I have moved on to Book 2 now and am making good progress on it. This draft is a little bit stronger than the draft of Book 1, though it is still much of it very rough. I had boasted some rather grandiose hopes of finishing this rough draft in the same amount of time it took me to do Book 1, but I'm already seeing that as highly unlikely. Because this draft is more polished than the last, it is by necessity bigger and more detailed, so it will take a bit more time.

Anyway, I plan to write up an actual post about The Ridiculously Huge Project sometime in the next week or so, so I'll save details about the project for that post. Though I did promise you monthly glimpses as the development, and I haven't forgotten!

Lights of the Alhambra

This month's glimpse is another research glimpse. I have been spending quite a lot of time researching the Alhambra in southern Spain as inspiration for a particular setting in Book 2. My own palace/city/fortification--called the Vanaruz--is not actually in southern Spain, but the influences are similar. I am even including a park of imported elm trees such as you see surrounding the Alhambra in this picture on the right. This elm park is said to be full of nightingales, so I am swiping that idea as well, particularly since its a detail that fits so neatly into the theme of this book.

Yesterday I spent time researching the Alhambra's four outer gates, their names, when they were built, for what purposes they were used. Details like this, when rearranged to suit one's own story, add a lot of authentic flavor to a world. Much of my concentration has been going to the actual world building at this stage, and while I do some research before beginning a project, I end up doing most of my research along the way as I encounter details that need expanding.

So that's enough about The Ridiculously Huge Project for now. Stay tuned for a more extensive post concerning this project, due to appear soonish on this blog . . .

Did you enjoy the September Show and Tell? I know I did. It was so exciting to see all those different variations on "Sleeping Beauty" currently in development. All of them looked intriguing, and there were several that particularly stood out to me as stories I can hardly wait to read (though I won't say which ones . . . assume it was yours, dear competitor!).

We are now beyond the halfway mark for this contest. Still PLENTY of time to finish up those stories. But its not too long now before the clock will start ticking . . .

Personally, I'm really looking forward to the END of the contest, since I don't get to read the submissions when the first come in (they go out to my team of readers first, and they pick their top five favorites to send to me). So I won't actually get to start reading Magic Spindles stories until January . . . though I may beg a peek or two early, if opportunity arises.

So, in un-bookish-related news . . . we have a new rescue kitty!

Meet Little Miss Muffet.

This pretty little girl was dumped in our neighborhood, I'm not sure how long ago. While my husband and I were out for a stroll a few weekends back, she came out of the woods and started meowing and flirting, trying to get our attention. She was very scared of Milly (my big black doggy), so I sent Rohan on ahead with her so that I could try to make friends with the poor kitty.

Little Miss was VERY ready to be rescued. She let me pick her right up and carry her all the way home. She had to live for the first two weeks on our screened-in back porch, as she was covered in fleas and had to get her vaccinations. But I have a great animal rescue group in the Raleigh area to work with, and they got me right into their program.

Evil Looks Down from Above

Now Little Miss is de-wormed, de-fleaed, up to date on all of her shots, and happily living in our home while we search for a perfect forever family for her. She's still not a fan of Milly, and my other kitties, despite being very used to having other cats in the house, are not particularly welcoming to a newcomer. Believe it or not, Minerva Louise (aka, The Evil One) is my most gentle cat when dealing with a newbie, so I let her and Little Miss hang out together in my office for a supervised period most mornings. I can't say they truly interact with one another. But sometimes that's a good thing where kitties are concerned . . .

Say a prayer that we'll find a good home for Little Miss, if you think of it. We love her and are happy to take care of her, but she will be MUCH happier in a home of her own where she can be the only princess.

Rohan and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary just a few days ago! Most of you probably saw that, as it was the previous post, but I'll share a picture of us on the actual day too. My sweet handsome guy took me to Raleigh's oldest (and fanciest) steakhouse, Sullivan's, to celebrate, so we had to dress up. Not really a hardship for us, since we both like fancy dressing and fancy dining! I thought you might particularly like seeing the necklace I wore, which was a gift from my brother and his wife. It's got a distinctly Goldstone Wood-esque vibe, I'm thinking!

We have a lot of fun together, and our anniversary was no exception. We had hoped to do a little trip to celebrate the milestone of five years, but . . . well, we might have a much BIGGER trip coming up in another month or so, which means we need to save our vacation days! I won't say too much now (I'll save it for the next Doings post), but it looks like Rohan and I might be jumping "over the pond" very soon. Waaaaaay over the pond . . . (And we're getting seriously excited about it!)

 Oh, and I got a new haircut, which you can also see making its debut in these pictures. Just some layers and bangs, which is a fun change for me. It was getting reeeeeeeally long, and while I love long hair in theory, it tends to start looking heavy around my face. This cut gives my hair a little more bounce, and I feel prettier than I have in a long while. Ah! The restorative power of a good haircut . . .

Progress is still being made on both the Draven's Light audiobook and the Five Enchanted Roses audiobook. I hope to see both of them launched before the end of the year, though I'm not ABSOLUTELY certain this will be possible. It all depends on whether or not I get a chance to sit down and listen through both of them the several times necessary before hitting the "approve" button. Well over 20 hours worth of listening, not always easy to find time for. But one way or the other, both of these products are in the works and sounding awesome, so we'll be sharing them eventually.

And, believe it or not, I am actually in the very beginning stages of planning another little story. Not sure if anything will come of it, but I've been brainstorming both with Rohan and with my mother, (award-winning and bestelling novelist Jill Stengl, who knows a thing or two about brainstorming!), and they are both very keen for me to pursue it. I won't say too much about it just now, save that it's a children's book, so MUCH shorter than anything else I've ever done. And it's not a fantasy. I'll see if it goes anywhere before I reveal too much more about it, but it's definitely a Doing that is taking up some of my mental processes.

My plan is to finish drafting Book 2 in The Ridiculously Huge Project, and then take a week off from that to see if I can't rough up a quick draft of this children's book idea. I've got an outline that I like a ton, and while it will probably take me more than a week to write, I hope to get most of it done very quickly indeed. So we'll see. If that week goes well, I MIGHT be introducing this little story to all of you sooner rather than later. If it doesn't go well, I might scrap the whole thing, so we will see . . .

But, one way or the other, I'm only going to take a week to play with it, because I CANNOT SLOW DOWN on The Ridiculously Huge Project. Not and make my goals. (But more on that later.)

Wow, things look much calmer in this Doings post than they have in many of my other posts! Not quite so many irons in the fire at once, which is nice. Gives me time to really focus, at least for this period, on my writing itself. Sometimes, with ALL of the things I'm juggling, I begin to feel as though the Writer in me gets a little buried. So I really have to take advantage of clearer space when I get it!

So what has your September been like, dear Imps? Are you working away on your Five Magic Spindles stories? I'm sure many of you are back in school full throttle now, both as students and as teachers. Any specific plans for things you hope to accomplish in the next month? Do tell! I am all ears . . .