Hikes, Costume, and Project Lineup

I finished drafting In Chaos Forged, which was a super relief, as I wanted to move on to BIV of The Legacy Incarnate: Incarnate Key. I look forward to eventually going back to and revising ICF, but that won't happen until at least after I finish writing Incarnate Key.

I say writing instead of revision because I will be rewriting most of BIV and changing much of the plot line. There's going to be some crazy stuff that our heroine Sabra runs into, stuff that will involve some ancient Liberan history and technology.

Right now my current order of projects is BIV of LI, then Book 3 of The Legend of Draconite. B3 of LoD is long due, and I'm excited to make some heavy revision on it, especially in regards to Sabra. In the original versions of LOD, I didn't mention Sabra was a witch until B5 of LoD, but in the new version of Book 3: E'lsra, Sabra will begin formal magic training with her bodyguard and mentor, the Crin Warlock Eveningstar. It makes more sense that way.

Hagerman

I've had to tell myself over the last few months to focus on writing one project, because with all the jumping around I was doing,  nothing was getting done.

However,  it makes me look forward to more editing and revision and writing,  and gives me room to develop ideas. Focusing on one writing project has helped me put more effort into that project as well. In Chaos Forged is coming along, and now that I know how I want to plot the rest of the book, I feel more confident about finishing it faster and going on to revision.

Malad Gorge

This past week my hubby and I went to Hagerman, Idaho, home of the Hagerman Horse, for our anniversary trip. I've never been in the area, and the igneous formations are breathtaking. We went to Malad Gorge and Shoshone Falls, and hiked around a little bit. We also enjoyed exploring the small town of Hagerman and looking at wagon ruts from the Oregon Trail.

A major spring in Malad Gorge. The area is called 1000
Springs, and there are literally springs bursting out of
the cliffs!

Who knew that Sabra liked to tag her name over 50+ ft drops?

The property where we were staying at Billingsley Creek

Shoshone Falls just outside of Twin Falls Idaho.

A connecting waterfall pool at Shoshone Falls.

While in Hagerman we didn't have any wi-fi or phone connection, and that was good and bad in a way. It kept us from being distracted by technology while we explored, but at the same time James needed it for a school assignment. We took a few trips into Twin Falls so he could access the internet.

It was inspiring being out in rugged and more isolated wilderness than I'm used to. I was able to jot notes down and do sketches (I hadn't sketched for weeks). I loved this trip to a place that was almost the middle of nowhere. It's nice to escape once in a while.

Creating Cover Art

For me, one of the greatest joys of being a self-published author is the ability to design my own covers. God has blessed me with the beautiful talent of drawing, traditionally and digitally, and I continue to feel blessed as I’m able to draw up fantastic characters and scenes that can grace the hard copies of my books.

How do I go about creating and designing a book cover? Well, it’s taken some years for me to get a basic understanding of design for covers, as it’s not something I’ve seriously studied. (I guess there’s always something new to learn!) However, through trial and error and looking at professionally published books, I’ve gotten some ideas on how to design a cover and hopefully make it eye-catching.

As a disclaimer, this post simply talks about how I create my covers, and is by no means professional advice or a step-by-step how-to. However, I hope it’s helpful for others designing book covers.

World Building: Races

In many a fantasy you have a mix of sapient races who fill a fantastical niche in your fantasy world. But just how do you create a race? And how do you flesh out you races?

When you're looking to create a race that people aren't already familiar with (such as Tolkien-esque elves or dwarves), one way to go about it is to take inspiration from our world. Before I wrote The Legend of Draconite, I found inspiration for the Molouk race from a book I had about dinosaurs. I tweaked the Molouks a bit (they're more humanoid and have smooth skin, have hair as well as feathers, etc.) and made them my own race. If you're going with a more familiar race like humans, there's still elements you can add to make it your own.

Another way is to look up legends from our world and base a race off of that. You will want to add unique elements to that race to make it your own, unless you want to stay true to traditional legends and write something based in our world.

Describing Characters

One of the hard lessons I've learned about writing is the proper way to describe characters. I grew frustrated with books that didn't describe at least their main character in some detail (it still bugs me at times), and I didn't want to be one of those authors that left literally nothing to the reader's imagination.

First I'll talk about the mugshot description versus the narrated description, and then I'll talk about describing character personality and reactions.

What I do Outside Writing



My main writing station.

As I grew from my tween years, I focused a lot of my time and effort on writing. I was pumping out novels –– albeit raw, low quality novels –– almost as fast as my son can run away down the street from me. I had my other interests as well: drawing, reading, archery, and piano, among other things. But one of my highest priorities was writing, and I loved doing it.

I still love writing. There's an emotional satisfaction from crafting likeable stories and characters. I think it's that innate, divine part of everyone that has the desire to create, and storytelling is probably the closest we mortals will ever come to creating worlds.

As I grew, my priorities shifted and grew too. I gained more responsibilities in my church, I worked through college, and I got married and started having kids. It has become more and more difficult to find a balance between what I love to do and need to do, but I still find time for both. My writing sessions have grown irregular, but with God's grace I still find the inspiration to continue a story where I left off weeks or maybe months previous.

Outside of writing I have developed some new interests thanks to a new friend. I have been participat

ing in the SCA in a Viking persona, and most of my outfit is done. It's made me appreciate my ancestors more, and it feels neat to wear something similar to what they wore so many centuries ago.

 

I've also started doing some Dungeons & Dragons, and I've really enjoyed developing a character for the game. I'm not terribly familiar with the D&D worlds (I've read 3-4 books out of the dozens of Wizards of the Coast books out there), so she definitely comes across as atypical for a Forgotten Realms wood elf. Anywho, I look forward to exploring the game more. Me and my husband like involved strategy games, and we're hoping D&D for the two of us does not disappoint.

My D&D character Althaea

I've mentioned a few times that I do archery. I started archery when I was fairly young, between 9-11 years old. As I continued to practice it, I upgraded to different bows, and am currently with a beautiful recurve hunting bow that belonged to my grandpa. Unfortunately, archery too is an irregular pass-time, especially since given our small back patio space, practicing serious distance shooting is impossible. However, at the SCA Harvest Hunt last year I had the opportunity to shoot long-range, and I did a lot better than I thought I could.

Most of my time is spent with my two boys, and motherhood is my #1 job. It's a stressful but rewarding role, as seeing your children learn new things makes all the frustrating communication problems and late nights worth it. Me and my oldest will run laps around the house, and I enjoy cuddling with our littlest one. We enjoy walks and hikes and tickle fights.

 

 

I've lagged behind on updating Xenithar's Musings, but I will be putting up at least a post a week for the next few months. I've been thinking about what things I could write about that will engage the readers, and have a variety of topics planned for the coming weeks.

So what do you like to do in your free time? Or do you have free time? And are there things you would like me to write about on Xenithar's Musings? Comment below!