Laura Highcove

Review: Black Leviathan

March 15, 2020March 15, 2020 Laura Highcove

My Review of Black Leviathan by Bernd Perplies

My summary: Dragon hunters go out on flying ships to fight and kill dragons, which provide most of the food and clothing to the people of the Cloudmere.

Why I picked up this book: I think I saw it featured in one of Tor.com’s newsletters. I read the back cover copy and thought it looked good.

What I knew going in: It’s a retelling of Moby Dick, but set in a fantasy world with dragons. Also, it was written in German and then translated into English by Lucy Van Clee.

My response: The language was very simple, but that may be a result of it being translated from a different language where the rhythm of language is just different. I found myself pulled along following Lian’s story and the world was very beautifully pulled together.

I was a little less than impressed with the ending, which felt like it was a lot of ‘oh, this is happening because of destiny.’ When there wasn’t really much of a focus on destiny before that point. It almost felt like the book was about to be over and he needed to wrap everything up. There were also a lot of questions that simply got left at the end of the book, which would’ve been fine if there was a sequel, but as far as I can tell there isn’t. Right now I’m just looking at it as there’s enough answered for the book to be over, and enough unanswered that you know the characters are going to go out and have more adventures.

Do I recommend this book?: If you’re going to be upset by a less than stellar ending, then avoid it, but if you’re okay with a wonderful ride of a book and wonderful world-building then I do recommend it.

Slow and Steady

March 1, 2020March 12, 2020 Laura Highcove

It’s the final push to getting the Wizard ready for an alpha read. My goal had been to have a completed draft 0, but I didn’t quite manage that, so I’m making what I have as readable as possible so I can get it to my alpha readers to encourage some discussion.

My husband has also been running a D&D campaign set in the Storyteller universe, which is letting us explore some of the aspects of the world that I purposely tried to avoid in the books. There will be a post with more detail on that at a later date. I have to still figure out how many spoilers would be involved in putting that all out there.

Other than that, it’s just been slow and steady work. These posts tend to either be talking about my depression challenges or my just plugging away at my writing. Would be nice if there was more excitement to it, but I’ll take the slow and steady work over the depression any day.

Writing My Way Through

February 19, 2020March 12, 2020 Laura Highcove

So I’m a little late on this journal entry, as, well I just haven’t gotten back into the habit of biweekly updates yet. So here’s my update:

Doing well on getting my daily word count of at least 1k words. There’s also been some revision in there so I don’t have the straight up word count that would suggest, but I’m happy with my progress. I wrote a whole bunch of scenes that really pushed things forward, and plenty of scenes where I just stared at the screen for a while because nothing was happening.

I have, since this week, gone back to the beginning to smooth out the story a bit because I’m unclear about a few things. My story is coming out even more fractured than it was for LotDK, and so I’m having a harder time holding it together in my head. Smoothing is the only option for that, even if I lose the straight up word count I would otherwise get. I’m also supposed to have my rough draft done by the end of this week before spending two weeks smoothing. That is a long shot unless some idea just completely overwhelms me. I don’t have an ending yet. I tried writing a bit of it but I’m just not far enough in the story yet.

I suppose in the future during the planning phase, I should interlace word output with smoothing, because that’s really what ends up happening anyway. So the plan is to finish smoothing, pour out some more words, rise and repeat until my March Alpha Read. I’ll certainly have something to show them, even if I don’t exactly have an ending yet. And technically I can still write the ending while they’re reading the first bit. 😀

Writing the Storyteller

January 27, 2020March 12, 2020 Laura Highcove

So last week I finished up my read through and wrote out my list of everything major point that still needed to be written in both the Huntsman and the Wizard. Creating the list ended up only taking two days instead of the week I had allotted to it, so I started writing out some scenes that needed to be changed. I’m giving myself a goal of 1000 words a day. Most days so far I’ve ended up writing more than that anyway, but I don’t want the number of words to discourage me too much. I’d rather get consistent words.

Probably get a chapter done a day for about a week and then I’ll just try and write as many of these scenes as possible. When I write new scenes like this I generally end up with something good eventually. Maybe not every scene, but as a discovery writer, discovery writing is where I really shine.

Nanowrimo style for a month now, so I’m excited about what’s going to come out even though I have no idea, but after this I SHOULD have an idea of what the ending will be. This is about when I need to know where I’m going. Then I sort of work in from both sides until I figure out the middle …like a sandwich? Something like that.

The Year 2020

January 12, 2020March 12, 2020 Laura Highcove

The first journal entry of the new year! Things were crazy at the end of the last year. Crazy! And now I want to get back to a normal. Not the same normal as before, since that’s impossible with my new houseplants and YouTube channel, but a new normal that I can be happy with.

So basically I “forgot” about writing for about three months and even now I’m having a little trouble getting back into it. I can give you all the reasons why I think this is, but after I wrote that long tyraid, I did what I normally do in a situation like this. I created a list!

This list is all the things I need to do to basically finish the Storyteller trilogy.

*Smooth what I have written
*Write the rest of the Wizard, draft 0
*Alpha read
*Fix major plot point through two books
*Fix minor points through two books
*Beta read
*Fix any problems
*Two-three final passes

Man, it looks so easy when it’s just a list like that. But once I had that list, I went through and guesstimated how long each step would take.

So I currently have seven more chapters to smooth. I’m going to give myself one week for that. I think that’s pushing it a bit, but it might just force me to get it done and over with. It’s not important that it’s perfect yet. *Jan 13-19*

Then I need to write the rest of the wizard. So I think what I need to do is once I’ve smoothed it, I’ll do another one of those “outlines” where I go through and outline what I have, then get ideas of where I wanted to go and scenes I still need to write. And write a list of all the things I want to have happen. Including the ending. *Jan 20-26*

Then I need to write them. I’d like to give myself a month, do a Nanowrimo type deal. *Jan 27-Feb 23*

Then I’ll need to smooth, maybe two weeks. *Feb 24-Mar 8*

Then I send out the Wizard for alpha reading. Hopefully they can get it done in a month. *Mar 9 – Apr 5*

When I get it back, go through the list, then go through myself and write down everything! *Apr 6 30- Apr 19*
-scenes that still need to be written/finished
-plot holes
-details to be done
-medium things
-minor things
-naming crap

Then I need to fix these problems. This is going to be the hardest to figure out the time-line of. For right now I’m giving myself a month. This will likely change. I’ll reevaluate the time-line when I get to the step above. *Apr 20- May 17*

Beta read: See, again, if it can be done in a month. *May 18- Jun 14*

Fix any problems, make a final list: one week *Jun15- 21*

Two-three final passes: ~month min *Jun22- July19*

Whenever I do one of these schedules, I’m reminded about *why* it takes so long to write a book. There’s just so many steps and there’s only so fast you can go over this many words. Still, I now have my goal set up in front of me. When I finish it this time, I can finally play Kingdom Hearts 3. :p

Still on Track

October 19, 2019March 12, 2020 Laura Highcove

Okay, so it’s October 17 (when I’m writing this, not when I’m posting it) Meaning I have exactly two weeks and one day until Nanowrimo starts. I got a little behind with all the traveling I needed to do for weddings the past two weekends while on one of the hardest parts of the story, a very important fight/turning point scene.

I have now, gotten past that scene and am into the final push to the climax. There are seven chapters left. Which means a chapter every two days if I’m to finish on time. Not ideal, but I am going to get this done.

I feel like I should have more to write for this post, but a lot of what I’ve been doing has been traveling, so while it’s a lot of stuff, it’s not really good material for a blog post.

I have also started a youtube channel where I talk about the plants (mostly succulents) that I have. It’s a fun little side project for me because, well I love showing off my plants in case you’re interested in that.

Other than that, it’s a countdown to Nanowrimo, which is exciting, as I hope to finish the draft of the Wizard, or at least get about 50k words farther with it.

Back from the Boat

September 29, 2019March 12, 2020 Laura Highcove

So apparently I went so head down about the Writing Excuses Cruise coming up that I just simply forgot about writing anything for my blog in over a month. That being said, once again Wxr was awesome. If you remember last year I was so impressed by the Wxr cruise, that despite telling my husband and myself last year that it would be a one time thing, I simply had to go again, and this time I brought the husband.

I was far more relaxed this year because I knew what to expect. It was all the same airports, hotel, cruise ship, and many of the same people, who actually remembered me! We were on shore for an extra day this time which I wasn’t super keen on. Mostly because it felt like I was just hanging in limbo before getting on the boat, and it also meant more meals to pay for. By the time we woke up Sunday morning everyone was talking about how it felt like we’d had a whole convention already but yet we still hadn’t gotten on the boat.

The lines to get onto the cruise ship practically flew compared to last year. I was prepared for the waiting in line, but there was only a minimum amount of waiting before we were on the boat and our rooms were ready shortly after. (We got a little pizza first.)

We had fewer classes this year. Last year was very class heavy and even I, ever the dedicated student, had trouble keeping up. This year they cut the number of classes. I think a little too far. Added to the fact that I didn’t go on any excursions this year, I ended up with a lot more free time than I expected. I did spend much of that with my husband, which may have helped stave off the depressive episodes I had last year, and I still felt like I got in my Wxr people time.

The classes were good. Piper’s class on animals in novels was fun and informative, and Mary Robinette’s impromptu 8am class on short stories was very helpful, even though I’ve heard her give bits of it before. I think the fact that we wrote a flash fiction helped to cement it better, and I’m feeling much more confidant about short stories in general.

I was apprehensive about Dongwon’s class on Writing Good Beginnings because I feel like I’ve been though so many of those classes before, but something about this one struck a chord with me and I realized my first “page” in The Law of the Prince Charming doesn’t have any stakes or reason for the reader to be invested in Tabitha. I had gotten that feedback before but didn’t “see” it, much less understand how to fix it. After Dongwon’s class I was able to see what I was missing and how to fix it. That gives me some more hope for when I send out another batch of queries.

I also went to watch the karaoke, which was far more populated that I expected from a group of writers. They had to close sign-ups at one point because they had so many people already signed up. My husband and I also participated in game night a bit more, which was good because the bar under our room played music that vibrated through the floor until ‘late’ (11:30-11:45 pm). I also recognized a lot of the food offerings at dinner from last year so I was able to avoid the bad ones and get extra of the good ones. Mwahaha! It was wonderful and fabulous, and I’m so hopeful we’ll both be able to go back again next year.

Changing the List

August 6, 2019March 12, 2020 Laura Highcove

Last weekend I went to Otakon with my husband and two of our friends. One of these friends I will refer to as ‘The Cheerleader’ and they drove up with us. The Cheerleader has been beta reading for me since LotPC because …well they’re good at stories and good at encouragement. Anyway, we all ended up talking about LotDK for a good portion of the trip up. I had lined up questions to ask my Hubby and the Cheerleader and I got a lot of good answers.

Not only that, but I was able to just talk about my story and hear what other people thought about it, which is very valuable. I know how the story goes in my head, and it’s interesting to see if that’s translating properly, and if it’s not, where the disconnect is and why. And even, if sometimes the way someone else takes it is even better. Or if I get to be all superior in thinking that my ideas are better and I can’t wait until they get to read it. Mwahaha!

As such, once I got back I was able to finish writing up my List of Revisions for LotDK, which after a few passes turned into a chapter by chapter list. I also managed to make a schedule for how many chapters I need to get done per week in order to be done by November (for Nanowrimo). I start out with four chapters per week and eventually end up at two a week. Obviously because the later chapters are far messier and will need much more help.

I have already started, and so far things are going well. I do anticipate problems, but every bit I get done is still done, even if Wildrose and Gabir continue to give me problems. I feel like a lot more things are starting to come together though, and that’s good. And I’m still enjoying the story, which is also good.