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Status Report (28 April 2020) – Patreon Campaign About to Go Live

Status Report (28 April 2020) – Patreon Campaign About to Go Live

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As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been using my period of forced vacation to engage in an extended world-building exercise. Using a series of maps, I’m building the large-scale back history of The Great Lands, the setting for The Curse of Steel (and what may be a series of novels after that).

This has been a remarkably useful exercise. I went in with only a general plan for how I wanted the process to go. A lot of the details have been filled in with improvisation, guided by plentiful references to real-world history. As a result, I’ve been surprised by some of the details as they’ve emerged, and the back-story I’m developing feels coherent and organic. There may be many more stories to be found in this framework once it’s done.

At the moment, I’m planning to produce a total of 15 maps, with attached background text, a little over half of which is already finished in rough draft. That should give me plenty of material to work with moving forward.

Once that’s done, I have a couple of days’ worth of more focused work to do, redrawing a local map and reworking a timeline, before I can start writing the second draft of The Curse of Steel. I expect to have all of this under way by mid- to late May.

One consequence of all this is that, finally, I think I’m prepared to start my Patreon campaign going once more.

In May, I plan to release a PDF titled The History of the Great Lands, including cleaned-up versions of all of the maps, a timeline, and a pile of additional text. That will serve as a first teaser for the Great Lands RPG sourcebook I’m putting together. In June, I should be able to release a PDF of the first few chapters of the second draft of The Curse of Steel.

Shameless plug: both of those items will only be available to my patrons, so if you’re interested in them, have a look at my Patreon page and see if you’d like to sign up.

While you’re here, have a look at the sidebar for this blog. I’ve dropped the Chapterbuzz link, added links to my Patreon and DeviantArt pages, and switched the Progress Bar widget over to indicate progress on the historical-atlas series.

Now, back to the maps . . .

A Welcome Bit of Publicity

A Welcome Bit of Publicity

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As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Timothy Pike, the editor of Books & Buzz Magazine and the associated Chapterbuzz website, offered me the chance to be the subject of a cover article in an upcoming issue. Since I had done well in the October writing challenge on Chapterbuzz, and The Curse of Steel was making strong progress, he thought I might be a good subject for an interview article. He sent me a bunch of questions, about a week ago I sent him back a few thousand words of responses, and now here we are.

I was pleasantly surprised at the article – Mr. Pike did a pretty good job of pulling my comments together and building a pep-talk for other would-be authors out of them. I’m certainly not going to argue with a bit of free publicity!

Here’s a link to the article itself: How author John Alleyn gets lost in his own worlds. It’s free to read at Books & Buzz.

Status Report (11 November 2019)

Status Report (11 November 2019)

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Not much to report from the last week or so. The Curse of Steel is still moving strongly toward its conclusion – I’ve passed the climax of the story and am now well into the denouement, setting up the next novel in the series. I might even be finished with the first draft before the end of this week.

A small surprise. Timothy Pike, the fellow who runs the Chapterbuzz website where I’ve been posting the draft, has asked me to be the subject of the cover feature in an upcoming issue of Books & Buzz Magazine.

That’s probably not as big a deal as it might sound – as far as I can tell, the magazine’s subscriber base isn’t all that large – but it should be an interesting adventure. It’s not costing me anything but a little time, at any rate. He’s sent me a pile of interview questions to respond to; I think what he’s really looking for is the kind of story that can encourage other would-be authors to push forward with their own projects. I can certainly speak candidly about my own journey as a writer. If and when that comes to fruition, I’ll post a link here.

Status Report (15 October 2019)

Status Report (15 October 2019)

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After a week of reading other people’s work and providing feedback on the Chapterbuzz site, I’ve swung back to working on The Curse of Steel. The feedback I got was a little thin, although three or four people did offer at least a few suggestions apiece. I’ve already gone through and done revisions in accordance with those, and now I’m back to writing new material. As of today, I’ve reached the projected half-way point in the draft – over 60k words!

Meanwhile, over the weekend I picked up a new map-making application, called Wonderdraft. This is an indie production, designed as far as I can tell by a single coder. It doesn’t have nearly the feature list of my usual toolset (Photoshop), but it’s geared almost entirely toward drawing fantasy maps, and for that purpose, it’s pretty slick. The fact that you can “paint” areas of the map with things like mountain or forest icons, and the tool will automatically change up the current icon and make sure there aren’t any collisions with other symbols? Good Lord, that’s useful. I can’t begin to count how many hours I’ve spent in Photoshop, laboriously clicking through mountain or tree icons and placing them one . . . at . . . a . . . time.

Here’s an example – this is the current partial draft of the main continental map for The Curse of Steel, which I’m using to plan out the back story and plot on the largest scales.

Not nearly finished, obviously – I’ve got a ton of layers to paint onto this yet. But the above took a lot less time than it would have in Photoshop, and the tool is doing a nice job of freeing me from drudgery so I can concentrate on being creative. Those mountain ranges, for example, took only 15-20 minutes to plan and paint onto the map. Looks like a hard recommend from me.

Status Report (6 October 2019)

Status Report (6 October 2019)

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Well, I chained myself to the computer this weekend and breezed right past my 10k word-count goal for the first week of October. As of right now, I’ve put down 11,970 words on the first draft of The Curse of Steel since Tuesday.

Meanwhile, real life has been building up a head of steam, so it’s just as well that I’m ahead of my goal. This week at the office, I have a pile of work to do and deadlines to meet, so my writing pace is likely to slow down dramatically over the next few days.

Still, there are now nineteen chapters posted over on Chapterbuzz, and the story is rapidly approaching its mid-point. Every day I’m more confident that this will eventually be my first published novel-length original work. About time I broke that creative barrier!

Status Report (3 October 2019)

Status Report (3 October 2019)

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I’m in the middle of the 10k Challenge week on the Chapterbuzz site, and at the moment the plot is thickening as nicely as I might have asked for. One more big fight scene, the introduction of a new character, the addition of a new mystery and the resolution of a few old ones, and I’m going to be ready for the big Wham Moment at the halfway point of the novel.

Taking a few days off before the beginning of October really helped me think through a few plot points and get all my tools set out. Since Tuesday I’ve managed to put down 5,900 words without too much trouble.

At the moment, eighteen chapters of the first draft of The Curse of Steel are up at Chapterbuzz. Go, read, “buzz” the chapters if you’re enjoying them, and feel free to leave any feedback that comes to mind. With, as always, my thanks.

Status Report (25 September 2019)

Status Report (25 September 2019)

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Whew. Last few days have been kind of unpleasant – I’ve been fighting some kind of sore-throat-and-intestinal-crud combination that’s kept me home from the office.

On the other hand, in the few hours here and there that I’ve been awake and lucid, I’ve managed to finish polishing up the existing partial draft of The Curse of Steel. That includes a few kilowords of new material that wasn’t in the very first rough draft. Those sixteen chapters are all up on Chapterbuzz now, so if you’re interested in a bit of gritty Iron Age heroic fantasy, go have a read, “buzz” and comment on the chapters.

Plan now is to take a break for a few days. Honestly, I need to get back to the office, assuming this crud is finally gone, and put in some long hours on a couple of projects there. Not to mention that I’m starting my first course toward a graduate degree next week too.

Come the beginning of October, I’ll be participating in a challenge on Chapterbuzz that will involve cranking out 10 kilowords (about four chapters) in the first week, and then polishing and refining and adding to the draft over the rest of the month. Then November comes, and National Novel Writing Month – 50 kilowords in one month. If I can keep up the pace, the novel should be finished in the first draft well before the end of the calendar year. Here’s hoping.

Status Report (21 September 2019)

Status Report (21 September 2019)

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I’ve done some polishing of the partial draft of The Curse of Steel. At this point, the first eight chapters have all been posted to Chapterbuzz for reading and feedback. Here’s a link to the book’s page there.

Right now, my plan is to finish micro-revisions to the first sixteen chapters – that is, everything I’ve produced thus far – and post those to Chapterbuzz before the end of this month. That should clear the decks for the novel-building challenge they’re going to hold over the month of October.

The biggest reservation I have right now is that the section I’m writing is subject to major revisions in the plot. The first arc of the novel is basically an action-adventure story, but this second arc is mostly about political intrigue and a couple of mysteries. I know how it’s going to end, but how it gets there isn’t entirely fixed in my mind. Entirely possible I’ll rethink how the plot goes and need to go back for major revisions. But we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.

An Experiment: Chapterbuzz

An Experiment: Chapterbuzz

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Anyone who’s trying to write and self-publish creative work will soon come to the realization that the market for potential readers’ attention is insanely competitive. It’s tough to find readers when there are millions of other people all doing their best to drown you out. I can attest to this: the few short pieces I’ve already self-published via Amazon have maybe sold enough copies to buy me one meal. A cheap meal at that.

Now, there are plenty of “services” out there that promise to help you past that obstacle. The vast majority of those are effectively digital vanity presses. They charge the would-be author fees for every step of the process, and there’s no guarantee that anything they do will actually help. As a result, a lot of hopeful authors end up spending a pile of money out of their own pockets for no result. Manutius Press is the only party that wins.

Still. Self-publication means that you’re going to have to take some risks and make some investments, of time and energy if nothing else. So I’m going to try an experiment, one which I can shut down if it becomes obvious that it’s not going to be to my net benefit. The experiment is going to involve the Chapterbuzz site, operated by Timothy Pike.

I’ll be posting first-draft chapters of The Curse of Steel to Chapterbuzz, which means you’ll be able to read them there as I work on the novel. Probably the best way to find the work there is to go to my author profile page: John Alleyn on Chapterbuzz, and look for the link for The Curse of Steel. You can also click on the Chapterbuzz icon in the sidebar to get to the same place.

Feel free to read the work in progress there. Won’t cost you (or me) a thing. If you’d like to help me along as I work on the story, there are a couple of things you could do. As you read each chapter, you’ll probably see a “Buzz” button; if you’re enjoying the story, click on that to give it a little push. That may give you the opportunity to get email notifications for new chapters as I post those. You can also comment on chapters as you read them; that will help too.

We’ll see how this turns out. As you may be able to tell, I’m skeptical about sites like this, but so far it looks less predatory and more actually helpful than most. If it can get me some useful feedback, and maybe even a leg up when it comes time to publish, then it should be a useful investment.