by katehowley1
The one thing I can 100% say benefited from this lockdown was my ability to speak to people in the writing community online. I never used to comment or engage with people on social media, which is ironic because it is actually my day job to do that. Maybe after doing it all day for one brand, I was just unknowingly too burnt out to do it on my own free time for my own brand.
I digress. The point is, I found the time, of which I had plenty since I was and still am home all the time! Because of this, I have met some really great people in the writing community and stumbled upon this #AugustWritersWIPChallenge which forced me to speak more publicly about my work in progress.
Now that we are halfway through August, I wanted to take a couple of my favorite questions and elaborate on the answers I gave on Instagram, giving my future readers a more detailed glimpse into my world!
What stage is your current work-in-progress in?
This is a complicated answer, which I couldn’t do proper justice explaining on Instagram, so here it goes!
I have two WIPs; The One-Horned Heretic short story series, and the novel series I am just calling Darkwerks which has been the working title for…well, forever. It will remain that way until an actual title comes to me. Probably in a vision via muse.
For The One–Horned Heretic series, I am chugging along beautifully. I published part one in July to excellent feedback and am currently experimenting with Amazon’s advertising platform to see if I can crack that nut. As for part two, I just finished the first draft! I’m going to sit on it for a little bit before I send it to my editor. I am aiming to publish it in September. If you hadn’t read it anywhere already, I plan to have at least three, maybe a four stories in that series which I will compile into a paperback after they are published! They take place in the world that Darkwerks is set in, but 20 years after Book One of Darkwerks will take place.
Which brings me to Darkwerks. Technically, the progress on this story goes back over ten years. I started working on the basic idea when I was graduating high school! That included outlines, random scenes that I had in my head, world building, etc. But I never sat down and outlined a book fully or started on a serious manuscript…until now *DRAMATIC MUSIC*.
I currently have as of this year when I sat down and decided to finally start writing the first draft:
- a Microsoft One-Note wiki cookin’ where I am writing backstory, history, characters\ outlines, and all things world-building,
- a three-book outline (THREE. BOOK. OUTLINE.) that I am editing on an almost daily basis as I work on the overall plot and tie-ins,
- the start of book one written which I work on almost daily as well.
Big oof.
YOUR MAIN CHARACTER’S GREATEST FEAR
For most of the August Writers WIP Challenge I have been talking about Diana/Denawyn who is the immortal God Queen of Darkwerks and who most of the story follows. She has been alive for 7,000 years and doesn’t remember anything before then…oooooooo foreshadowing.
I like her story particularly because I am positioning her immortality as not a gift, but a very heavy burden, one that weighs on her every single day. On top of that, the burden of being a religious figure head and the political glue that holds the realm together also weighs on her. She grapples with the fact that she wants to die and would, at this point, give anything to be mortal, while also grappling with the unanswerable question; what would happen to the realm if she dies? They have only ever known her reign.
That being said, her fears come two-fold. One is that she fears that she will be trapped forever in a cycle that makes her endlessly unhappy. She watches her husbands and children grow old and die. When Denawyn finds herself in a war, many people, friend and foe alike, die at her hand and command. After 7,000 years of it, she is so deeply tired of it.
On the other hand, she fears what might happen to the realm if she dies. 7,000 years is a long time and she has build amazing things from nothing for Darkwerks, with advances in engineering, city planning, medicine, etc. because of her connection to the Gods that grant her knowledge. Without that connection, the people of Darkwerks would be left in the dark.
Make sure you follow me on Instagram to see the rest of my posts for the August Writer’s WIP Challenge!
“The Price” is out now!
Read my first piece of published fiction, Part 1 of a dark fantasy series for $.99 on Amazon! Is anything even $.99 anymore? What a steal.
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