Fardea - Part 3

Sorry for the delay in posting this. It was a mixture of internet outages/storms, home projects (tree removals, driveway repairs, etc), and vacations that limited my blogging time. So anyways, here is another quick installment with Fardea. Hope you like it.

Protect The Risen: Fardea - Part 3 - Salts The Wound

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Almost forgot to add the picture of why my internet was out.

Fardea - Part 2

Protect The Risen: Fardea - Part 2 - A Pirate's Fate:

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Part 1 - Fardea

The Adventures of Fardea Panthrex: - Part One - Silence is Lethal-  Check new side bar for story --->

The World of Diar

Protect The Risen: The World of Diar: "An Introduction to the Land of Diar Part 1"  Check the new sidebar -->

New Direction For Blog

After quite a bit of research into the matter I have decided to make some changes here on my blog.  To throw out some credits, I took some advice from both Rachelle Gardner and the folks at Author Tech Tips.  I've been following Rachelle at her blog for some time now and just love all the great advice she doles out.  So if you are not following this wonderful literary agent, I suggest that you start, you won't regret it.  Then Author Tech Tips is a site I have just recently been turned onto and again there is a tremendous amount of information there.

The main issue with my current blog is a similar error many authors make.  Many of us omit the very reason we should be using the social media in the first place; to introduce or hype up our work in progress.  The pitfall is that the author designs the website to be more about them and their life, which of course will not attract followers to well.  Instead, it is suggested to make the blog or website more dynamic consisting of content honed more on the work rather than the author.  Sure give the site some of "you," but also include info about your work.  If you can, it would even be smart to have new content that will actually drive folks to come back.  For example, create a side or back story to your novels and then present it in your blog in issues sent out weekly or some other time interval.  

So with this in mind, I'll first roll an introduction to the world of Diar.  This will let readers know a little bit more about the setting for the novels.  I will also develop a small plot line for one of the more fun characters, Fardea Panthrex, and make it available to readers. So stay tuned.

Small Update

Power is out at the house, and I'll post a pic of the why it is out when I get a chance.  Let us just say I had a small bit of storm damage.  At any rate, so that I stay connected to the internet I'll make a quick entry to the blog with a little bit of an update for the Chances Are novel.  Currently I am in the rewrite of chapter seven, but the first six are now complete. The chapter titles in sequential order are: Untouchable Dreams, Replacing the Fallen, A Touch of Luck, Fleeing Echos, Dreams and Prophesies, Eshendown Gardens, Troubles Aloft, Hell's Holler...  More to come of course.  Hope you all have a nice day.

A team

What was it Hannibal use to say on the A Team?  "I love it when a plan comes together."  Well I kid you not I've been contemplating a certain direction for my book for nearly a year now and it is just now finally coming together for me.  I have been struggling with splitting up my original manuscript into a series and quite frankly hadn't completely figured out how until now.  The intertwining of all three, heck maybe even five books has projected itself out before my mind's eye.  Thank goodness, because I was going insane with all of it jumbled up in there.

So here is the deal I believe the first draft, what I had originally thought was a complete novel was in fact the backbone of an epic fantasy series.  I had written the novel before I understood how to write a novel, if that makes any sense.  So much of the book is great conceptually, but it spanned over to much content without enough depth.  Again I hope that makes sense, if not check out my brainstorming formula post.



Okay so that isn't fair for many of you, since it comes off a bit gibberish.  So imagine instead you want to craft the perfect wedding cake.  Each tier would need to be baked separately, stacked, and decorated.  Then you would place that center piece on it as the final touch, right?  Well making a book can be like that as well, only in my case I flubbed it the first time.  I took one cake and doused it with icing, poured on a whole can of sprinkles (ummm, sprinkles), then pressed , no maybe shoved the center piece deep into the pile of goo.



So now I am sorting through it all.  I've baked a few more cake layers which will tier the story better hefting that climatic final book high into the air.

So my question for the day is, how have you set yourself up for sequels or do you bother?  Do you have it all planned out ahead of time and make book one and two interlaced, foreshadowed with items that will easily breadcrumb the readers on into book three?

In other words are you planning on making three distinct wonderfully made cakes? 

Or one magnificent multi-tiered epic piece of literature?