Greetings, reader.
Did you miss me? Of course you did.
Well, not really. Because honestly my posts are usually this spread out anyways so surely you've come to expect this by now.
Anyways.
I have recently returned from my ten-day unofficial writing retreat thing with three of my good friends. It wasn't exactly meant to be a writing retreat, but more of a writers' retreat, and yet in between the occasional sword fight and long walk in the woods we spent most of the time writing together in our cozy cabin. It was quite nice.
Over this vacation, I (as I've already mentioned) wrote, bought books, read, and generally had a good, cozy adventure.
Except for the time when we had to walk from nigh five miles by the side of a street after accidentally snubbing a semi-rude coachmen. That was a less cozy adventure and a more "questing to Mordor" style adventure. Except for it was only 4.7 miles, we had no cursed jewelry, we were headed home, and we actually did have an eagle (well, sort of) come rescue us about halfway through and take us back to our cabin. We also had a lovely conversation with a darling human who allowed us to stay on her porch whilst waiting for said sort-of-eagle. Looking back on it, it reminds me of the Hobbits staying briefly with Tom Bombadil. Though this human was just a human (not to insult the human race or anything) and she was a she, and she also was not magical (although it is very possible that she in fact was magical and simply had no reason to use said magic while we were present).
That was quite fun, all things considered, though I was having a dreadful time breathing as I have two dreadful curses: exercise induced asthma, and a lack of athletic ability in general. Supposedly the former can be solved with breathing exercises and a legendary artifact known as an "inhaler" (which I don't have any great desire to go on a quest for any time soon), and the latter with something called "exercise." Though as you may have noticed, my asthma is the kind that is induced by exercise, and so I can't rightly exercise without the legendary artifact, and so I won't.
(*cough* this is only semi-true as I can actually get through most physical things without the legendary inhaler so long as I can rest before it gets too bad and drink lukewarm water, but we won't discuss that part as it makes too much sense and will expose me for the *lackadaisical goldbrick that I am.)
*Why yes, I did find this words through a thesaurus in attempt to make my lack of physical strength more amusing, and yes, I do intend to use these two words far more often as I find them hilarious.
In any case, we survived the half-trek to not-Mordor, my companions fairing better than I as one is an elf, one an immortal who I am convinced can face anything with only the mildest of "oh dears" and tilts of the head, and one a quite muscular *she-hobbit **shadeslayer.
*Forgive me for making another joke regarding your size, ***Arya
**Yes I did just merge Eragon and LOTR, what of it?
***I can neither confirm nor deny the fact of whether she is or isn't a descendant of Arya, or if she is Arya herself, for I don't rightly know. If she is the former, she is a combination of hobbit and elf, which is intriguing.
How I managed to secure such whimsical friends when I am a mere man, I knoweth not.
Moving on from that ramble, the she-elf and I had cause to visit a grand collection of documents, scrolls, and legends which may or may not be true. That is to say, we visited a book shop. Two, to be precise. The first was large, and in addition to being a place where one could purchase and study documents, it was also a place in which scribes sat to write down their various prophecies, legends, record the happenings of the world, and weave the key to existence into words which they printed on paper.
We then visited a smaller one, where I nearly purchased a rather pricey yet pristine, finely-bound copy of Great Expectations. But the she-elf, having the wisdom of her kind, helped me to later choose a different and inexpensive copy of the book, which worked out wonderfully later on as I bought two more classics which were all in the same series.
Later, when our trip was moseying on to its close, our Immortal had need to return to... well, wherever Immortals go. I think it highly likely that she needed to fade into a crowd, lest her immortal-ness be noticed (I can speak of it here for I have not used her name, so you do not know that Jane is the secret immortal. Wait. I just. Drat.)
As I was saying, the Immortal needed to go do immortal things, and once we had seen her off on her dragon, we elected to go to another bookstore, similar to the first one we attended, whilst we were out and about.
There, the shadeslayer bought an excessive amount of books while the she-elf and I encouraged her to (we are wonderful influences as you can see, and I reminded her many a time that one simply cannot have enough books, and that indeed books should not be counted as material items and an overflow of them is perfectly acceptable).
She she-elf struggled, through each of these visits, to find a book which contained information on phoenixes (I do believe it highly likely that she is attempting to locate, tame, and fly a phoenix, though you didn't hear that from me). While she didn't find any (perhaps the archives are incomplete), she did manage to find another book which I hear tell she has become quite smitten with.
I myself found three books (tallying up each bookshop trip) which made fine additions to my brand-new classic collection (for I didn't start collecting them until that copy of Great Expectations crossed my path), and one action-adventure low(?)-fantasy potentially-fiction novel (for you never know when a work is fictional and when it is actually a retelling of true adventures in a different light, aye?) which contains several things that made the shadeslayer, the elf, and myself all agree this book may very likely have been made for me.
These are the books which I obtained on this fine expedition:
The top three are my classics, which I am quite happy to possess as they are three of my favorite classics! I am debating whether or not to remove the sticks of Alice and Her Adventures in Wonderland and Pride and Prejudice. I think I'll remove them since Great Expectations doesn't have one.
(By the by! Did you notice that the clock on Great Expectations is stopped at a certain time that directly relates to a certain cooky old woman in the book?? BECAUSE I MUST SAY THAT I DID AND I FEAR MY COMPANIONS THOUGHT ME RATHER RIDICULOUS FOR BEING SO EXCITED ABOUT IT.)
The book below them is the curiously me book, which I have only begun but am quite enjoying.
What else do I have to tell you... Oh, yes, writing.
As I said that I said that I said earlier, I wrote on this holiday. And what did I write, you may be wondering (though you probably are not as it's quite obvious if you have ever received my letters before or know me personally). Why, Roslyn, of course!
I have made significant progress. It turns out that having three of my favorite humanish creatures together actually made me more productive, not less. The occasional sword fight and walk as a break was especially helpful, as it cleared my mind right when I was starting to need it to.
I have so far condensed Roslyn's amount of chapters and cut a few scenes, and yet somehow the word count has still managed to increase. I do believe that reading so many classics has effected my writing, and that Tolkien, Austen, and Dickens (and to a degree, Carroll) are largely to blame for my very lengthy document.
Still, progress is progress! And I am now about at the halfway point from my old draft (which you may recall was unfinished when I stopped it). I have changed up quite a few scenes, gotten to know my world even better, and seen my characters grow significantly between drafts. Although this doesn't always show; I believe at times my scenes have actually become worse than they were before, which is rather discouraging. But still, this is only a rewrite of the first draft, so I am hopeful!
My current word count is now 60,364, which about 5,890 more words than the last draft was at this point. And once more, we're only about halfway through, with the last bit of the book being unwritten, so I cannot even guess at how long it'll be once it's done. The ideal length will be 300k (ideal for me, not for my poor alpha, who was a member of my adventure's party).
While on this adventure, I got practically no reading done. I read a bit of the Curse of the Specter Queen, and I also read work of the Immortal, the Shadeslayer, and the She-Elf, but that aside I read very little other than my Bible and my own work (for the sake of rewriting said work).
Now then, what's the plan for moving forward? Well, I need to get back into my grove of regular existence, which hasn't been too difficult. I've been working on cleansing my disastrous living quarters, writing nightly with the she-elf via magic mirror (for she, the shadeslayer, and of course the Immortal have all returned to their sadly distant lands), and today is the first day I will be returning to my job as the keeper of schedules for a local business. Oh, and I really must return to my studies, for I am pathetically behind on them.
And of course, I will be continuing Roslyn throughout this journey of routine life. And I have some exciting things for Bleeding Ink as well, which will hopefully be ready in time for the anniversary this December.
Speaking of, happy anniversary to R.M. Archer of "Scribes & Archers." Her blog is now four years old, and you should absolutely go read her post in honor of the exciting day.
Mary of Wild Writing Dreams and Julia from Julia's Creative Corner both had anniversaries recently, as well! And Julia has started a writing channel, which you should most definetly go observe with your lovely eyeballs.
Also, Christine Smith has returned from her hiatus, and Maple//JHD Paul's last post was a really beautiful, unique poem that you should go read!
Lastly, Fae Crate has announced that Dragons' Bane by Melody Jackson will be September's featured ebook in the coming month's crate! How exciting for the slowly growing fandom!!
Is that enough links for you? No, well then, have one more.
I do believe that is all for now. How has your existence this past week been? Have you any exciting news? Would you like more links? What have you read recently? Do you know how to yodel?
I'd love to hear from you.
In the meantime I remain, most strangely and humbly,
- E.P.
P.S. Will I ever include thumbnails in my posts again? Will I ever continue to actually read through and edit my posts before I post them? Who knows. In the mean time, I make no apologies.
