WiP Wednesday

This week I didn't make a whole lot of progress it seems. I'm so close to that 50% mark I can taste it.

I took some time out from writing to finish reading Lao Tzu's The Art of War. I also leafed through The Book of War, skimmed a few pages of History of Medieval Life and Weapons and Fighting Techniques of the Medieval Warrior. I hit a handful of pages in Weaponry: An Illustrated History (or something along those lines for a title). Just getting in a little last minute research even though I'm nowhere near to writing a battle scene. The war hasn't started yet.

Oracle's Promise and Oracle's Veil are officially losing the apostrophes from the first word. It's more ambiguous and layered that way, in my opinion. I finally decided on a name for the final volume in the trilogy. The three individual titles are as follows:

Oracles Promise
Oracles Veil
Oracles End

I might be starting to like my MC. I just don't know that she sounds like she's 10. But it is fun to write her scenes. She grew up in almost complete isolation so I have to come up with ways of describing new things without saying what they are until she can ask another character. And she's always questioning because she just doesn't know so it helps me get in some of the little things that need to come out now.

I lost a chapter. I wrote a very short chapter to bring my main character from her complete isolation to fully-integrated member of the story. Then I started to write a very important flashback chapter. In doing so, I ended up combining it with the chapter that follows it in my current outline. So now I am at a prologue, 18 chapters, and an epilogue. I'll probably lose two more as a couple other important flashback chapters will likely get combined with the chapter that either precedes or follows it. We'll see.

I also lost 2 characters. Originally I had it planned out that Sabrina, my MC, would have two male friends and 2 female friends. But I'd forgotten that one of my major characters, Jade, has a sister the same age as Sabrina. It became a more natural fit for Jade's sister, Jasmine, to become the first friend Sabrina makes when she comes to the capital city. So I eliminated the two female characters that I'd planned for Sabrina's circle of friends. She'll still have the two males as they'll serve critical roles in main and sub-plots. I think this brings character count to 1 MC and 10 or so major characters. Yes, it's quite the ensemble cast.

I look forward to finding beta readers for this work, when the time comes. I'm anxious to get feedback on overall impressions. I like my story, but I want to see if others do too. I also want this generic feedback before I start in on critiques for Promise. I think that having an idea of how the book start to finish hits people will help me come into critiques and edits based on those critiques with a good headspace.

Poetry collections are stalled, as per usual. When I finish Oracles Promise I'll concentrate on my poetry again. For now the collections just sit there, taunting me.

Revisions on my romance novel, now tentatively titled Prose by Any Other Name, have stalled as well. I left my crit group on either Friday or Saturday. It just wasn't a good fit for me. I really think I need an in-person group but that's tough to find these days. So Prose is being put on the backburner. Which is fine. I really don't care. I figure it'll be the work that gets published posthumously or is found in my possessions when I die and goes to some university to be studied in the chronology of my oeuvre.

Ha! I can dream, right?

That's it for this edition of WiP Wednesday. Have a good week everyone!