Chapter 3 – Westgate Family Dinner

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“Absolutely not,” Lady Elena Westgate said to Cori. Her mother’s level gaze to the other assembled members of the family was one they all knew too well. Lord Radnor sighed as his daughter looked to him in protest, but she got no support there either. Logan, who had arrived yesterday, five days after the announcement of the impending war, just stared in his cup of mulled wine. Jonathan was present from the monastery, but Cori knew he would be of no help. If Logan or her father, who both knew of her skill with the bow and in the forest hunting, would not come to her aid, she had no hope of winning over her mother. Read more…

Kingdom at War Crossed Swords

Chapter 2 – Kingdom at War

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Cori descended the north tower stairs holding the hem of her dress high in order to move as quickly as possible. She knew she had taken too long getting to the dinner with her parents and newly arrived guests. She vaulted down the last two stone steps, a most unladylike move and then ran into the main hall where her parents were holding a dinner for the guests. She turned the corner, her chest heaving, out of breath as her parents looked up and spotted her. Read more…

Forest Girl

Chapter 1 – Cori Westgate, Forest Girl

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Cori stepped carefully. She glanced down and made sure of each step, avoiding leaves and twigs that would announce her progress through the thick forest undergrowth. Looking up again, the sixteen-year-old girl shifted her upper body to move her bow around the branch in front of her, keeping her knocked arrow pointed downrange. She could see her target now. The doe and fawn moved through the brush 15 yards ahead of her. Read more…

Building a World Map From Scratch for NaNoWriMo

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NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) kicks off tomorrow and I think I’m finally ready. The final piece that I needed, but didn’t realize it, was a solid vision of the world map for my series. I kind-of-sort-of knew where things were in a vague way. If I was going to have the characters like Cori travel in this world, however, I needed to have a real world map from which to work. So great, what do I know about map-making? Start With What You Know So I started from what I knew. I needed a large land mass that I could work with in the beginning. A short google search, and looking at real world maps gave me the idea of chopping off part of Central Asia. The challenge was that I still needed a map that wouldn’t be instantly recognizable Read more…

Cori - Legion of Solon

Three Characters from the “Legion of Solon” Project

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With NaNoWriMo less than a week away, I thought I would share with you a few folks from my cast of characters for the project this November. I call it a “cast” because fixing a character’s look, habits and attitudes in my head can be a big help when it comes to writing about what that character would do. I plan on putting them in some unusual situations. How they react in those situations is based on how I cast them. The story in “Legion on the March” focuses on the Westgate family and their preparations as their kingdom of Rhodes prepares for war. Cori Westgate The novel’s primary character is Corinne Westgate or “Cori” as she’s known to her family and friends. She’s a sixteen-year-old young woman who doesn’t understand why she can’t march to war with her older brothers. Read more…

Daily NaNoWriMo Writing Updates for “Legion on the March”

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We are two weeks out from NaNoWriMo and my latest project “Legion On The March.” This is going to be the first book in my new “Legion of Solon” series. The most exciting thing for you, my readers, is that I plan to live blog the writing of this book. What does this mean? It means I will post daily (usually) chapter updates as I write them for the NaNoWriMo contest. This is kind of scary for me since it means you get to see my crappy firs drafts. I know, “Everyone’s first draft is crappy,” you say. Still it will show you the beginnings of this story in all its raw glory. You will see some things that will not make it into the final edit of the book and you’ll see some things that might move or change Read more…

Legion-book-cover-nanowrimo-1

Prepping for NaNoWriMo in November

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I published my first novel this year with the “Extreme Medical Services” book. That book started as a challenge to complete the NaNoWriMo contest in November 2014. Since then I’ve published that novel, written a prequel novella (The Vampire and the Paramedic) and the first draft of the second “Extreme Medical Services” book (Paramedic’s Folly). The series will consist of at least three full-length novels and at least one prequel novella. I plan to publish and release that second ExMS novel in December around the holidays. New Fantasy Project In The Works So, with that under my belt and NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) approaching, I decided to start a new project series called the “Legion of Solon Trilogy.” It will follow the story of a teenage girl of noble birth who enlists and goes off to war with her brothers Read more…

driving mirror long distance writing

Driving Long Distances and Pondering Storylines

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I’ve been doing a lot of traveling by car recently. I have put over 3,000 miles on the car over the thirty days on either side of this blog post. While this travel time has put a crimp in my writing schedule (when home, I try to write 2,500 words or about one chapter a day), I have put the time driving to good use. It’s true I didn’t hit my writing targets during the recent trips, only hitting about 600 words a day on average. Still, the time was not wasted. Spending six to eight hours behind the wheel on the interstate give your brain plenty of time to ponder lots of things. I spent much of the time working and re-working story lines in my mind for Dean, Brynne, Ashley and James in the Extreme Medical Services world. Read more…