I started writing my next project this morning. I was going to wait until I had done some more world building before beginning to write Priestess of the Flame, but I just missed writing every day too much and I couldn’t help myself. It is a novel based on my short story Divine Fire and will follow the life of Celeste D’Anjou from her childhood discovery that she can control and manipulate fire, through her years of training to become a priestess of the Divine Flame, then the downfall of that religion and the subsequent persecution of all who believe in the magic of fire. The writing of it will be a long journey (The Empress Sword took me two long years to write), but I’ll be sure to let you all know how it’s going.
In other news I received the mapping software from ProFantasy and it is amazing. It will take me a long time to figure out everything I can do with it, but for now I have a basic map of The Empress Sword’s kingdom of Caledon that I can use for rewrites and I’m working on city maps for the three main towns in the story. Priestess of the Flame will be set in a fantasy variation of France, so I’m also trying to figure out how to import real-world maps into the program.
I’m still waiting on some feedback from the alpha readers, but I’m chomping at the bit to begin rewrites on The Empress Sword. They’ve already given me some wonderful ideas for making the book even more exciting and I’m looking forward to letting you all hear the podcast version hopefully this fall. Stay tuned as I learn just how hard rewrites really are! 
The first draft of The Empress Sword is finished! I completed the second of two supplemental chapters I wanted to add this morning. That brings the final word count to 80,541 words, just a little over my target of eighty thousands words. I expect this will go up during the rewrite, as I have been getting some supportive feedback from my alpha readers telling me they want more.
My plan is to put the draft aside for a month to give me a little distance from it, then begin my rewrites at the end of April. In the mean time I’m going to be doing some much needed reverse world building for The Empress Sword as well as begin the process for my next book project Priestess of the Flame.
I promised myself that when I completed the first draft I would give myself a reward. I wanted something that would help me in the next phase and also be fun for a tech geek like myself to play with. So I purchased a set of mapping programs from ProFantasy Software. The programs are designed for use by the role play gaming industry, but can also be used for the sort of world building I need for epic fantasy writing.
A side benefit of using these programs will be that I’ll have some wonderful maps and city plans to supplement the novel when it’s released. My worlds will have a beautiful visual component to go along with — what I hope are — the stunning narrative descriptions.
With the end of FLRT on the horizon and my novel writing seemingly back on track, I thought it about time to set out some goals for the year to come.
First and foremost is finishing the first draft of The Empress Sword. Recently I joined a Twitter tag group that’s writing 1K Per Day (#1kday). It was only supposed to be through the end of February, but several of the writers are going to carry it on through March as well. So far I’ve been doing very well keeping up with them. If I manage to keep up this pace I should actually have the first draft completed by the end of the month. (Holy cow, that sounds amazing and scary all at the same time!)
Once the first draft is complete I’m going to step away from Empress Sword for about a month to give the Alpha readers a chance to finish giving me their feedback. During that month I want to do some world building and to that end, as a reward for finishing the first draft, I’m going to buy myself a nice map drawing program. I’ll use it to build a much needed map for Empress Sword as well as begin the world building for my next novel Priestess of the Flame, based on my short story Divine Fire.
That brings me up to about the beginning of May when I will start the rewrite of Empress Sword. I’ve never tackled a rewrite this large before, so I’m allowing myself a couple of months to get that done. Then I’ll open up the wiki to some Beta readers. I guess at that point I’ll be ready to send it out to some agents as well.
I know an agent hunt can be a very long process and that ultimately it probably won’t lead to anything, so starting sometime in this fall I plan to submit Empress Sword to podiobooks.com as a complete finished reading. Then I want to podcast the novel complete with guest voices, music and plenty of author chat. You’ll be able to get the whole podiobook right away or listen to the biweekly podcast if you want the whole experience.
Once I get the podcast started up and finish the world-building on Priestess of the Flame, I’ll start writing again. I’ll be sure to let you know how it’s going, right here in the blog. So that is my plan for 2009. Wish me luck, I’m probably going to need it!
It is with mixed emotions that I announce the end of my first podcast Form Letter Rejection Theatre. I have been giving it a lot of thought lately and I just can’t see myself being able to return to this project any time soon. If I can’t put out regular episodes, there really is no reason to to keep saying that I will. So in two weeks I will post one last episode in which I will bare my writer’s soul, explain what happened, thank all those people who helped me make the four episodes of FLRT so wonderful and say goodbye for now.
If you would like to be a part of the final episode, you can still leave voicemail at 718-425-0602 or send your comments to feedback@flrtpodcast.com.
The feed for FLRT will remain open and the the stories there will remain available. There simply won’t be additional short stories produced for it. I have decided that many of my listeners and readers are right, I’m not really a short story writer. I plan to put all of my efforts into completing my first novel, The Empress Sword and other novel length projects I have in the planning stages.
I’m not done with podcasting either. I am still associated with Chris Lester’s Metamor City: Making the Cut podcast novel and plan to be producing my own podiobooks in the future. So hang in there friends and keep looking here for the latest news.
Okay, it’s been a really really long time since I posted anything here. A lot has happened in the last nine months; I started a podcast (Form Letter Rejection Theatre) which ran for four episodes and then kind of faded from view; I wrote one other short story, but not much else; and I’ve gotten a lot further on The Empress Sword.
I know, you’re asking yourself, “Is that all? What have you been doing with yourself, Paulette?” Well if I was a full-time writer I wouldn’t have any excuses, but writing is really just a hobby at this point and my day job takes precedent. As you are all aware it’s been a tough year for the economy and at my job that has meant personnel reductions and more work for those of us left. For a while the podcast took up all my free time and eventually even that little bit of time went away.
More podcast fictions have appeared that I thought you should know about.
Phillipa Ballantine is podcasting her award nominated novel Chasing the Bard. This lavish tale of William Shakespeare and the world of the Fey is being told in wonderful style by Pip and her band of guest voices. Even if you don’t like Shakespeare you’ll enjoy this tale of faeries, imps, magical gods and goddesses and the one special human who might just save them all. You don’t want to miss this one. Really, I mean it, go!
I’ve mentioned Chris Lester’s Metamor City before, but now he is podcasting a novel length work titled “Making the Cut”. With lots of guest voices and wonderful production values, Chris has put together a tour de force that will keep you entranced even as its plot twists surprise and delight you.
I have something in the works myself, but it’s not quite time to tell you about it. Look for an announcement really soon.
RavenCon was held this past weekend in Richmond, Virginia and was attended by some of the mid-Atlantic’s best authors and podcasters. Being a smaller convention than ones held in the Baltimore/Washington area, RavenCon let’s you focus more on meeting people. I met a lot of people I’ve only known through Twitter for a long time now and a whole bunch of new and interesting people.
I attended quite a few panels on podcasting and I’ve decided to try putting together a podcast of my own featuring some of my short fiction. I’ll see how that goes and maybe expand it to include other people’s stories, interviews and whatever else I can think of to fill up a show or two. Look for more details on my website PauletteJaxton.com
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of attending a get together of some of the mid-Atlantic region’s most talented writers and podcasters. We had lunch at the Dogfish Head Alehouse in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The guest of honor was Mur Lafferty whose list of accomplishments as a podcasting author are nothing short of legendary.
Also in attendance were Tee Morris whose novel Morevi is in it’s second run as a podcast novel; Marc Bailey of Grailwolf’s Geek Life and his very talented wife, singer Heather Welliver; Brand Gamblin, the voice of soul eating doom on the hilarious video podcast Calls For Cthulhu; Paul Fisher of the A.D.D. Cast and the Balticon Podcast; among many other wonderfully talented people.
Later I was given the opportunity to appear on an episode of the A.D.D. Cast which turned out to be a lot of fun even if I was almost too nervous to speak.
I’ve posted some pictures of the luncheon over on Flickr.
Farpoint 2008 is a science fiction convention held each year in Baltimore. I haven’t been to this one in a while, but decided to attend this year because I knew there would be quite a few authors and podcasters there. This really is a convention for fans and the tone is quite a bit different from the other cons I go to. Still there were plenty of panels to attend and people to meet. I had a wonderful time and even managed to get in some writing while I was there.
Several notable podcast fictions premiered recently and I thought I’d mention my favorites.
First up, Christiana Ellis just launched Space Casey. This rollicking tongue-in-cheek space opera promises to deliver up ten episodes of great fun. Christiana is the force of nature behind last year’s award nominated Nina Kimberly the Merciless and many other imaginative podcasts.
Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps is a superhero novel with a twist. Not all of the people with powers are so super, but can they become heroes when it counts? Mur’s previous podiodrama Heaven is on hiatus, but her other great podcasts are going strong.
If you’re looking for a thought provoking crime drama with touches of fantasy and horror, look no further than Chris Lester’s excellent Metamor City. This gritty look at a city filled with magic, demons, vampires and the cops who keep them all in line is one of the most innovative and thought provoking things to hit my iPod in a long time.
Tee Morris has launched Morevi: Remastered. A reworked and enhanced version of the very first podcast novel ever. This swashbuckling tale mixes pirates with feudal Japanese culture to create a unique and exciting fantasy world. Tee’s last podiobook, Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword raised the bar for quality podcast fiction, so you know he’s going to try and outdo himself with this one.
