In less than a month, thousands of writers will attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I've done this several times. In fact, this will be my 13th attempt at National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo (if you don't count the few times I've tried Camp NaNoWriMo), and as always, I can't wait!

This year, I'm returning to a novel I started during CampN back in April of 2015. My goal was 40,000 words, and I won with 2,000+ on top of that. But as I wrote, I realized some things would need to change to make the story better. And in the years since I wrote those 42,000+ words, a lot has changed with the world of Illdirin and the characters involved in this story.

So I went back to the drawing board. I kept a lot of the material, but I've also changed a lot of things. I'll be starting fresh, and my privateers will not only have one other ship to contend with in the race to find the sunken treasure ship, Venture, but two. The first is a pirate ship, and the second is a naval ship from the country their nation is currently at war with -- and just so happens to be captained by Sahmi Zamada's former captain, Tobias Hancock, whom he and others mutinied against.

I'm having to go back and do a lot more research on ships and piracy, medieval life on land and sea, magical systems, geography, etc. Good thing I started getting ready last month!

Aside from my preparations for this year's NaNoWriMo, I'm also working on another Halloween short story to post to this website (I'll announce it when I publish it). If you need something to tide you over in the meantime, check out last year's Halloween story, The Cellar Dwellars: A Hawkins Short Story. (<-- warning for mild language.) Hopefully, you won't regret it. ;)

While last year's story involved paranormal hunters on my fantasy world, Illdirin, this year's story centers around two young teens here on earth. The town they live in exists, but I've changed other place names. It was fun to write, but anything more than that I won't say. I don't want to give away any important details, after all!

As you've probably noticed, I went on hiatus after my last blog entry. It was unintentional, and I'm not really sure what happened. I'd meant to post short stories every week until I finished posting the Of Blood & Magic series, but then I never did. If you've been waiting with bated breath, you can relax, take a deep breath, and go to the following two links to read the last short stories in Of Blood & Magic: Hunted (book I): SS11: The Rescue and SS12: Unlikely Allies.

I'll likely post one short story every week until this series is all posted. If you have any suggestions on how to make the stories better, feel free to comment in response to this blog entry, but please be polite. Otherwise, I'll just delete it. ;)

So, here's what you have to look forward to in the coming weeks:
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• A new Halloween story for 2018 (coming around the 15th-17th of this month)
• Of Blood & Magic: Contagion (Book II) short stories, one per week until done
• More freewriting, snippets, etc.

Until then, enjoy the stories linked to above and any other writing I've posted here.

Cheers!

Lois

I've been busy over the past three days. I edited and formatted two stories from the Of Blood & Magic series ("Retaking the Sentinel" and "Escape") and posted them. *Note: these two have some strong language in them. Then I finished the Relic Hunters short story, "The Falcon's Treasure," edited, formatted, and posted it (in 4 parts, and at the end are links to the other three parts so you can click through them as you read).

You can find all the short stories and freewrites so far on the My Writing page.

I'm going to be adding an Illdirin glossary soon so you can look up words you're unsure of. I'll try to link to the first instance of any word in these short stories and freewrites, as well.

Over the coming month and a half, give or take, I'll be planning new short stories. Some will star my fallen Seraph, Samandriel. Others will start characters from Relic Hunters, Hawkins, and Tales of the Red Falcon. Who knows? There may be other series in the works, as well.

I'll also be planning the overall story arch for another series of short stories and/or novels that take place closer to home, or at least involve characters here on earth. They'll involve Antarctica, the volcanoes (including the supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park), the Black Knight satellite, etc.), and other things I come across. I've got my work cut out for me. There will be a ton of research needing to be done, and I'll be taking lots of notes.

Again, here's what's new on this site:

• "Retaking the Sentinel"
• "Escape"
• "The Falcon's Treasure"

And you can find them all on the My Writing page.

Enjoy! And be sure to let me know what you think in the comments below! :)

Cheers!

Lois

I've been hard at work on this website. There's still a lot of work for me to do, but you can now find some freewriting and short stories here.

My personal favorites are the short stories, "The Cellar Dwellers (A Hawkins Short Story)" and "The Gallant Ones (An Of Blood & Magic Short Story, Part I" and "The Gallant Ones (An Of Blood & Magic Short Story, Part II)". However, if you read the Of Blood & Magic short stories, you really should start at the beginning. They tell a larger overall story, and the first two stories, which are the longest, actually give some background that sets the stage for what is to come. "The Gallant Ones" is the most "fantasy-like" story of the bunch, but it does fit in with the rest.

"The Cellar Dwellers" was inspired by Halloween. I'd planned to have it posted this past Halloween, but I was too late getting it up. It's actually my top favorite at the moment.

To give you some background on this story, and the Hawkins storyverse, in general, Jonas Hawkins is a young deputy marshal from Arcona (on my fantasy world, Illdirin). He's hunted more paranormal beings than most on his world have ever dreaded encountering. He comes from a family of hunters, but he never wanted to get into it full-time. His brother, Jesse, on the other hand, will hunt anything with even the slightest paranormal gift because it's what he loves to do, and he'll break the rules to do it, which irritates Jonas to no end. The closest Jonas has come to hunting paranormal beings is hunting paranormal fugitives as a deputy marshal in the Arconian Marshal Service's Paranormal Division. He has a team of people he trusts backing him up, and they obey the law, as he does. Unfortunately, in "The Cellar Dwellers," Jonas finds himself at a haunted house out in the middle of nowhere with the one person he'd rather not encounter: his brother. But his brother isn't the only one giving Jonas a hard time in this old house. ;)

As for the Of Blood & Magic stories, I'll explain what the lead character and his trusty sidekick are. Lukas Walker and Vaughn Gallant are sentinels, people born with an immortality gene that becomes activated when they die a violent death. The original purpose of sentinels was to record history, but somewhere along the line it become more about protecting mortals from the forces of darkness, though they still maintain their original purpose, as well.

This series is kind of a The Walking Dead meets Highlander mashup, although the flesh eating beasties come later, as does my own version of a Six Million Dollar Man type character.

Adam, the main hunter in the first twelve stories, has always been taught -- usually by having it beat into him by his hunter dad -- that people with magic or paranormal abilities are evil, that they need to be eradicated. He's never questioned it, at least not until he meets Lukas and Vaughn. Meeting them changes everything, but to know how, you'll have to read the stories!

The current plan is to post two stories per week for the next three weeks. After that, it will be one per week. This is just for the Of Blood & Magic series. I have another modern treasure hunting fantasy short story I'm working on, and when it's finished, I'll post that, as well. And I'll always post a blog entry to let y'all know when something new is up, so keep watching your Facebook feeds, because that's most likely where I'll be posting them.

I'm also working on another possible series of short stories involving a fallen angel (Samandriel, mentioned in the previous blog entry) and an immortal. I'm looking forward to planning out their short stories, as well.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below. If you read any of the short stories, let me know below how you liked (or didn't like) them. I'm eager to know what you think!

And for curiosity's sake, what do you think of the concept of paranormals/psychics/celestials being hunted by mortals? What do you like or dislike about it? What intrigues you about the idea? I'm curious to know!

Until later,

Lois