Anyone get the flu this past Christmas season? Yeah, me too. It puts a real damper on things. It has been a busy season since NaNoWriMo ended. I made the goal but haven’t been able to persevere much farther to finishing in December, which is not quite a satisfying as finishing the whole novel like I did last year. Still, I am trying to find time to write in my schedule. Retail work, sewing commissions, Etsy orders, teaching and theater work all pile up quite a bit and I really have to fight my inner lazy-demon to write when I have down time.

However, amidst all of the business, I decided to change a huge aspect of my novels to push it more towards high fantasy. Although I certainly consider The Keeper fantasy, it lacked many of the usual tropes of the genre, such as magic and fantasy races. This began a whole thought train of ways to push he first book more into that genre, including the adding of a magical system and trying to subtly inject the magical presence into a finished first book. Luckily, magic users, which I have named The Blessed, are in the severe background not requiring much re-write. I am merely setting the stage for future books in which the Blessed will take a prime role in the story, although Kai is now Blessed, which will give readers more insight to the magic system.

Even though I am only about half or two-thirds of the way through The Varkens of Ailenor (working title), I am already starting to plot and plan the third book. I am hoping to have this third book to be the climax of the three, causing pivotal change in the universe of the Eviryian novels.

One element I am hoping to maintain as I continue to tell stories in this universe is bringing minor characters into main roles. Hart, who was a bleep on the radar in The Keeper is now one of the main characters, and – here’s a little teaser – we will meet the villain of the third book in The Varkens of Ailenor. I love the idea of exploring background characters and bringing them to the foreground in dramatic ways.

Anyways, there’s a little update on where me and my mind grapes have been in the past month and I hope to be sharing more updates soon!

If only I had just written 400 words for my novel instead of this blog post…challenge accepted.