MathiasCavanaugh.com

It has been a while? Hasn’t it?

Know where I’ve been? Dealing with a lot of stuff!

But that stuff is starting to come to a close and I am going to get back to writting in the near future. I’ve got a lot of new perspectives on a lot of things that I think will make me a better writter. When crap happens, sometimes it is for the best and I think some of the things that I have been quietly working on show a much deeper and more emotional aspect than I previously displayed in my writting.

Someone who read a short blurb I re-wrote for my in progress Awakening (Book 1 of the Unmaker’s Saga) said to me, “My, aren’t you a bit more jaded than before!” I suppose that I am. And I don’t suppose that is a bad thing either.

I’ll be honest with everyone. It’s going to take me a bit of time to get back in the groove of writting and posting here. But I do plan on it.

I still plan on publishing chapters online for Daughters of Fate.

I am contemplating what to do with Under the Darkened Moon after not getting any sniffs at that.

I think that I am going to be working simultaneously on Cry of the Golden Wyvern and Outsider simultaneously while scattering in other projects as I feel the need to change things up. Outside is currently approaching 80-90% done of the first draft as I have been quietly working on that story.

It’s been a bumpy ride, but I’m still here. And I’m stronger and better because of everything I’ve had to go through!

Hope I haven’t lost too many of you along the way due to my innactivity and I look forward to reconnecting with all my friends I’ve made due to the website.

When last I posted, I mentioned the idea of writing a novel on this site, and publishing it, as I go.  I’ve actually been working on this, believe it or not.  I’ve been toying around with the opening chapters for Daughter of Fate, and things are going pretty well.

The rough part, so far, is knowing that as I publish chapters they will be set in stone – good, bad, or indifferent.  I’ve had to think long and hard, not just about the overall plot, but also all the little sub plots that will eventually make up the story.  If I were to decide, say, in Chapter 30 that a character named Jimbob was required and that he needed to be introduced earlier on in the story, but wasn’t, well … that just sucks! (more…)

At the risk of adding even more to my already crowded plate, I have decided to resurrect two very, very old projects that were once dear to me.

These are two of the first novels I attempted to write, and later adandoned to other interests and were sacrificed due to lack of time.

I will get around to adding pages on this site for both Daughters of Fate and Circle of the Hunt as time permits me to. (more…)

Last week I officially started sending out queries for my epic fantasy novel Under the Darkened Moon.  I started by selecting five literary agents and sent them all queries.  I followed their submission guidelines and sent what they requested, whether it was just a query, a query plus a synopsis, or a query plus a synopsis plus sample pages.

A couple days later I got my first official rejection.  It was a rejection based only on a query letter and a synopsis and not the actual story itself, but a rejection none-the-less.  Now I am looking at my set of next five lit agents to send letters to. (more…)

Under the Darkened Moon once had a character named Kal.  Kal, alas, is no more.  Oh, he still exists in the story, but he is no longer called Kal.  His new name in the final manuscript is Tarek.

Why did I change his name?  Ultimately it was because too many characters had names starting with the letter K.  Kyel and Kath were enough, so I changed Kal to something else.

The decision was made easier during the live read edit when my wife was reading the story.  She has this particular drawl to her speech where she constantly replaces the “a” sound in words with an “e” and visa versa.  She also does the same thing with the “e”s to “i”s for some reason.  But she only does it on certain words.  For example, pen is pin, but ten is not tin.  She never pronounced one of the characters, called Den, as Din. (more…)

Yesterday, something wonderful happened.  I completed the manuscript for Under the Darkened Moon.

It’s been a wonderful journey, considering that it is the first novel I have been able to completed in darn near twenty years of attempting to write a novel.  I’ve gone through a whole range of emotions from joy (at having done it), to sorrow (at realizing my characters, my children, are all grown up), to fear (at realizing that now the hard part begins as I search for an agent and publisher).

The whole experience of writing this story began last year on July 18th and has spanned, officially, 517 days (44,668,800 seconds) of my life. It’s hard to believe, but I’ve spent over 2,000 hours either directly working on this story or thinking about it.  That’s a lot of time.
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Under the Darkened Moon is not yet done, but it is getting close. A few more chapters need polishing. Then it will be off to whatever is next on the list once the novel is sent off to fend for itself in the slush piles of literary agents and publishers. And boy, is that list of potential projects long. I have so many that it is going to be hard to choose.

There are a lot of short stories I am working on. I have considered finishing up enough of those to wrap them up into an small book of maybe 100 pages or so and get something published and available for sale. Right now I am preparing to get two stories (Frist and Second Lessons & The Yoke) critiqued by my writers group. Second Chances is available to do something with too. So that could be the start for this idea. (more…)

It’s a sad reality, but the amount of time available for writing is inversely proportional to the amount of time actually needed for writing. This is especially true with the Christmas Season now upon us.

I had four days off for Thanksgiving and spent all four running around with family (3 days) and then doing all the errands that running around forced me to reschedule (1 day).  In the end, I managed to do about as much editing in those four days as one typical day.
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Yes, editing on Under the Darkened Moon is continuing.  Although it is going slowly.  Seems that I have been out of my routine lately.  Usually I spend an hour in the evening running a chapter or so through the Text to Speech software to see how they sound.  But lately that simply has not been happening.  I have been prepping chapters, but they are not getting their final manuscript treatment at the speed with which they are prepared.

Plus I am doing a final comb through of the manuscript in several sweeps looking for unnecessary instances of the following words: (more…)

Every day I get asked the same question, “Why are you still editing that novel of yours?”

I don’t think the answer is that complicated.  I simply want to produce a quality story in the end.  And, while I and others who have read Under the Darkened Moon think that the story is good, I personally don’t think it is good enough quite yet.  Although, I do think it is quickly getting there.

For me, there is no rush.  I’ve been writing off and on for over twenty years.  My very first novel, which I started back in high school, had three years invested into it and never got even half way done.  For Under the Darkened Moon, I opened the file (started writing the story) on June 18th of last year.  It is now October, nearly November a year later.  I could have pushed this work out there six months ago, at least according to some opinions, but certainly not my own.   As one person in my review group said, “It’s already better than 95% of what is self-published on Amazon and other sites like that.” (more…)