MathiasCavanaugh.com

It’s taken some time to get my head wrapped around the things that I need to do. You might have noticed that since my last post was April of last year!

Sometimes life just throws too many changes at you at once and things you love to do get pushed aside. For me, what was pushed aside was my writing.

I have been working on it, just not at a pace that was conducive to success. It was more at a pace that allowed me to keep it on the back burner while life sorted out all the other little and big things going on around me.

But in the end, the plan remains unchanged. I am going to keep writing with the intention of getting a publishing deal OR self publishing.

Because of the hectic pace of life this past year, I have focused on my short story projects. Specifically The Yoke and The Flames. Also, my two short stories that are prequels to my Daughters of Fate project have received a bit of attention.

The Daughters of Fate project is still moving forward and I do still plan to publish bits and pieces of it online as they come out in a workable draft. Right now, chapters 1 through 4 are the focus. Draft of draft is about 50% done.

The Yoke is about as good as I can make it. It is preparing for submission to a major writing competition this first quarter of 2016. The Flames will be a second quarter submission. By that time I hope to have the first four chapters of Daughters of Fate up for everyone who has been patiently waiting.

Outsider has made quite a bit of progress as well, and is coming along.

Under the Darkened Moon is still out there and I am preparing some new queries for it. It may get another “Final” edit, and if there are no takers it will be up on Amazon in the next year or two.

So that’s where everything stands. Hope the new year is treating you all with luck and joy. I’ll be talking to you soon!

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…)

This idea is something that I’ve been pondering the last few days.  I’m thinking about writing a story, a full novel, and posting the entire thing here on my website as I go, a chapter at a time.

Doing this will require a serious commitment of time though.  It means that, in between writing all my other stories, I will have to find time to regularly commit to finishing and posting chapters here.

I’ve been thinking about using my recently dusted off, and unfinished, novel Daughters of Fate for this experiment.  The story is there.  It just needs rewritten from the previous attempts.

However, the idea intrigues me.  And it would be very interesting to see if I can do it.  From a standpoint of being disciplined enough to regularly post updates, I mean.  And, of course, to see what kind of feedback I get.

Spent some time last night and today laying out the plot of a new short story idea that came to me out of nowhere.

Title: Ayra’s Fall

It’s a story about what happens when an Angel entrusted with keeping the world safe fails in her task.  So watch this space for updates on this title, and of course other ongoing projects.

So, 2014 is underway.  Time to layout the plan for this year.

As of right now, I am still shopping my manuscript for Under the Darkened Moon around.  Been a little lazy about it, and will keep chugging away.  Nothing’s changing on this front.

I now have 3 short stories that, I think, and so does my focus group, are ready to go out into the world.  These will be submitted to various contests and publications throughout 2014 to see if they can garner any attention.

Hopefully one or more of them will be noticed and published.  If not, I plan on releasing them in various formats for download.  Plans are right now that they will be free, in preparation for what might be the need to self-publish my manuscript at some point in the furture.

I’ll keep everyone appraised of my progress on these plans as the year unfolds.  Wish me luck!

It’s hard to know whether or not I have too many ideas that distract me from my other, more pressing projects.  For example, I’d really like to get the first drafts of Her Lovely Blood and Cry of the Golden Wyvern done.  Plus I’d like to make progess on Awakening, which is the first book of the Unmaker’s Saga.
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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…)