T.A Cole

He does :)) it's his favourite form for hunting. The skeletal, bat-like creature is his true form, but he hides it behind a layer of umbramancy and psychic camoflage :))

Missed the tablet one because I'm thick 😅

Oh God I'm always scribbling little doodles on sticky notes and notepads 😅 this is just a small sampling from the first sketch of the two mains all the way to a semi-polished one I did on my tablet 😅

Writing update, day thirty-eight
87,285 words. Five more chapters edited
I feel like I've reached that point where I'm adding more than I'm cutting. I just get so cross when I'm reading and first-draft me forgot something obvious, and first-edit me missed it too 😅 come on team, get it together 😅

Writing update, day thirty-seven
87,417 words.
No actual editing done today, I just wanted to correct a plot hole which occurred to me last night. Ended up finding a page that wasn't doing anything and rewriting it to kick some extra dirt in my MC's face while they were down. Sorry Lily!

Writing update, day thirty-six
87,013 words. Act two edited.
Another ten chapters done today, halfway through the act edit. We're finally closer to 85k than 90k 😁😁 changing that number was so gratifying :))

Writing update, day thirty-five
87,980 words. Act one edited.
Blitzed through ten whole chapters of edits today. The changes from the plot edit have done wonders for the first act, I love the new build up to Lily's arrival in Ebonhollow rather than just getting there as the story starts. Feeling 😁!!

Post from Julia Fine that says, "Write the book you want to read because you will have to read it 75 times."

#writerslife

“It’s like I keep feeling this pull,” I said finally. “Like there’s some invisible rope wrapped around me and it keeps pulling me back into the dark. It’s taking everything I have to just dig my heels in and hold my position, to not fall back into whatever hole I managed to crawl out of recently.” Maddie was quiet for a moment, her eyes scanning mine. Then she reached over and took the tote from my hand, setting it on the table between us. “Okay,” she said. “Well, you’re here now. With me. With us. So, whatever that pull is, it doesn’t get to win today.” She wrapped her arms around me and buried my face in her suffocating curls. “And if you feel it again, you come tell me. I won’t let you get pulled away. I’ll get my own rope, and with the three of us pulling, it’ll give up in no time.” “Or I’ll get torn in half at the waist?” “Or that,” she admitted. “But I get the top half, because I like your hair.” She tussled my bun in her open palm and we laughed.

From chapter 15 of "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade"

Another one of those Lily/Maddie scenes that makes me wish the story had gone differently

Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade

When a journalism student investigates a forgotten district, riddled with disappearances that it seems determined to ignore, she becomes entangled with a haunting stranger whose presence feels disturbingly inevitable.

#writing #wip #gothichorror

Writing update, day thirty-four
88,688 words. Act four and epilogue edited. PLOT EDIT COMPLETE
Finished my first round of edits, 3,631 words down from the first draft. Going to listen to the whole thing again next week and then it's on to the act edit

Ghost - Lachryma (Official Music Video) YouTube video by GhostBCVEVO

"Lachryma" by Ghost is definitely a strong contender

youtu.be/DLG9oTH-ZbQ?...

Writing update, day thirty-three;
88,549 words. Two more chapters edited.
Forgot to post this last night. Only got a little done because I'm working on midterm assignments, but progress is progress and I told myself I'd stay accountable on this project

From chapter 34 of "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade"

Do you think, if you were to write such a character, they'd be a writer in your own genre or something you've always wanted to write but maybe never got the chance?

If they're not a full-time writer, I like to try and sneak in that they write on the side at least. My current MC is a journalism student working on her final paper, for instance, and I have a haunted hotel idea on the back-burner, and that MC writes a lot of books on the paranormal :)) they're fun

Jumping back to the world-building text for this one.

From the chapter on the Demon Princes of Abadragor, and namely the entry on Bellatrix the Embermaw, Demon Prince of Wrath, Vengeance and the Fiery Annihilation of All Things

Scribbling their username out in yellow is such a power play 😅 have to respect that

I feel like, especially if I'm working in first-person, they're the easiest heads to get inside. And then any flowery descriptions I can't part with in the edit don't feel contrived because, well, we're writers 😅 we're always looking at things and thinking how we'd describe them

I like writing writers :)) that way, if I'm having a bad writing day, I give it to them and it usually gives me a jump start :)

I use it to differentiate between dream chapters and regular chapters. The main story is told in past tense, but my MC struggles with deeply disturbing dreams which I wanted to imbue with a haunting immediacy, so I wrote those in present tense to make it feel like they're happening right now

I watch a lot of Sorastro's miniature painting tutorials on Youtube, partly because it's relaxing as hell, but also to pick up new tricks and techniques for miniatures I haven't painted before :)) came in really handy for all the Legion and Imperial Assault minis!

"The first rule of ghost stories is they always start with someone who doesn't believe; well, I never believed in ghosts until Ebonhollow."

I added this in later, beforehand I just opened with the train journey to Ebonhollow, but I wanted to open with my MC's voice rather than just the train :)

Writing update, day thirty-two
88,632 words.
How many times is too many times to use the same word, do we think? Still trimming, aiming for those overused words

Writing update, day thirty-one
88,796 words. Three more chapters edited.
The new name wasn't working for me, just sort of hit the ear wrong, so I reworked it. Also crowd-sourced a new one for the antagonist/love interest too. Feels strange to leave both original names behind but I feel good about it

Writing update, day thirty;
89,096 words. Four more chapters edited.
Slow day today. Word count is still moving in the right direction, it's just veeeeery slow. Putting it down to uni stress today, I think. I'll try again later in the week.

Writing update, day twenty-nine;
89,269 words. Act four and epilogue trimmed. Acts one and two felt-purge done.
Didn't do much today, too much uni work to do. But I did cut out all the struck-through stuff from my first read, AND got rid of over sixty uses of "felt" from act one and two :)

Writing update, day twenty-eight
90,022 words. Act three edited.
First round of edits is still going strong. Alredy thinking of changes for the next. I hope this is as good as it feels.

Writing update, day twenty-seven
91,180 words. Acts three, four and epilogue marked up for editing
Got the entire second half ready for editing. It doesn't need as much adding to it as the first half, but it needs SOOOO much more taking out 😅 the hell was I thinking sometimes?? Some weird choices...

Thank you! I really appreciate that :)) I know how you feel. I've done a lot of self-reflection during this project, and even though it started as a creepy urban myth, the Gloamhound has become more an ominous presence in my memory, watching the choices I wish I could take back