A'mara Books Update - February 3

This week at A’mara Books:

I started this week with a definite plan. My daily schedule is to write – up to 2500 words or so, then work on Encyclopedia updates, editing or whatever. With any luck, that means I hit my weekly goal in four days, then have two days to do the stuff I’ve been putting off – or to get some other stuff done totally unrelated to writing. I did a good job of adhering to my plan. As such I wrote...

Almost 12000 new words!

Head of the Neví got almost all of that as I’m trying to get this all-important first draft finished. It’s currently sitting at 45k words – it lost some when I had to delete some that I wrote earlier relating to the main sub-plot. I’m expecting another 2-4k words to bring this one to completion.
Name of the Neví still managed to get nearly another 1000 words as I did my read-aloud edit.

Editing

As I just said, I did my read-aloud edit on Name of the Neví once I’d reached my weekly word goal. For me, this is the most important of all my edits! The reason? Reading out loud gets my head out of the way (for the most part.) Our brains are so amazing! We automatically skim over countless errors because our brain sees it correctly – i.e. for what we were trying to say, not necessarily what’s sitting in front of you on the screen. Still not perfect, but it does pick up the most awkward of errors – as well as alert you to when a sentence just doesn’t flow right.

Putting a bit of time between what you wrote and proofreading is also a good idea. A couple of weeks if you have it… overnight is okay… a few hours, minimum. I think this is reason no. 1 that I end up making so many edits and changes when I present my chapters to you a second time (Whaleshares.) I’m coming at the stories relatively fresh again. As such, I now anticipate updates to my uploads after the second presentation. (Though I will do the publishing after the first presentation – as I’m currently gearing up to do.)

Big Plans

I started off this series with 20k+ words per novella. I’m now writing at 45k+.
As much as I loved the whole wraparound novella thing, it’s no longer practical for me. Even a three-parter, wrapping around two other half-novels is going to become unwieldy in print. So, I’m going to evolve my style again… even retroactively. I want to have my half-novels in pairs – so that they can be bundled into a novel-sized paperback or even hardback.

So…
I’m planning on re-editing the first set (850 TCE) and expanding them to meet my 45k expectations – which will necessarily involve adding in an extra half-novel (since this set was comprised of five novellas) and forcing Friendship on Fire to allow me to turn it into third person which is going to give it an extra dimension, since Ek-ul knew Marosio well. (And I’ve learned more about Marosio the past couple of months as I’ve worked on the Neví set.

This project is not going to become the main one – at least until the extra half-novel – since these have already been shared on both Steemit and Whaleshares, they can’t take the front seat, but can be something I work on after I hit my weekly target and my editing, encyclopedia work, etc, are caught up.

The wraparound will become slightly more standalone, but I will keep in the notes to direct the reader to the story that takes place in the middle. I will also move the “update” chapters at the end of the wraparound to the end of the story where it belongs. This will also serve to substantially reduce the number of characters that have to be listed in the wraparound.

I think it will be good all around. When it’s done, I may consider serializing the results on WeKu if/when they decide to actually make WeKu tradeable.

Research points

This section is going to end up being more regularly featured on my week’s Learning post. This week’s writing points were about:
The longevity of the egg and the sperm.
Sword-related injuries. (I had to kill off a character this week.)
Please check out that post (it’s also on Whaleshares and WeKu.)

Revelations

I did a fun musical foray the other day about the joik/jojk/yoik (all spellings are valid in one place or other) – also posted in Whaleshares and WeKu. This is the traditional music form of the Sámi people in the Sápmi region (the northern sections of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and even parts of Russia.

The gist is: the music becomes the person, feeling, animal… It’s not just about – it’s giving the singer a paintbrush to merge with the feeling. It’s an extremely powerful form of soul-level music. Unsurprisingly, the Christians didn’t like it because they sounded like spells. And perhaps (at a level), they were…

This inspired me – omg, did it inspire me!!!

Suddenly, I realized that my stellas (healers) had a greater influence by Freyja than I’d thought. (I knew she had, but I thought she’d been secondary to Brighid.) My stellas are all versed in a level of spellcraft – even if it’s just a prayer to the Guardians to let them access a portal. After learning about the joik, I realized that my stellas SING their prayers/spells!

So, then, I sat down to write the first spell – for accessing a portal.
I wanted something like: “Guardians please allow me to travel to…” (the first three words would have to be part of any spell invoking the Guardians.)

I translated the words into Icelandic – the closest we have to Old Norse – the language of Freyja. I was absolutely shocked by how closely the words related to *existing mythology in my world!!! It’s like I never made anything up at all!!!

Here are the translations that floored me:

guardian – one of the available words was: “verndari” meaning protector, guardian. That’s so close to my island of “Vendaria” (and the mountain “Vendar”) that it’s hardly coincidental – despite the fact that I probably wasn’t looking at Icelandic when I came up with it! (probably 13 years ago!) So… Vendar was the guardian/protector… so perfectly appropriate!
allow – the first available form of this verb was: “leyfa” meaning to allow, let, permit, tolerate… This word is SO close to my word “leya” which I actually grabbed from “ley lines” as that’s about as close to “real world” as I can come on that. So, the “leya” actually “allow” the A’mara to work – it’s their privilege, their license…

After that, the words are a little more normal, especially since they’ll change from spell to spell. I also expect to have more Gaelic-based spells in the future. I mean, Brighid was there, after all – Freyja didn’t take all the influence when she visited again… (but that story has yet to be written…)

Enough for the spoilers this week. I was just so amazed at how things worked together – like someone else was planting these ideas in my head all along!

Coming this week

4 more chapters of Ocean of Empathy followed by 2 chapters of Rebound of Power on Whaleshares (Please visit if you missed this book the first time around!)
6 more chapters of Spice of Strength on Steemit.
Finish Head of the Neví
Catch up on encyclopedia work before I do anything else…
Begin work on Neví 4, including thread-builder work.
Recrop my cover image for Brighid’s Blood before I start sharing that on Whaleshares. (Which puts off any more prequel/sequel dilemmas for a little longer that I’d encounter placing Birth of the Neví first – as I did on Steemit.)
Maybe work on some mapping for Name of the Neví and Head of the Neví and/or cover images.

Anyway, that’s what’s been going on here at A’mara Books this week! I hope you manage to take a few minutes to immerse yourself in my world of Terrenden – which I’m so delighted to share with you!

PLEASE CATCH UP!	LINKS TO BUY! (in chronological order)
	Brighid's Blood 2006 and 1200 B.T.C.E. Katja and Rachel are so desperate for love that they cast two love spells one night. But the Guardians do not consider spells "fun", but rather as cries for help from the very depths of your soul. Certainly Katja and Rachel could not have possibly imagined where these spells would take them!
	Birth of the Neví 829 T.C.E. It is a tumultuous period of Terrenden history. As is all too common, there are those who wish to profit from the misfortune of others. Some of these come together in a new "charitable organization" and step on the toes of the notorious Uugli. Combine this with draconian new measures to combat pollution and Terrenden has a situation ripe for a power struggle.
	Rebound of Power: 850 T.C.E. Collection of Romance Terrenden is being terrorized by a previously underestimated Neví who, through the mysterious “Curator,” have been controlling elections all over the planet. In this collection, we meet some interesting women. Iyva - a homeless teenager in Irola whose untrained power leaves her close to death; Marc’la - a breeder of prized caballus in Kasago whose heart lives in the past; Zukie - an abused widow whose heart is afraid to try for future happiness; Jenna - an elections assistant manager and masseuse who has a prejudice against A’mara; Kami - a chola student in Varkevand who has been assigned to protect Ardin, a man who has his own reasons to distrust A’mara.
COMING SOON	TO AN EBOOK STORE NEAR YOU!!!
	Rise of the Neví - 830 T.C.E. The Neví begin their rise in power with the completion of several large housing projects that seem totally charitable, but also hide a great evil within. The draconian measures brought in the previous year has caused major distress throughout the world, perfect for giving the Neví a further foothold on the Terrenden stage. Will the A’mara, now removed from the Council of Peers, be able to shut down the Neví?
	Acting the Part - 851 T.C.E. Collection of Romance The Neví have infiltrated the Terrenden Freedom Party. Dr. Jarly is on the run and the Curator still dominates the Terrenden stage. Famous actor, Derick Aiden has released his Neví expose film and now the Neví want him dead... In this collection, we meet more interesting women. Kauri - a simple receptionist who doesn’t realize one of her wildest dreams has come true; Tirry - an elections manager who is always the bridesmaid and never the bride; Zara - a chef who has all but given up on finding love for herself; D'zani - who isn’t even looking, but has to chaperone her more vulnerable roommate; Soala - an heiress who is expected to marry, but refuses to marry someone she doesn’t love; Moxara - one whose past griefs have locked away her heart. We also get updates on some of the lovely ladies we met previously.

Crossposted at Steemit, Whaleshares, WeKu

Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
verified author on Goodreads
find me on Twitter
also on: Whaleshares, WeKu

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