H1 2019: An overview of WIPs

Hey folks!

This year is busy! I've made a plan on my publishing schedule for the first half (H1) which I'd like to share with you (both for accountability and to keep you in the loop! Heh.)

There won't be any new stories published until March as far as the schedule is planned out.

In March we will have one novella (at least). A few of you will have heard of this before (especially if you follow me on Twitter or regularly check my blog)

The Torn Planet is set to be published on the 2nd of March 2019.

I am also working on a story called Heart of Askelion which is brand new and deals with the premise of lovers separated by time BUT not in a cheesy way. These two guys are true soldiers (knights actually) born into two different worlds (times) who only get to know each other when one of them (called Lorne Lionheart at this point) is sent to the other's (Captain Ash's) time to retrieve a catalyst that started a rupture in time which has now gone out of hand and is causing them to be overrun by an age-old race of warriors.

The tentative publishing date of this will probably be around May. But that's not certain yet. It depends largely on how my bigger project (Hourglass) is going by then.

The fourth project is another WIP currently in the editing stage. The working title is Mimicry and you can find more information on it by clicking on this LINK. There are also details about beta-reading opportunities in this post if you're so inclined!

This is of course only what's planned for the first half of the year. The second half is still a bit shadowy in my mind but once it sorts itself out there will be an update!

I hope this was informative and you're excited to hear more about all the projects soon!

Cheers!

WriteBot.

2019: future WIP needs Beta-Readers!

Hey everyone!

I'd love to introduce you to another one of my projects: working title Mimicry. Mimicry one is a bit more YA than most of what I've written but I'm trying to make it less so (nothing against YA - it's just not my genre beyond reading entertainment). It is (of course) science fiction and deals with an alien invasion of Earth. It's also a bit of an older project I'm trying to clean up at the moment (when not working on... others)!

Here's a blurb!

17-year old Dalta Rim, a sentinel of the last human outpost, the city of America, lives to put bullets through the heads of Others – the extraterrestrials that invaded Earth thirteen years ago – but when she finds a strange transmitter on one of her missions in the Sonoran desert, she realizes the aliens are neither the only nor the worst threat to humanity's continued existence.

The Council, the post-Invasion government, is hiding something about the Others that might be crucial to the survival of America and her citizens, and they're prepared to go to any length to keep it secret. Her life and that of her adopted brother, Jack, threatened, Dalta joins the conspiracy of medic Owen Early and soldier Logan Pendray to uncover the secret and find out what makes it so horrible it cannot be allowed to unravel.

Their investigation leads them to the religious cult that worships the Others as messengers of God and believes they're the harbingers of Judgement Day, and pitches them into a tangle of clues left by Owen's late parents, the genetic scientists, Logan's father, one of the four Generals of the military, and Dalta's own dead mother, who provides a single hint written on the back of her pilot license. In the meantime, the Others seem to be preparing for a last, devastating attack on America, designed to end all of humanity, and the Council is hard on Dalta and her friends' trail.

When Dalta finally matches up the pieces of the puzzle and learns the world as she knows it is a lie, she must choose between forgetting the secret and keeping her life and loyalties safe, or exposing the secret and forfeiting her life and beliefs in to save the humans and humaneness of her nation alike.

The first chapter can be found here: (google docs link as always)

Do you think this is something you'd like to beta? Please let me know! I'd love some input. You can also just edit directly on the google docs document itself and leave a quick note requesting access to the full document if you want to continue! (This note has to include your e-mail as otherwise I won't be able to add you. Don't worry though! I'll never spam you with anything or give away your e-mail to third parties.)

Cheers!
WriteBot.

2019: current sci-fi WIP: The Torn Planet

Hey everyone!

I want to introduce you briefly to another world I've been working on since late 2018. This currently has the working title 'The Torn Planet' and is (as the title suggests) science fiction. The first draft is complete at ~25.000 words - which makes it a novella.

It's one of my best stories if I'm any judge of this myself. It has a clear outline considering plot and the characters stand independently in the story. Although they are only three (five if you count the aliens) main characters their actions are clear and truly do speak louder than words.

The Torn Planet is about a time in the future when Earth has been entirely depleted of its resources and become toxic to human life. Those who had the money (big corporations and governments) built orbital stations (think ISS but much bigger) in order to preserve the human race. And since station life is difficult most of the people are in cryo-stasis. They have been frozen to be thawed when a.) a solution arises to Earth's toxicity problems (spoilers: it's not likely) or b.) a new planet is found to inhabit.

The company Ad Astra is one of those corporations that managed to build a station in time and saved a lot of people with it. They represent both a company and part of the United Arabian government. Their goal is simple: They want to get away from Earth before it gets WORSE. They know humanity cannot survive as it is at that moment (frozen and non-living by any most standards). They want to find a new planet to settle on but do not have the means to travel to it.

Enter Zinnia. Zinnia is the main character of The Torn Planet. Zinnia is a woman who wants to build a family (children are a big topic for her) and live a peaceful life on the station supporting her husband Beni's research into the science of wormholes. This is her duty as well as her desire even though she was 'built' for more: In the past her father (director Muhammed of the Ad Astra company/government) chose to give her genes (enhancements) that would aid in wormhole research but because she chose Beni and her family over going into science herself these enhancements have been neglected. Beni however refuses to have children as long as they are stuck around Earth. He promises instead that they will have them as soon as he has opened a wormhole.

But then Beni dies and without him Zinnia is momentarily lost. Her father implores her to pick up where Beni left off. With his death the way for Zinnia to unravel the mysteries of wormholes is cleared. On top of that she is promised a batch of Beni's genes to still have his children even though he is dead. IF she manages to create a wormhole and bring the Ad Astra ship called the Tree of Life to safety in a new galaxy with a new planet.

That's the setup of The Torn Planet in a nutshell. What happens next is (hi)story. It involves space travel and aliens. It involves betrayal. It involves irreparably broken hearts and damaged minds and the revenge of a super-human mind against those who have committed the greatest crime of humanity. And all that in only 25.000 words!

Are you excited? You should be! I aim to publish The Torn Planet before May. The exact date isn't yet certain but in a couple of weeks I'll be looking for beta readers and shortly after will update you on the fixes publishing date.

Stay tuned!

WriteBot.

Review of Darren Hardy's The Compound Effect

Hey folks

I've been listening to the audio book these last few days (I don't usually like audio books at all but non-fiction seems to be easier to listen to than fiction) and wanted to give you a review of it!

All right. The Compound Effect. Most of the book's advice is pretty generic and not actual fresh and/or unique research. It's the sort of book that tells you 'The more you practice the luckier you get'. (The usual spiel about people not being actually 'lucky' but working hard so that when the opportunity arises they can take it. Whereas other people don't work hard enough so they cannot get 'lucky' when an opportunity presents itself.)

The author also likes to pat himself on the back with how many famous people he knows at different companies (Apple for example) and how their CEOs personally interacted with him at some point. That can be a bit annoying.

The gist of the book is hard/diligent/persistent work over time = success.

A piece of important information in the book is that small changes (in things such as habits) should be pursued over time rather than every big change you'd like to have in your life all at once. This means when you want to exercise regularly and get a better body it's important to start small-ish (say about 20 minutes of exercise a day) because if you start big (2 hours of exercise a day) then you won't be able to keep it up infinitely. It is important to create small habits that over time will compound into big habits with visible effects.

The concept is very similar to James Clear's Atomic Habits. Review of Atomic Habits here.

As Hardy explains his concept of compounding effect he also cautions against giving up too easily. It's quite obvious that if you go to the gym twice or eat one less meal once (if you're trying to lose weight) you won't immediately see the benefits. The same goes for writing. If you want to write a book, write 500 words on two days, then give up because you don't have a book yet, your whole endeavour is somewhat pointless. If, however, you keep going to your desk and you keep adding words, 500 words a day will eventually stack up, and in less than a year your novel of 100k word will be finished (as finished as a first draft usually is in any case). At the start of any endeavour you don't want to burn yourself out with either exercise (2 hours a day) or writing 9000 words a day (been there done that) and then not have the energy to finish at all. If you're just starting out it's fine to write 100 words a day. Or 200. And maybe exercise only for 20 minutes or only do 10 push-ups instead of the 100 you're yearning to do (crazy folks!).

You can obviously increase the amount of x you do once you get better at it. If you start small you can up the ante after some time: If you're used to writing 200 words a day it's much easier to make the jump to 300 and later 500. In no time you'll be writing those elusive 2000 (or even 5000/10.000) words a day.

However. The compound effect does not only refer to creating good habits but also how the small little tasks you do every day (conscious or not) make up your bad habits. This could be for example eating a piece of chocolate every day after lunch because you crave it (I usually crave something sweet after lunch). It doesn't matter much on one day, but if you do it every day, it has the same effect as writing 500 words a day. After a while it will become a detriment to your health. This is why Hardy also talks about how to break bad habits. He suggests to write down your habits in a list in order to easily see what you could 'drop' so to speak. An example he gives is saving more money than usual. How can you see where you're spending money unnecessarily?

You are to write down every single thing you spend money on during the week.

A cup of coffee at Starbucks? A candy bar from the shop to treat yourself after work? That's a few dollars right there you can save if you know about them. And in a week, or month, if you buy these things regularly, the amount you can save instead of spend will exponentially increase. The same goes for calories when you're trying to lose weight. Are you actually eating more than you need? Tracking your habits will tell you exactly WHERE you can change your behaviour to go from loss (for example of money by spending on 'little things' or loss of health by eating too many 'little unhealthy things') to gain.

The same loss goes for accumulating knowledge (in the news) that you will not use and which therefore goes to waste. Ask yourself: Do you really need to watch/read the news three times a day? How much of 'useless' knowledge are you gaining this way? Wouldn't it be better to spend the time to read up on information you can actually put to use (perhaps a book on weight loss/nutrition/personal finance/other hobbies you have long been interested in)?

Hardy also maintains that as you're doing all these little things to improve yourself it's also important not to be discouraged. As with anything you do there will be setbacks. If after two months of training at the gym or writing on the novel you still don't have that thin stomach or the complete novel, it's easy to become lazy. It takes a lot of time to obtain significant results. (Here the old adage comes into play, doesn't it? 'Nothing worth having comes free'.) You're guaranteed to want to quit at some point (can confirm this from personal experience with both exercise and writing!), but then you must become the proverbial tortoise and soldier on. Slow and steady wins the race. You put your head down and you take one step at a time. One scene at a time. One minute of exercise at a time.

I hope you enjoyed this review. If you'd like to check out Hardy's book on account of this review it's probably best to buy it at Amazon (am still not affiliated with them). The Kindle ebook is somewhere around $7 and from the audio book it sounded like a fairly easy read. Although if you've already bought James Clear's Atomic habits it might not be as relevant for you any more.

WriteBot.

Art for Seafarer!

Hey everyone!

I wanted to share with you a piece of art that was made for one of my stories:

Seafarer. Seafarer is one of the stories that will be published in Worlds of Magic when it is released on the 7th of December. The story of Seafarer follows a young woman as she tries to find out how her mother fell in love with her partner. It's a tale of how the pirate queen acquired herself a princess. The two main characters are shown on the image!

In a way this post is a character introduction as well. I give you: Aaea and Isolde! (Click to enlarge!)

(by Ngo Hung)

Isn't it pretty?

This story is one of friendship and love and light. It is about mysterious magics and screaming kings and pirates who steal underwear. It's a fun story of adventure as well as deep and insightful into the nature of human relationships.

Excited? It's coming out on the 7th of December! Stay tuned.

WriteBot.

WIP Progress Report

Hey everyone!

It's been a long day already for me. I finished editing Catching Fireflies's bonus draft (I did not choose the adding-another-8k-words-to-the-story life! The adding-words-life chose me!) and it's complete at 9k words. These 9k words were edited over the last three and a half weeks since my post on 10X WIP here.

Today I'd like to report on my progress and show you what I have done since I started setting actual tangible goals to work on every day. If you want, you can read my initial post about these 10X WIPs (by the way from Grant Cardone's The 10X Rule) through the link above.

Let's get started with my WIP list as it was three and a half weeks ago.

• editing the fairy tale Catching Fireflies.
• editing Of One Mind.
• editing Eye in the Sky.
• editing Hourglass.(And the other books in the series)
• finishing Ris's story.
• writing the NEW STORY.

• publishing short story collections. Into the Deep, Xenos, and (placeholder name) nice magical stories.
• publishing Elegy of the Stars.
• publishing Warlike/The Torn Earth.  

  I've so far done:

• editing the fairy tale Catching Fireflies. (The updated version will be on KDP tomorrow! Yey! Hype!)
• editing Of One Mind.
• editing Eye in the Sky.
• editing Hourglass.(And the other books in the series)
• finishing Ris's story.
• writing the NEW STORY.

• publishing short story collections. Into the Deep, Xenos, and (placeholder name) nice magical stories.
• publishing Elegy of the Stars.
• publishing Warlike/The Torn Earth.

I have also edited Immortal, which was not on the list to begin with, and am writing two more short stories as well. These are a bit more difficult and longer than my 9k average short story word count. In addition to this I'm committed to one blog post a day (at least) and have been actively improving my author profiles on various sites and finding/hiring new artists for book covers.

Let me give you some thoughts on how planning is working out for me.

1.) Having goals actually makes me sit down and work

2.) I often don't feel motivated to write still but I do it anyway. I have a goal to hit.

3.) The more often I sit down to write the more often I will find SOMETHING to write

4.) In the last three and a half weeks I've been more productive than during the last two years before them

I think the last point is the most important. I started to plan as an experiment (I'm usually someone who does not like to plan what they will do and when) and to be able to talk about my experience with it. As soon as I sat down to plan I found out I actually LIKE planning. I just don't like when my plans go awry. (But of course they do). Still. The numbers don't lie and the numbers are quite awesome (see 4.) again!).

Why don't you join me in my experiment? Come and be productive with me! I promise you'll still be able to procrastinate (still working on getting rid of that habit...) BUT you will also get much more done than you ever thought you could!

Try it out? Tell WriteBot about your own experiment! Let the comment section be open!

Have a good day/night! WriteBot

Chapter Preview: Warlike!

Hey everyone!

Because you liked the character introduction I did yesterday so much (seriously! I got like three or four times the views of my other posts!) today's blog post will be a chapter preview of Warlike.

Without much further ado...

CHAPTER ONE

I told myself I didn't need the Elder's permission or even tolerance of my plan to do what had to be done. If we were to survive against the raptors, we needed weapons, and despite Kava's dire warnings, weapons were what the artefacts of old civilizations had left behind in that ancient, terrible haunt, the Deep.

And I wouldn't let Venya's war party have died in vain.

The setting moon had darkened the plant-life around me by the time I approached the Deep's craggy outskirts. I hadn't told Iva where I was going, either. Iva wouldn't understand, the same way she hadn't understood my rage after I tried to convince Kava that after the loss of Venya's war party we couldn't simply stand by, but had to protect ourselves. I wondered whether they were missing me by now. They probably did. It wasn't like me not to come home after a patrol. Kava probably knew where I was and Iva would suspect the same thing if she noticed I hadn't come home yet. It made me wonder briefly who might realize where I was headed first. Iva, who'd been my companion since I turned into a huntress, or Kava, the Elder, who could predict a rainstorm days ahead.

In front of me the brush opened slightly.

I was as close as I ever dared to come before, close enough to see the strange metal spikes, some of them scattered on the ground and the mesh of metal wire covering the ground like a carpet. I'd once tried to follow this carpet to the other side, but I'd not come far. The carpet ended, was torn, and there was no more pattern to it.

In the past, before the year 2138, it might have stood erect, like the fences we used to keep animals out of the village.

But what did they want to keep out? Or in? Had the plague of raptors already been a problem all those centuries ago, when the fence was erected (though I couldn't imagine the thin metal mesh would have held them) or had there been worse threats?

Beyond the fence, the land rose slightly. Trees were growing back slowly here, where they hadn't for centuries, and they were strangely tall, imposing, where they stood isolated. The rest of the area was clear, giving a good view onto the gigantic structure in the middle: the Deep.

It rose from the ground like a massive piece of grey rock. Veins and stranglethorns grew on and over its walls in patches, and usually, the raptors weren't far off. I slowed down my steps, went into a crouch. I was wearing red, of course, but the raptors weren't entirely stupid. If they saw movement, they'd assume something living, because there was no wind. They didn't care what it was they attacked, as long as it was meat. Humans, great cats, water bears, meat.

I ducked past the single standing remains of the giant fence, grown against and within a giant's fan, and slid into the underbrush. The going was difficult here, the brush thick, because no one had been here for a while to clear it. The atmosphere was quiet, no raptor showing its reptilian face. The air smelled slightly rancid, with a lingering, ancient taste of something sharp and metallic, like blood. The closer to the Deep you came, the stronger the smell, but it never sharpened enough to bite your nostrils after all this time. And it had been a while. No one of my tribe remembered what the Deep was for, or when it'd last seen people.

Around the Deep, the night turned cold and the red furs on my shoulders ruffled in a chill wind. The sudden change in temperature made my my fingers stiff and I felt for the metal tube on my back for reassurance. I couldn't have said why I brought it, since it didn't work. Maybe there was no reason at all, and I just liked the feel of the metal. But perhaps I was hoping it would protect me should something happen, that it would suddenly spring to life.

But then, when it happened, the tube stayed as lifeless as it'd been before.

In a short time, I was close enough to the Deep to see the scars on the surface of its walls. The material was unfamiliar to me, a girl of the jungle-forest. It was like stone, but grainy, and, as I later learned, not as hard. It had the colour of stone, too, but no stone ever was as evenly dark grey as the mass of the Deep's wall.

I approached it carefully, making no sound on the broken leafs and twigs around it. Here and there, debris glittered on the ground around me, like puddles of water that should have long evaporated. The air smelled again of the sharply metallic smell. It reminded me momentarily of the time our elders sacrificed a lamb to appeal to the rainstorms.

I snorted inside.

It was little consolation that they hadn't repeated that trick ever since.

I was about to turn towards the structure to examine more closely the material the Deep's walls were made of when the earth trembled slightly beneath my feet. Earthquake, my brain warned. Danger. But then, before instinct could send me to shelter, movement in the corner of my eyes caught my attention. In the same breath I realized how quiet it was, the constant noise of the small jungle-forest animals drowned by something... bigger.

Raptors.

They came out of the treeline, almost half as tall as the trees themselves. Their hides, a green and yellow, covered in thick scales the size of a human head. And those were the smallest of them, the foragers. The bigger ones could reach up to the tree crowns without much difficulty. The raptors' skins were tough as metal, reptilian, but at the same time pliable as leather, and the only thing that could penetrate it was metal, the kind we didn't have, and the reason we couldn't fight them. Thin, short arms, with claws the size of half a man and knife-sharp teeth half again the size of one of my tribesmen threatened if you ever were caught, and getting caught happened too often, even though my tribeswomen didn't stray far from the village and the raptors weren't smart enough to know we were all gathered there.

My breath stalled. I was closer now to the raptors than I'd been before in my life, and an absurd thought suddenly emerged in my mind. Had Ion and Tarin been as terrified when they scouted the Deep? When they somehow managed to kill that raptor we found, later, when we already knew they were lost?

I pushed the thought away almost as soon as it surfaced. Terror was useless. Terror made you careless, made you do things you wouldn't do in your right mind. I needed to keep my wits. I needed to ignore the fear and get out of here.

I made myself as small as possible and slowly slunk back into the shadow of the Deep's wall. There was nowhere to hide except in plain sight. I couldn't fight the raptors, not with the knife on my belt, not with the metal cylinder strapped to my back, but they might not see me if I didn't move. The foragers' red-rimmed, slit-pupiled eyes easily spotted movement, but scenery, especially red, essentially made them blind. The red of my clothing would make me melt with the wall like another rock. The only problem then was their sense of smell. My heart pounded rapidly, quickening my blood, producing more sweat. Blood and sweat. The ultimate cocktail to lure a raptor, and their scent was the second superior sense to their hearing.

I had to move if I wanted to survive.

But I couldn't move.

Foragers were fast, their two hind legs strong and springy. I wouldn't outrun them.

I inched a step to the right and immediately froze as my attention was drawn to the other side of the clearing. To the north-west, where the moon was dying, more of the foragers, outlined against the bright, dark-red glow of the rising sun's corona]. Trapped. Air went through my windpipe with effort. But the wind hadn't turned to bring my smell to either of the raptor schools yet. I could run, make it to the boundary of the Deep, if I was quick enough, and then lose myself in the thicket. But I didn't fool myself. I couldn't outrun the raptors if they caught sight or scent of me and the underbrush wasn't an obstacle for the small foragers and their sharp claws. But the wind wouldn't hold. The night wind always turned south during the day. It could be seen in the shape of trees around the village and around the Deep.

Then what other option did I have? Shaking with the night's cold as well as fear, which I tried to no avail to suppress, I turned back toward the Deep]. It was obvious the Deep wasn't a natural outcrop just as our huts weren't. There'd been rumours, and even more so when Ion and Tarin disappeared, that the Deep was a dwelling place of old. I didn't care about the rumours and I didn't believe the Deep was anything menacing by itself, especially not the birthplace of raptors. I cared not to be spotted, not to end up as the raptors' dinner.

So, instead of trying to outrun certain death, I turned toward the Deep and started to inch my way around its wall by the feel of my clam palm against the concrete.

Where there was a man-made structure, there had to be an entrance. And that was my only chance to survive.

I hope you enjoyed it! The link to the book can be found here: Amazon Link!

Have a good evening/day!

Character Introduction: Thresha (Warlike)

Hey folks!

I just came home. Today was the first time I had Dim Sum and it was pretty tasty!

Anyway. Today's post will focus on something different than usual. I usually like to do book reviews and give writing advice but this time I want to introduce you to the fun and adventurous main character of Warlike.

Why? Because I think she's really awesome and also because Warlike has gotten quite a lot of good reviews lately and that just makes me very proud.

All right.

Let me introduce you to:

Thresha. The jungle girl.

 A sketch by one of my artists:

Thresha is a warrior in a small tribe within a jungle-like forest. Adjacent to a large desert (the End of the World) this jungle-forest is plagued by great reptilian hunters called the raptors. These are quite dinosaur-like in both appearance and demeanour (think Jurassic Park!) and prey one everything they can catch. They are also quite smart and this means Thresha's tribe has been hunted almost to extinction.

Thresha herself is a strong-willed and stubborn (one could say they are the same) girl who doesn't believe in hiding to assure the tribe's survival. Her philosophy is like that of any warrior out to prove themselves. Thresha wants to fight for her tribe and especially the girl (her clan-sister) she loves.

Thresha gets the chance to stand up to the raptors when her tribe's most skilled warband is killed by the raptors. Warlike's story starts after this elite band of warriors is vanquished and Thresha does not agree with lying low. The death of the venerable hunters Ion and Tarin pushes her to question the Elders of her tribe and in effect chose her own path to fight the raptors.

On her journey out of the jungle-forest to find the legendary weapons that she knows have once existed on Earth she will however meet a lot of resistance. This adversity comes in a lot of shapes and forms as a world opens before her she and her tribe didn't know exited. Thresha learns there is more than just the jungle-forest left of Earth. A chance encounter with a young man from outside the jungle-forest takes her into a spiral of discovery and danger. Among them are a woman who wants her dead because she disrupted the balance of her enclave. And a host of flying metal men (called 'sems') intent on destroying the rest of humanity and assimilating them into more sems. But that's not all. As Thresha is taken far and wide by her ambition to destroy the raptors once and for all she will learn more secrets about the torn Earth she inhabits than her whole tribe thought possible.

Does this sound like something you'd love to read? It's a great adventure with a badass main character who won't let anyone tell her what do (even when she suffers from her decisions).

Check out the book here: (goodreads link)

It has five reviews so far and they're all quite good! WriteBot is quite happy people are enjoying the novel.

WriteBot hopes you'll love Warlike and Thresha! Check them out and have a good evening/day with it!

The importance of resetting your mind when you're stuck

Hey folks!


I survived the mouth hygienist and my teeth look all fancy now. I did however bleed like someone who was stabbed... Aaaand of course they told me to floss every day. I'M TRYING! They recommended me some tools and I actually bought them. A few different kinds of sticks and pokey-thingies and brushes to clean my teeth.

Anyway. I guess that's enough about my teeth.

Today's post (as you can see from the title) will be about inspiration and ways to get un-stuck in your writing project. Let's start with inspiration itself. There are lots of people who will go around and ask authors the age-old question 'Where do you get your ideas??'.

This question is both easy and very difficult to answer. As a lot of authors have said before me 'I get my ideas everywhere!'.

But this is of course quite vague. 'Everywhere' is not a place you can go to in order to get your ideas.

So what are you supposed to do?

I think there are really only three secrets to getting fresh ideas. They all have to do with getting out of your OWN head and into someone else's. Or just out of your own head.

-read a lot
-go outside and meet people (that favourite of mothers' which is almost always ignored)
-think a lot

These are my personal favourites.

Why? Or: Why is it important to get out of your own head? It's simple. Your brain needs to reset. If you've been working very closely on something for a long time you'll eventually become biased (and usually against it). Ideas that seemed fresh and AMAZING the first time around are suddenly stale and boring and your brain keeps telling you 'no one wants to read this kind of stuff'. And anyway. You don't know what to write/edit any more either way.

When this happens this is usually a cue that your brain wants some rest. It's a good opportunity to take a break and do something else: gaming/reading/watching TV.

Will you feel guilty? Perhaps.
Will you be angry at yourself for not working on your own project? Probably.

But will it help you reset your mind and in the long run give you more and better ideas? Also yes.

If you don't have any hobbies -
If you know nothing about the world -
If you don't know PEOPLE -
If you have no experience -

What are you even going to write about? So take a break when necessary! Breaks are just as important as 'actual work'. No matter how much you love something, you can't do it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And you probably don't want to either.

Does this seem like a no-brainer? It is. But still a lot of people become workaholics when they truly care about a project, and they needed to be reminded every once in a while that it's ok to rest. You don't have to wear yourself out. You don't have to throw all of your splendid ideas at one project. It's fine if you wait until later with some of them.

WriteBot out.

PS: This particular piece of advice is valid not only for writers but ALL professions. If you're stuck, take a break. The world will look fresh and new pathways will open up for your tomorrow.

Enjoy your night/day!

What I'm working on: current WIP

Hey everyone!

Today I'll give you an incentive to check out my webpage (www.jasmingelinck.com) more often!

Why should you do it? Because there is soon to be a new story (collection)! At the moment I'm working on an anthology of short stories (among other things) called Xenos. Xenos means strange - and boy are those stories strange (and some of them are horrific)!

In the anthology there will be six stories all centered around one of these topics:

aliens
first contact
weird as heck science experiments
aliens
cosmic horror
aliens

The stories in the anthology will contain old(er) stories as well as brand-new stories! A story that's been on Amazon for a while and is doing well on its own is 2115. This is about a band of people trying to survive the first phase after the aliens landed and their city (Detroit btw) was destroyed. All I can tell you is they're getting outta town real quick! Here's the official blurb:

2115

In the year 2115, aliens landed on Earth. A worn-out soldier, an obliv-addicted EMT, and a little girl take a group of survivors out of the destroyed city to establish a survivors' shelter in an old highway tunnel.

The other stories included in the anthology are:

Moonfarer (a weird Solaris-esque story)
Of One Mind (weird as heck science experiments mentioned above ft. the connection of human minds - alert! Horror!)
Eye in the Sky
Gate (< this one needs a different title yet. It's not complete and not 'done' either at this point)
Immortal (I sent this story off to some magazines and got really good feedback... even though they didn't take it Q_Q)

If you like Lovecraft you might like this anthology. If you like weird as heck cosmic horror/existential horror then you will love this anthology. I know I do (and not just because I'm biased!). I'm actually getting to the point where I write the things that actually TOUCH ME in some way or other. And they're all weird as heck. Please don't tell my therapist.

The anthology will be out on the 7th of December! (A day before my birthday incidentally! What a coincidence!)

Anyway! Stay tuned, sing in tune, check out my website now and then again tomorrow and the day after that, and so on and so forth. There should be an update on Xenos soon. The cover is done. A sneak peek? Hmmm! Soon. I promise.

Have a good day/night!

WriteBot

What are your goals this year? What will they be next year?

Hey everyone!

It's pretty late. I just came home a few minutes ago and decided to give you another post. This one is a simple question to help you think about the year ahead (2019 for those of you living under a rock). Why now? It's not even December yet??!?!

BUT: the earlier you think of YOUR NEXT GREAT GOAL the easier it will be to change this into an obtainable goal by year's end. This means you can start 2019 not with some airy fairy wish of 'oh I'd like to eat 90% less chocolate in 2019 than I did in 2018' but something realistic like 'I will not eat chocolate on one Wednesday per week!'

The questions can be answered very broadly. You can talk about your writing goals (complete ten books? Write one hundred short stories? THINK BIG!) or your life goals (finally get a dog and raise it well). You can mention your relationship goals (such as: I will surprise my partner with a little gift/flower/favourite snack once every month!) or your health goals (I want to get healthier/slimmer/smarter). I'm interested in your lives. I seriously am. Where else am I gonna learn about humans?

Do you have any goals for 2019 yet? How about your 2018 goals? What happened to them? Did you reach them?

The best advice on goal setting that I know of is this: THINK BIGGER.

WriteBot wants to hear all about it in the comments.

Have a good day/night!

TWO RULES for writing success

Hey everyone! It's Sunday. Isn't that great.

I decided to keep this post a bit shorter than usual to make it a little bit easier to digest. I'll start with something a lot of new writers don't like to hear. They're still trying to find the GOLDEN RULE to writing the next BREAKOUT NOVEL. But that's not how it works. There is no such thing as a golden rule in writing. There aren't even many rules (except maybe Pixar's - which are useful because they're concise).

There are only two rules and they don't only apply to writing but ANY project. They're not even what can be strictly defined as a rule.


Rule 1: KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO WRITE

I can't remember how often I broke this rule. It's the most essential and it always trips me up if I ignore it. I will often get an idea for a character or a scene in my mind with people doing something... and I just start to write. I give myself the 'oh it'll work out in the end!' talk just so that I can write (because that's what I love to do!). BUT of course it doesn't work out. Because I don't have enough information. The scene is written in an hour and perhaps the next few days there will  be more great scenes following it. And then the idea just... trickles away. The story stops making sense and I stop writing it.

When you later ask me 'What story did you want to write? What did you want to achieve?' I couldn't answer it. I had no goal or the goal was too small to work out. It was simply just a scene - a floating scene that either doesn't fit anywhere or might fit somewhere in the future.

(And to all of those who think 'oh she's just quitting at the 30k words mark: I'm not. I managed to continue a lot of stories and even finished some of those but the time I'd have to spend editing them either makes it not worth the while or necessitates the start of a whole new story.)

If you don't know what to write you'll flounder like some fish on land. You'll get somewhere maybe in the first stages of your draft but later on it will be incomprehensible. This is probably the most important thing I've learned in all my life.

You have to know what you want/want to say. Otherwise you're lost.


RULE 2: WRITE

This is a simple one. In order to get EXCEPTIONAL at something you have to practise it. If you don't, you won't become exceptional. If you don't care about being exceptional or just want to be 'ok', you really should find something to do that you DO care about to the extent that you're willing to do it several hours a day and at 3 AM if inspiration strikes.

It's difficult for me still. I'd often rather procrastinate than practice. But eh. In reality there's nothing better than writing anyway.

Let me put this in a simple equation.

Amount of Practice = Increase in Ability = Success.


ADDITIONAL ADVICE RULE 3: TAKE BREAKS

This rule is more of an add-on. It should be heeded but you HAVE TO BE CAREFUL not to equal break with procrastination. A break can be 15 - 45 minutes during a writing day.

I wouldn't recommend more than the given time frame because after 45 minutes of break your brain will probably already feel like potato mush and you won't remember what you did 45 minutes ago.

About the lower end I'm not so sure. At times you'll be writing on a difficult project and your brain will just despair and OCD/depression you (if you're so inclined) if you stress it too much. BUT you also want to keep momentum once you're in the ZONE. This is the most important. It doesn't truly matter how long your breaks are (15-45 works for me) as long as you can easily slip back into the ZONE when it's over. That should ALWAYS be your priority. To be able to jump back in right where you left off with clarity.


All right. Let's sum up this post:
There are really only TWO writing (and life) RULES you ever need to know.

1. Know What you Want to Write
2. Write

Do you agree? Do you disagree? Let me know in the comments! It took me fifteen years to figure this out and I'm curious if it's useful to anyone but myself

Have a productive Sunday! Bleep-Bloop, I am WriteBot.

Progress!

Hey everyone!

It's Saturday so here's another post!

I just completed the second-to-last short story edit on my to-do list. Here we go:

• editing the fairy tale Catching Fireflies.
• editing Of One Mind
• editing Immortal (yes, this is a new item!)
• editing Eye in the Sky 

Ok, ok, there's still Eye in the Sky, but that is really short so it doesn't count. I can do it in less than an hour (I think? Hope? I'm not sure...).

Over the last two days this means I've done a lot! I've edited three short stories in the range of 2.5k - 7k words (Out of the Depths, Immortal, Of One Mind). I still feel almost as new! Good to go! I can't wait for tomorrow when I'm going to do Catching Fireflies and (if possible) Eye in the Sky.

I also can't wait to publish my Anthologies. The first one will likely be Worlds of Magic (It has a title! Yey! This is the book of magical stories I had on my 10X list!) and it's really great. It's an amazing adventure (I'm biased) and you should all read it!

On the other side of the coin that is World of Magic, which is pleasant and magical, there is Of One Mind. This actually took me a while because it's so... disturbing really. It's almost up there with Lovecraft (although it's human-made and not cosmic horror) and it will really give you the creeps when you read it. I love it, and I'm disturbed by it, and it draws upon all these lovely emotions I wanted to pull in readers. In one word, it's creepy!

If you like creepy experiments in abandoned biolabs, this is for you!

All right. It's time to actually go outside (haven't done that in two days) and face the world!

WriteBot out. I'll update you once Worlds of Magic is out! (And earlier with more posts on theme and goal-setting, of course!)

Have a good evening! Bleep-Bloop!

How and why to cut words

Hi folks!

This will be a post about how and why you should cut words. I have the perfect example because it happened to me only two days ago.

Let's see.

I've been working on this story the last two weeks. The story's goal/theme was 'character treated poorly by his surroundings wants to be free'. I wrote about 10k words. Then more themes crept in. Why did he want to be free? What did that mean for the rest of his people? What would happen then? How could he solve this? Does he need to free his whole community or only himself? What if he only frees himself?

The story got BIGGER. I did the thing you're not supposed to (always IGNORE 'supposed to' when someone says it to you! Even when you 'supposed-to' yourself!) and started incorporating MORE and BIGGER/BETTER themes into my story. I got to 40k words.

This adding themes is one of the best decisions you can make. Don't stick with a story that's too small. Keep trying to make it bigger. Make it better. Because if you think it's too small (read: boring) when you're writing it (symptoms include boredom and not knowing what to write - also called 'block') it will be sheer agony to finish it (and if you're like me and don't like excruciating pain you won't finish it anyway). At the same time, if it already bores you after 10-20k words, why would anyone else want to read it? And if it bores you after 50k words the same applies.

And if you do add themes and set your sights higher then your story will become better for it. It will surpass your initial 'manageable' goal and grow on its own. It will grow into an amazing story like a rosebud grows into a rose.

Back to my WIP. I am also no longer writing on this document. Why? Because the story outgrew its initial beginnings so much that editing it would NEVER truly work out. The time I would have to invest into editing it is enormous. In truth the whole story would have to be rewritten.

So I had to think about it. It took me two days. There was never a question in my mind about not finishing it. HOWEVER. In order to finish it I have to cut a lot. I have to cut 40k words. The first 40k words. Is that hard? Yes, yes, we've talked about this already, it's hard. But at the same time, it's worth it. I needed to write 40k words to figure out what I wanted my story to be and what I wanted to talk about in it. (Other people by the way call this 'planning'.)


This is the how and why to cut words. There's also a whole post about WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO TAKE BREAKS to follow this up. That will be out tomorrow.

Let me say for now: CUT your words even if it cuts your heart. It's the ONLY way you can find your story's soul and make it what it needs to be for you to be satisfied with it.

WriteBot shall return!

Writing VS putting words together

Hi folks!

It's early (ok - it's almost 9 AM). I decided not to go out today because I feel truly bad (depression). Instead I'll be focusing on writing - including a new post for you!

As you can tell from the title today's post will be about the writing process.

Let me first define 'writing'. In general this is 'putting down words so that they form sentences that make sense'. Most people can do it, some better than others.

The writing I want to discuss however has a lot more to do with your state of mind. The writing considered in this post is TRUE WRITING. This means it's writing that not only makes sense as a single sentence but actually forms a text - and specifically the text you wanted to write. This kind of writing happens when the story is 'going well'. It makes sense in the context of what you intended to write.

There is another thing that I call 'putting words together'. This is also writing - but not in the sense discussed above. It might be coherent and even cohesive BUT it is useless writing in the context of your book. Sure, you're putting words together, and the words have the names of your main characters in them, but honestly, none of it makes sense for your story. You're rambling. You're going off on a tangent. Know that feeling? I think we all do.

So what is the problem with putting words together?

It's simple. The words are not useful to your project. These are the words that will likely be cut. They do not make sense within your story. They're just words in sentences. The sentences make sense. Their input into the story does not.

This 'putting words together' happens to me a lot when I force myself to write. At some point in some stories (usually when my initial goal is too low - more about goal setting in another post) I lose sight of what I wanted to say. But because I'm a writer, and because I often don't realize it immediately, or because my initial goal (OH THIS IS A STORY ABOUT SOMEONE WANTING TO BE FREE) changes into something else (THIS STORY SHOULD REALLY NOT ONLY BE ABOUT THIS CHARACTER TO BE GREAT!) I push on.

Usually this 'putting words together' turns into a mess. A mess I later (even after the 'first draft' so to speak is finished) never want to lay eyes on again and therefore don't. This is how my computer (not my drawer - who keeps their mss in a drawer nowadays?) and probably yours too acquires a lot of stories that do not work out. That's okay. Don't worry too much about those. Think bigger instead. Worry about the next story instead.

Think about what went wrong with the words you put together. There are two reasons why putting together words doesn't work.

a) you lose sight of what you wanted to do
or
b) what you wanted to do isn't big enough and you WANT TO GO BIG

a) This is a simple one. You are tired. You lost sight of what you wanted to do. You don't actually want to be writing this any more (probably because you lost sight of your goal for the story or your story has outgrown it) but you feel guilty about abandoning it. Well, abandon it anyway. The new story (and you know there's one in your head that is MUCH BETTER than your initial idea) will be superior and work out more smoothly. The time you're putting into trying to fix that broken plate would be much more productively spent just buying a new plate. It'll also be much shorter.

b) The story you're writing has outgrown what you set out to do (A post on too-low goal setting coming up shortly as well! Stay tuned!). This happens to me a lot. I will start with a simple idea (because depression balks at GREAT IDEAS) and about 40k words in realize that THIS STORY SHOULD BE DIFFERENT. It's not doing what I wanted the simple story to do. It's much bigger. It needs to be much bigger. And this isn't about fairy-dust dreams. This is about experience.

Sure, at some point during the writing (usually around the 30k mark actually) everyone wants to DO SOMETHING ELSE. SOMETHING BIGGER. SOMETHING BETTER, FASTER, STRONGER.

But that's not what I'm getting at here. I'm getting at real experience, when you KNOW how you work and what won't work for you. I'm there after spending almost 15 years writing nearly every day. I can tell when I'm just being lazy vs when a story isn't working out. That nagging voice in the back of your head that says 'go write something else' 'this story needs MORE'? It might be right. It might be that you're advanced enough to KNOW THYSELF. It might not be laziness or fear of taking the risk of failure after all! Have you considered that?

A good conclusion to this post might be to say: HOLY HECK IT GOT MUCH LONGER THAN I ANTICIPATED. But truly the point of this post is: If you are just putting together words like some 5-9 clerk wanting to get it done and over with there might be something wrong with your story (check a and b above). There is nothing worse than being lost and without meaning in the world (and this includes the world of story writing). If that's the case you need to go deeper into your story and you need to figure out what you actually wanted to say. I promise you the writing blues will disappear like spiders when you've finally found a tissue to remove them (show them the door!) with.

Do you have any experience putting together words instead of truly writing with a purpose? Let me know in the comments! I'm not just saying things when I say I'd really love to know!

WriteBot out.

Cut words to make your story the best

Good evening everyone!

Let me start off by telling you about my day. It was busy. It was terrible. I went to college and the dentist. The dentist was the more fun of the two (seriously my dentist is a cool dude).

In addition to this I've been so busy I barely had any time to write this week. This doesn't help my depression. But I've committed to writing a post for you guys every day so here it goes. This post will be about CUTTING words to make the BEST story.

Let's say you slaved away the whole last year on a story. You like the story. But it's not finished yet.

You need to cut.

And what do you cut?

EVERYTHING that does not fit in with your THEME.

In the same way that animals (who are not prone to having philosophical debates) know how to communicate with each other and sometimes humans (and other species) about what they need (strictly what they need) the same should be true for stories. They should communicate only what they need to.

Does this mean you will have to cut your 200k words draft to make it more meaningful? Yes it does. All the fluff you put in (and we all do) needs to go out. And I'm not merely talking about killing your darlings. I'm talking about cutting 500k words down into their essence. The fewer words you can make it the better. The fewer words = the tighter the story becomes = the better the story will read.

Don't believe me? Think about all these scenes you wrote where something romantic happens that you love (and secretly want to happen to you in real life). Then think about them again. Do they really need to happen? Or are you just trying to put in the fluffy scene because you wanted to read it? Or because you wrote a little too much fan-fiction in your early years and man your two main characters (who are both guys) WOULD MAKE THE PERFECT COUPLE!

(I'm guilty of this... Don't judge.)

Anyway. Back to cutting.

In order to cut the RIGHT words/scenes/walls of text you might want to write a synopsis first. A synopsis (written after the first draft) lets you see immediately what you need and where you went wrong with the story. It'll work even better if you take AT LEAST a month off in between the first draft and synopsis. Yes. That's a long time. But: a) you will not SUDDENLY FORGET what your book was about to the point that you can NEVER retrieve it and b) it will help your story SO MUCH in terms of cohesion.

A synopsis will further give you solutions and highlight your theme. You will instantly and instinctively know that THIS PART DOES NOT BELONG IN HERE. And then you will ask yourself: BUT WHAT DOES? If I cut this then my whole story is ruined.

Hint: It's not. It just needs to rest a while again after you've made the synopsis and cut out everything you no longer need (which can sometimes be as much as HALF or more of the first draft).

Is this hard? Is it painful? You bet! Every single cut destroys me! It goes into my flesh like a barbed arrowhead. It makes my heart bleed and cry at the same time.

BUT! Out of that pain will come something greater. Something better. The story will be CLEAR to you (not directly after cutting, mind you, because that would just be like putting weight on your leg after you had shinbone surgery). The story will make sense.

And in the end you might even tell yourself: Wow, this story is actually GOOD (GREAT)!

So is it worth it? Is it worth the pain of cutting out your darlings and more? You be the judge! I don't want you to trust me blindly (although I do). I want you to try it out for yourself. So get back to your WIP and stop browsing blogs. Writing advice only goes so far until you have to go and learn for yourself.

Have a good evening! Bleep-blooop WriteBot wants to sleep (it's 17:30 PM).

Current WIPs

Hi folks!

It's very early (not as early as usual though). I slept about nine hours and am still tired. Thank you depression.

This post is a continuation of 10X WIP (How to manage all your projects). Let's take another look at the list:

• editing the fairy tale Catching Fireflies.
• editing Of One Mind.
• editing Eye in the Sky.
• editing Hourglass.(And the other books in the series)
• finishing Ris's story.
• writing the NEW STORY.

• publishing short story collections. Into the Deep, Xenos, and (placeholder name) nice magical stories.
• publishing Elegy of the Stars.
• publishing Warlike/The Torn Earth.

These are the most important story related goals. As you can see (or already know) Elegy of the Stars and Warlike has been published. They have sold quite well so far and I'm hoping to get a lot more reviews soon!

The next book that will come out is a short story collection, Xenos. It will be published in December (exact date will be revealed shortly!).



This will be a collection of science fiction short stories related to space and cosmic horror. Strange creatures, weird landscapes, mysterious events.
















In addition to writing on a new story, I'm also editing the stories that will go into the collection Xenos. It's a struggle considering I also have a real life at the moment, but perhaps I'll get rid of the real life and focus on writing again full-time!

All the best for today, people, and see you later!

Cheers,
WriteBot

What value does your fiction give to your readers? On theme.

Hi folks!

It's been a long day and I've finally finished preparing meals for the rest of the week (yes. This is meal prep Monday instead of Sunday!). In any case, here are some thoughts about theme, and the value of stories to readers.

So.

There are a lot of questions out there on the internet about 'What is theme?'. They usually come with the follow up question 'How can I put theme into my book?'. It's not easy to answer this and yet it's not impossible either.

Theme by itself is an ethereal thing. It's intangible (except it isn't really). It feels mythical. A lot of question marks pop up in people's heads when they hear 'theme' (or maybe those are just the literary students). Theme is a bit like a unicorn. It's beautiful but it's also shy. It's rare. It's difficult to find in most mainstream books. Has anyone seen it? Does anyone even really know what it is? Does it even exist? (Well - it should.)

A simple way to include theme in your own fiction is to ask yourself a single question before you write.

This question is:

What do your readers get out of your book once they're reading it/have read it?

It can be paraphrased into 'What do you want to show/teach people with this story?'. Hold on. I said 'teach'. But that doesn't mean 'preach'. There is no excuse for preaching and no one wants to read it, neither in fiction nor non-fiction (pay heed non-fiction authors who write textbooks!). The entire jig of theme is that it's subtle. When done well it should sink into your readers' minds (subconscious) WITHOUT them realizing that 'OH THAT IS THE POINT AUTHOR WANTED TO MAKE'. If they know it and they're not a literary student then that's usually a bad sign. Don't suffocate your reader with your opinion/theme.

All right. Back to What do your readers get out of your book once they're reading it/have read it?

This is one of the most important questions you should be thinking about as soon as you start your first draft.

The answers might be varied (and this is where theme comes in).

Your own unique answer to the question will be - or at least tie in - with your book's theme. The question can be answered in many different ways. A few examples:

When my readers read this book they gain/learn...
... an understanding of love!
... a sense of security in their life!
... how to trust!
... how to become selfless!

If you consider this well before you write the ideas that come into your mind (such as 'I want my readers to learn the value of friendship!') will automatically colour the text while you compose it. The theme will usually wind itself into the story without your being aware of it. It's how I wrote Hourglass (in which I wanted to show a greedy and selfish boy learning the value of friendship and loyalty over shiny trinkets) and Hourglass's theme is coherent throughout the five book series. And I did not plan these books. I simply wrote with that sole idea about selfish to selfless (valuing his friends more than the artifacts he wants to collect) in mind and it worked out beautifully.

There are however two caveats.

The first one is that sometimes it's HARD to know your theme before you've written the story. It can be really excruciating to FIND the answer to the question and determine what exactly it is you want your readers to experience/learn while reading your book.

The second one concerns the writing itself. If you have no idea about the characters and the rest of the plot this method of weaving in theme subconsciously might not work. And if you're still trying out your characters you might not be aware immediately what they want/what you can teach your readers through them.

It might even take one or more drafts to know your theme - and then it might be necessary to do a re-write of the whole book. But that shouldn't scare you. The more you learn about your characters and story the better it will be. There's no need to rush.

So the next time you write something try to get the basics down: the characters and what happens to them. Then think about what this teaches your readers. Or do it the other way around. What would you like your readers to know? What do you think is so valuable it must be written down for everyone to read? Then build on that with your characters.

Does this blog post help you in any way? What do you think about this approach to theme? WriteBot would love to read your thoughts in the comment section below!

Happy evening!

Elegy of the Stars and Warlike PUBLISHED!

Hi again everyone!

'Who is the Monster?' is coming along nicely. In the meantime there's an announcement I have to make!

As I explained in my post yesterday I've uploaded two more stories on KDP. These are two novels: Elegy of the Stars and Warlike.

I'm pleased to inform you they are now ONLINE! They are finally finished and available for purchase!

You can find them with the links above (just click on the titles of the books!) or in my Author Profile: https://www.amazon.com/Jasmin-Gelinck/e/B01H703DRC

If you do read them and like them leave a review! As you can probably tell by now: Reviews are the best! WriteBot greatly appreciates reviews!

D'you want to see the covers? They're really gorgeous!

ELEGY OF THE STARS

On the planet of Glast Oria's only missive is to survive, against the cold, the hunger, the Priests of the Seirios, the Administration of the planet, but when Quinn, another urchin, saves her life from the Administration and lets her stay in his hideout, her allegiance to only herself begins to change.
Over time, a reluctant trust between them forms, and Quinn proposes a heist to steal food from the local cult.
Their plan turns to action in early winter, and at first seems like a success, but once inside the Chantry, the Seirios Cult's headquarters, everything goes terribly wrong, and both of them might not survive to see the planet's spring.

WARLIKE

In the far future on Earth, the names of most cities have been forgotten, and wastelands have taken their places. Thresha's lived in the jungle-forest all her seventeen cycles. A young woman too stubborn to admit defeat when the tribe's strongest war party is slaughtered by the raptors, ancient reptilian giants that were supposed to have been extinct thousands of years ago. Thresha is convinced she can kill the beasts and free her tribe once and for all, but she needs to throw her spears wider than elder Kava allows. Thresha soon finds herself trapped in an ancient maze, in a world before a time anyone of her tribe can remember, faced with monsters she couldn't have imagined and, when she is discovered, exile. But for Thresha, the only way out is forward, and to the east, the Sands and the weapons they hold beckon. The Sands, the end of the world, which no one has ever returned from, and no one believes there is an end to.
It's only when she meets Zon, an almost-outlaw, and his shooting tubes, that her hopes of destroying the raptors earns a chance to succeed. But Zon has problems of his own, a horde of metal men so different from anything Tresha has ever known, and those will have to be dealt with before the raptors can be destroyed once and for all. 

WriteBot has worked on these books the last three years. They are great! Do leave if a review if you want to make WriteBot happy!

Have a good day!