Soul of the Heart’s Story Board on Pinterest

Today I’ve got some visuals for you! 🙂 Given that NaNo has long crossed the half-way mark it’s probably a good thing I’m preparing this post in advance back in October. I expect my sanity won’t be doing too well by now – and a few pretty images is much easier to get through now than lots of text! Our minds have earned a break, NaNonites!

*ahem*

As you might know I’m a wee bit obsessed with Pinterest, and love creating story boards for my WsIP. The images I’ve got for you today are all from my Research Soul of the Heart Board – apart from the image immediately below. I made that myself, all by myself, and it went straight into my Soul of the Heart board 🙂 (and yes, I’m just a little bit proud of my creation. It’s not what I studied Photography for but this is what I do now.)

Because this WIP is still in its early stages and I haven’t even decided on a proper title yet, I don’t want to give too much away, but I hope that the images will give you a good idea regardless 🙂 I’ll post more details next year when it’s closer to being released – until then, these visuals will have to do.

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Characters

Doran

Naavah Ora

840

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Countries

Ceidir

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hjeva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vaska

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vasael’In

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you obsessed with Pinterest, too? Do you create story boards for your novels, or for everything book and inspiration related? Let’s stalk each other! (over tea and cookies, naturally – I wouldn’t have it any other way)

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For all of my other musings, click me!

For Cookie Break’s home page, have a look here.

Progress Update – Today with Excerpt! ;)

Can you believe we’re in the second half of November already? I honestly don’t know where my year has gone! But more on that next month, when I talk about my favourite reads this year amongst other things 😉

How are you coping, NaNonites? Has the madness settled in yet? On Tuesday we passed the halfway point through November, which means that by now, NaNoWriMo is over half-way there!! In other words – if you take the weekends off like I do, we only have eight more days to reach 50K! If that’s not a reason to panic…

But we don’t panic. We soldier on and we persevere. And it’s precisely because we passed the half-way point on Tuesday that I thought a progress update couldn’t hurt! (It’s not as exciting as what I’ve got for you next week Friday, by the way, but keep reading. I’ll get to that in a moment.)

So far this month I’ve written 35,261 words, which means that I only need to do 1,800 (roughly) on each remaining day to hit 50K. I’m feeling confident! Tired, yes, but confidence is in there somewhere, too.

How are you getting on? Are you on track, or have you fallen behind? Go you if you’re still on track, and if the latter option sounds more like you – you’ve got this! Soldier on, NaNonite! Your story is wonderful, but it will only be read if you hit those word counts! So make yourself another tea, get a biscuit (which is literally what I’m doing right now – I’m having tea and little delicious gingerbread men for breakfast), and write on! You’re rocking it!

 

But I’ve teased you for long enough, so let’s get to the exciting announcement I’ve mentioned! 🙂 I feel like it’s taken me a really long time to find the right title, but I’ve NAMED THE SEQUEL!

Next week Friday I’ll be revealing the title of Rise of the Sparrows’ little sister, Book 2 in the Relics of Ar’Zac trilogy :’) The final book in the trilogy was named a while ago, but I’ll wait with that one until it’s more relevant. Say, some time after Book 2 has been published. Or maybe until I’ve started writing it, at least.

But onto the second thing I promised – the excerpt 😉 It’s from Soul of the Heart (temp. title), the novel I’m writing during NaNo 🙂 ‘Ginger’ is a nickname, but to avoid spoilers that’s all you’re getting… 🙂 I hope you enjoy!

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Ginger didn’t budge. “I think you’re asking us if we’re okay so often because you’re not.” Doran froze. Something inside him stopped. Was Ginger right? Had he figured him out so easily? “You’re hurting, too, perhaps more than us. Why?”

Doran wanted to tell him. Ginger had been so open with him; it wasn’t right that Doran couldn’t do the same. He turned away and closed his eyes. Rhys stared back at him.

“It’s a long story.” Doran wanted to tell him. Was it this difficult for Ginger to remember his childhood? Had it been this hard for him to remember his own name? Doran wondered what Ginger saw when he closed his eyes. Who was staring back at him in the dark?

“Will you tell me? Not now, but one day?”

Doran nodded. He would. He didn’t know when, but he would. He needed to confess what he’d done. “I promise. Now get into bed before I drag you there.”

Ginger blushed, and the tension was gone.

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All gifs from giphy.com

All content belongs to the author, Sarina Langer.

For all previous updates on my books’ progress, click me!

For Cookie Break’s front page, take a look here.

The Nine Gods of Vasael’In

Today’s post is going to be short so I don’t keep you from NaNo for too long (I’m pretending that we’re all still excited and haven’t lost it just yet since it’s only been a week – if you have, indeed, gone mad, apply cookies and tea when necessary.)

When you create a whole world from scratch, you need to keep religion in mind. You may not be religious yourself, but some of your characters might be, and it plays a particularly big role in the life of one of my main characters.

Naavah Ora’s people are polytheistic, and worship a total of nine gods. Since Naavah Ora refers to her gods often, I really wanted to get this aspect ready in time for NaNo instead of introducing 39205 placeholders to my draft! Just imagine the nightmare of replacing them all later!

So in today’s post I’m introducing you to Naavah Ora’s elven gods 🙂 Because these are gods and not ordinary people I took my time naming them to make sure they sound the part (tempting as it was to have Larry, God of mischief and biscuits…). Don’t worry about pronouncing the names correctly – they’re made up, after all. Pronounce them however works for you! I very much want you to bring a part of yourself into my novels, and if you can’t do that in made-up names for elven deities, when can you?

Ellasan

As the first goddess and deity of life, she’s seen as the Mother of all elves as well as the other gods.

Meviris & Islirrin

The sisters of day and night, light and darkness. Meviris is commonly worshipped by elves who dedicate their lives to helping others. Islirrin is often worshipped by thieves and assassins who rely on her shadows.

Llian’In

The god of the hunt, who leads hunters to their prey – be it for food, pelts or sport.

Lyrinaan

She’s the goddess of art and inspiration, which makes her the patron saint of writers 😉

Alharys

He’s the god of love, compassion and empathy. Elves call on him to bless their love, their marriage, or to seek comfort.

Naverys

She’s the goddess of magic and the mind. She’s often worshipped by scholars, sorcerers and students.

Ithrean

She’s the goddess of death and spirits. Humans often mistake her for an evil deity, because she guides spirits into the afterlife where she resides.

Mist Walkers, like Naavah Ora, worship her as their protector since they enter her spirit realm.

Valynaan

He’s the god of warriors and loyalty. Valynaan is said to have led the elves out of their old home when the corruption that destroyed it first spread.

Do gods play an important role in your writing? How do you go about naming them, or do you prefer to be vague and keep it simple, like God or the Maker? Pour yourself a tea and let’s chat! 🙂

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All gifs came from giphy.com.

For all of my other musings, click me!

For Cookie Break’s home page, have a look here.

Progress Update – The First Draft is Finished!

Exciting news, everyone! Yesterday, I finished the first draft of Relics of Ar’Zac Book 2!

To celebrate I’ll make my eBook FREE on Amazon over the weekend, so keep an eye out for that 😉 There’ll be an actual announcement in a moment, too.

That means that I’ve now written two books! Allow me a second to wrap my head around that…

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…

Nope, but I’ll get there eventually :’)

Book #2 is now proofing, and won’t be touched again for at least one month 🙂 In the meantime, I’ll fix up my revised editing routine, and I’ll dive fully into my other two WsIP, Immortals (temp. title) and Soul of the Heart. I’ve really missed my immortal girls and my treasure hunter, my mist walker and my sacrifice, and can’t wait to get back to them.

I hope to have a title reveal for you soon, too,but before that I’ll have a map for you encompassing more than just Rifarne 😉 I might also share my revised editing plans with you if you’re interested since they’ve changed a lot since the last time I posted them.

Book 2 will need a lot of editing, so I’ll mostly use this month to prepare myself for a fierce battle with unnecessary words and sentence structure.

But until then, feast your eyes on this:

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All content belongs to the author, Sarina Langer.

The gifs came from Giphy

For all previous updates on my books’ progress, click me!

For Cookie Break’s front page, take a look here.

Progress Update – Decisions were made!

Phew, it’s been a busy two weeks! How are you guys? 🙂

I’ve got a bit to report on each WIP, so I’ll put this post into sections and you can skip the ones you don’t care about 🙂

General News

CookieBreak had a makeover! Do you like it? 🙂 There are still a few things I want to mess about with, but for the most part this is my little blog’s new look!

I’ve also done some renovations over on Pinterest, and will use it more actively from now on. I didn’t even realise you could use it like that until recently, so I’m still excited about all the possibilities. If you’ve got an account, you can stalk me here and we can stalk each other 🙂

I’ve decided to cut back drastically on the excerpts I share on here. It was different when I was working on Rise of the Sparrows since that was the first in the series, but now that I’m working on the sequel I don’t want to spoil anything – no matter how tiny the excerpt. I might post an excerpt from time to time, but it won’t be often. I might, however, share excerpts from Soul of the Heart since that’s the first in its series 🙂

Relics of Ar’Zac #2

I didn’t get quite as much done as I wanted this week since I was recovering catching up from when my parents were visiting, and the word count has suffered a little because of it. In total I only managed 1,764 words, which isn’t much but it’s better than nothing.

Most of the characters who needed names have been named now, and a side character has unexpectedly grown into a much more exciting one. Now if that isn’t progress… 😉 On top of that, several plot bunnies have been resolved and I’ve got a clear idea of what needs to happen in the second half now, so all in all it’s been a successful week 🙂

Soul of the Heart

Last week Tuesday I announced my new WIP! Soul of the Heart is a provisional title, so don’t get used to it 🙂

In case you missed the post, you can visit it via the link above or you can simply have a read through the first shared excerpt now:

Immortals (temp. title)

Last night I made the executive decision to cut all 9,5K words from my WIP. This might seem a little extreme, but it wasn’t going anywhere and the whole thing felt stale, even with a lot of unresolved plot bunnies and even though I’ve barely started. So I’m starting over. I’ll keep everything I had so far around in a separate folder, but I doubt I’ll be using it again for this draft. It’s for the best, trust me ^-^

She’s helping me plot by sitting on my wrist!

That’s it for this week! Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! ^-^

~Sarina

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All content belongs to the author, Sarina Langer.

The gifs came from Giphy

For all previous updates on my books’ progress, click me!

For Cookie Break’s front page, take a look here.

Soul of the Heart

Following up from last week’s post about the benefits of writing for fun, I thought now was a good moment to share something I’ve been working on 😉

I’ve hinted at it here and there, but today I can confirm that I’ve been working on a new WIP! It’s another fantasy series – how many books it’ll have hasn’t been decided yet – and Soul of the Heart is a temporary title only, so don’t get attached to it 🙂 I thought it’d be easier than calling it Book 2 all the time 😛

Honestly, I don’t know how well I’ll be able to work on three WIPs at the same time. My main focus remains the sequel to Rise of the Sparrows, of course, and I should probably set this aside until the first draft, at least, of Immortals (temp. title) is done, but I’ve already been trying to pretend this wasn’t constantly at the back of my mind for months and it hasn’t worked. Ignoring it clearly isn’t the way forward! I’ll keep working on it whenever I can, and we’ll see what happens ^^

Here’s the very first excerpt – enjoy 🙂

Inspiration from my Pinterest research board

Naavah Ora stared into the soul of the Heart, and knew instinctively that it was dying. There was a presence there with her – her own presence should have been impossible – and it slowly corrupted the world.

The red grass beneath her feet swayed in the windless breeze as always, and the same breeze caressed her skin, but something wasn’t right. In the distance she saw the city – a haven for all dead – bright and shining as ever, but still something wasn’t right.

It was the missing whisper on the wind. It was the missing laughter in their eyes. It was the slow hiss that carried over the meadow and into the sky, and turned her blood to ice.

And all she could do was watch as it slithered invisibly to the city at the heart of their haven, and turned the dead against them.

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All content belongs to the author, Sarina Langer.

For all other updates on my books, click me!

For Cookie Break’s front page, take a look here.

Progress Update – Halfway There!

It’s been a busy two weeks! As you know, my goal was to write 20K in those two weeks, to reach the midpoint before my parents come to visit on Sunday. Did I manage that? Well, not quite. Well…

I did reach the midpoint in the draft, but I didn’t reach the midpoint as far as the word count is concerned. Then again, I feel like I have more left to write than I’ve written already, so I’m fairly sure I’m still on track 🙂 When I set my total word count goal it was mainly to have the progress bar in Scrivener slowly turn from red to orange to yellow to green, but since I don’t know how many words I’ll actually end up having… You all know how it is 🙂

Anyway! This week, I’ve written 6,398 words – which still isn’t too shabby and not that far off my goal of 8K. This brings the current total to…

43,399

The main reason it didn’t go as smoothly this week is that I don’t have the second half of this draft as planned out as I had the first. Now things are slowly falling into place, and I’ll take some time next week to think about where things are going, and whether I’m happy with the direction it’s currently taking.

My Sellybean helped me write on Wednesday.

I have a lot of people and places to name!! I’ll get on that next week, too 🙂 Once I’ve done that, I’ll be able to fill in my sketch of the world map a little more, too, so I might have an updated version of that soon 😉

Since I’ll be preoccupied next week with entertaining my parents, there won’t be a Progress Update on Friday. All other posts have been scheduled, but I don’t know how much time I’ll have to pop in and reply to your comments. I’ll try to stay caught up on your blogs so I don’t have as much catching up to do when I get back.

There are a couple of things to look out for next week. The first one being a big visual make-over to Cookie Break! My little blog has had the same look ever since I first started it over a year ago, and while I’ve done some smaller bits I feel that it’s time for a change. I’ve got a few things in mind and will hopefully find a moment to play around with that next week. Probably while my parents weep over the state of my garden and start weeding with or without my permission (which they totally have – someone should do it, and for some reason they enjoy it)

Treated myself to some books on Tuesday ❤ There goes the whole no-more-books-until-I’ve-read-the-ones-I-already-have! thing

The second one is kinda huge, and it’ll be announced on Tuesday 😉 I’m really excited to finally share it with you, so please pop in if you get a chance ^-^

Have a lovely weekend, everyone! 🙂

~Sarina