Planning over

As the title suggests I’ve finished planning the next couple of stories. As these stories are setting up the novel I’m having to do a bit more work threading them in so they make sense and the characters are in the right place but it’s all going well.

To be honest as well I’ve been hovering over the break a little bit as well. I was working really hard on the others and by the time I got to writing “The Frozen Keep” I felt a little burnt out and it was a real struggle to fall in love with that story and add twists that would keep it interesting so I feel like it suffered a little bit and so that didn’t happen again I wanted to break away and come back fresh.

I’ve also started thinking about series 2. (Which is what I’m calling each set of short stories finished with a novel). Some new characters, new locations. Without giving out any spoilers it’s going to be featuring the Elves more as I haven’t really jumped into the Elven culture too deeply and I’ve got a lot of ideas that require a lot of research. The latest stories though are featuring characters that you should be familiar with by now. Exploring the relationships further and creating some adventures.

That’s where I’m at anyway. I promise I’m going to knuckle down and get on with it now.  Thank you everyone who has been so generous as to send donations using the “Support” button up top. It’s really incredible that you care so much about this little project and it makes me really determined to develop it and make it into something truly great, so thanks a lot everyone (of course I thanked you individually as well).

Thanks everyone

More stories coming.

We’re all settling in well to the new website. The artwork is looking great as always and I’m enjoying the freedom of being able to post all these things myself.

After finishing the last story I decided to have a little break. I’ve been at this for seven months straight now and inhabiting a fantasy world for that much time is detrimental to ones health I think so I decided to pull back a little bit and work on some other projects. I feel a lot better for it to be honest and whilst I know where the overall story is going sometimes I want to rush to get there and I think that is damaging to the individual stories in some ways, there are many I’m proud of but some that I feel are a little rushed out because I’m to excited about whats coming next.

Having a little break has given me a chance to think about the next two short stories though. The challenge now is to create standalone adventure stories that also link in to my idea of the novel which is on it’s way. But the next two stories have been planned, I’ve started writed number eight (although I’m only two hundred words in). These ones are mostly character based much like the frozen keep I think in that it’s more about how the characters interact and learning more about how they think in a pressure situation etc. I’m going to write some action scenarios in though of course. Although from the look of my notes the novel is going to be heavy on the action, I’m really looking forward to writing that .

Well, I’ve rambled enough in here. Thanks for reading everyone and thanks for the e-mails of support, I do try to reply to everyone, if you can’t find me I’m always at mike@storiesofatlas.com.