TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #99

I've put off writing this update, because honestly there isn't much to tell. However, since we're now into January, it's time for an update on how Dilmir 4 is progressing, and also where I stand with novels and other future writing projects.

Dilmir 4
Dilmir 4 is continuing in the outline phase, which is basically what discovery writers would call 'writing the first draft'. This is something I could potentially do very quickly, probably getting the whole thing done in a week or two.

I'm still not 100% sure why I can't seem to make myself do that, but my working theory is that once the story is more or less designed, I lose interest for going back over it and whacking out miniscule details. Which is about 50% of the outlining phase.

For this reason, progress has been slow. I'm getting around a chapter outlined a day if I'm lucky. Some days go by with no work done at all. I'm trying...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #98

It feels like it's been much longer than just over a month since my last update. This is probably because it feels like it's been a long time since I worked on Dilmir 4. And it feels this way because that is exactly what's been happening. At least until recently.

For most of November, I made barely any progress on Dilmir 4. Several RL things conspired together to take my focus away from the fan fiction, and when I did sit down to work on it, various minor problems with the plot allowed my attention to wander to other things.

I finally forced myself to sit down away from all other distractions, with only what there was of the plot to work on. It wasn't much of a story. When I started work on it, I had a vague idea of how things would end, but not much else. Because I had planned on everything ending with book 3, I now had to invent or extend the arcs of the various side characters, and find ways to...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #97

It's been a bit since my last FFC update. Since then, I've posted Dilmir 3, received input on it, and begun work on the final installment in Dilmir's story, Archmage of Feylund.

So far, the development has progressed quickly, with very few issues. The main development is done, and the core pieces of what needs to happen are in the outline. But predictably, because anything worth reading is going to have problems in the development phase, and because I've set myself up for this without even knowing it, I have now run into DIFFICULTIES.

Not the kind of soul-crushing hope-extinguishing difficulties I normally have when it comes to development, granted, but still difficulties nonetheless. This is because, despite my earlier confidence when posting Dilmir 3 that I could easily handle every character I had created, and weave all of their plots together into a cohesive whole, achieving such a feat is proving...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #96

Today I want to bring you all a major update concerning the Dilmir series. Don't worry, the whole thing hasn't crashed and burned, and you'll be seeing a new fiction very soon. But I've been facing some realizations concerning the end of Dilmir's tale over the last few days, and I've finally come to a conclusion.

Here it is: The Dilmir series will comprise four books instead of three.

Before I tell you why I'm doing this, I need to explain why I did NOT want to do this. This was a hard decision to make, and one which I've tried to avoid making for several weeks. This is because I'm ready, finally, to start work on my first novel. I've been ready to finish up the Dilmir series and move on for some time.

For this reason, I really didn't want to expand Dilmir's tale with a fourth book. I figured this would delay starting my novel even further, and that's not something I wanted to do. ...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #95

I've hit a bit of a midpoint with the writing of Dilmir 3, and decided that it warranted another update, to let you know more about what to expect, as well as when to expect it.

The outline for Dilmir 3 is broken up into three fairly distinct 'phases', each roughly equal in length. I've written the first two phases, which brings the current page count to 101. So we're on track for the rough 150 page mark as a whole.

Progress has been pretty steady, but there might be some choppiness in writing this last part. For reasons which I'll probably expound upon in the author's note, the final phase of the outline is way less fleshed out than the other two. There were so many revisions which kept happening in this phase that when I finally got the outline working, I didn't have the steam left to properly outline most of it. So this means that the writing might be a little stop-and-go as I outline between writing...