E Is for Environment Minister

Silly days of the week. They go sequentially don’t they? I missed a day yesterday, and posted The Doctor just before this post. But this one is on time!

For the A to Z Challenge, we move on to the letter E, and while there is an engineer in this story, it focuses more on the Environment Minister. But the engineer is a recurring character while the Environment Minister is not. And this is where things start to heat up! So, let’s find out what happened and you can also see what was going on in my head when I wrote this part:

If you want to keep up with the story on my YouTube channel, then please consider subscribing! And let me know what you thought about this part of the story.

D Is for Doctor

The alphabet is easy. The fourth letter is D. And it’s pretty easy to figure out a job that starts with D.

Last time, our carpenter had a mishap, and so he had to have someone check over his injury. Here is the Doctor! No, not from Doctor Who, but an actual medical doctor.

So, we continue the A to Z Challenge with the letter D and The Doctor. Check out the video of me reading my story, and then I talk a bit about some of the background.

If you’re interested in keeping up with the story as I release it, then please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel! I talk a lot about books, reading, writing, and even some science fiction. And let me know what you think in the comments below.

C Is for Carpenter

Part 3 is here for my reading of Ariadne! The letter C stands for Carpenter.

If you remember from my previous posts, I participated in the A to Z Challenge three years ago, and I wrote a flash fiction series based on the letters of the alphabet, each part representing a different profession. For the letter C, I chose carpenter.

On my YouTube channel, I decided to read the stories out and then discuss various aspects on what was going through my mind while I was writing. Who are the characters? What’s revealed about the world and my inspiration? Well, find out in the video!

If you have any comments, then please let me know down below.

B Is for Botanist

Oops! I missed a day. But here it is, this is part 2 of the Ariadne flash fiction series I did three years ago for the A to Z Challenge! You can see the full list of stories here.

In this part, I read the story, “The Botanist.” I also discuss the main character, Malika Said, and a bit more about the tree. Find out what I have to say about my writing thought process in the video:

If you’d like to keep up with the videos on my YouTube channel, then please consider subscribing.

And let me know what you thought about this part!

A to Z Challenge Again?

Three years ago, I participated in the A to Z Challenge. This year, I’m sort of participating, but not really. First of all, I’m not signed up for it. But secondly, this is a blogging challenge, and what I’m doing isn’t blogging. But I am informing you of it on my blog. Instead, I am doing VEDA, Vlog Every Day in April. And it is very much related to the A to Z Challenge I did three years ago.

You see, three years ago, I wrote a 26 part series of flash fiction stories based on my world of Ariadne. This year, I’m reading them out and talking about the inspirations, backgrounds, and characters involved in each part. I’m doing this all on video. Below is my announcement video.

Every day, I will be posting each video on here, and you can leave your comments on this blog or on the video itself, if you want. And I consider this my return to blogging!

So, hi!

I Am a Writer

I decided to talk a bit about my writing on YouTube. Watch the video below.

There are a couple places I mentioned that you can read my writing. Here they are:

Journey to Ariadne is available on my official website.

Ariadne stories from A to Z is available here.

Expect more in the future. I’d like to work on some editing, then I can get more parts of Journey to Ariadne online. I already have three more parts written, but they have not been critiqued.

Comments are always welcome!

A Little Thing Called Writing – My Plans

It’s about time I talk about writing, right? Especially my writing. Well, some things are being done:

• Got myself an office… though I need to make it usable.
• Got myself a Patreon. Please support my work at my Patreon page! Also, video here. For information about the rewards of being a patron, check out my Patreon page for levels of support.

The time I have to write depends on these things:

• Work
• Family
• Interruptions

So, with that out of the way, here are my plans. There’s a lot to do.

Journey to Ariadne

Get back to work on this. I have some parts already finished, which means I still need to get them edited. That’ll be up to the nice people over at Critique Circle. Once they’ve been edited, they’ll be up on my official author’s page. I’ll also give early access to them for anyone who is a Patreon patron.

The first Ariadne novel

Outlining will begin! I’ll be spending more time on the novel than on Journey to Ariadne. Why? Well, the novel is bigger and each part of Journey is quite short and requires far less time to write. Simple, isn’t it?

Artwork and sketches

I’ll be doing a lot of concept artwork and sketches, especially maps. These will be available on my author’s page. However, early access to them will be available to some of my Patrons.

Worldbuilding

I will resume my worldbuilding posts, and there will be many. I hope for a couple a month, as they are very involved and complex posts to write. Here’s what’s to come.

And that is about it. There’s a lot to do, and with the privacy of my own office, I can finally achieve it. Some things to consider for the future are beta readers, editors (Patreon should help out), cover art (actually, the first book’s already got a cover artist, and I love the way it looks!), and making sure I figure out how to publish on Kindle, Smashwords, and Createspace.

Any comments and questions are appreciated!

Ariadne Stories from A to Z

Last year, I participated in the A to Z Challenge, and for that challenge, I wrote a very brief story about a person who lived on Ariadne for each letter of the alphabet. It grew into something bigger than I imagined it would. It became an actual story and sets up the first novel a bit. This year, I didn’t participate because of our move to Canada. However, in honour of the challenge, here is last year’s challenge, all available in one post with links to each part. Read it all if you like. Each part will be very quick to read. Enjoy!

• A – The Artist
• B – The Botanist
• C – The Carpenter
• D – The Doctor
• E – The Environment Minister
• F – The Farmer
• G – The Geneticist
• H – The Horticulturalist
• I – The Irrigation Engineer
• J – The Judge
• K – The Kitchen Supervisor
• L – The Librarian
• M – The Microbiologist
• N – The Nurse
• O – The Obstetrician
• P – The Palaeobotanist
• Q – The Quarry Worker
• R – The Railroad Engineer
• S – The Surveyor
• T – The Teacher
• U – The Urban Planner
• V – The VTOL Pilot
• W – The Waitress
• X – The Xylophonist
• Y – The Youth Coordinator
• Z – The Zoologist

I hope you stuck with the entire story. I mostly just skimmed over some of the parts, and realised that I really need to read it again. Get my mind back into Ariadne and the characters so I can continue to write Journey to Ariadne and the first novel.

Please leave comments below, or you can leave comments on the story posts. I’d love to hear your impressions.

One-Sentence Summaries – Part Two

Yesterday, I posted three one-sentence summaries of future books or series I’ll be writing. If you haven’t read it yet, take a look here. This time, I’ll be writing a few more.

The Knight of Ariadne: Book 1

This is actually the original story I had created along with the map of Ariadne long, long ago. It’s one of my most developed stories, but it won’t be the first written. The title of the trilogy has two meanings, which I’m not going to tell you. Sorry, it’ll be revealed in the book.

• Character: A young man with enormous power
• Conflict: Infiltration of Earth forces into the Knights
• What’s at stake: Freedom and a way of life
• Action: Train to be a Knight and stop the spies
• Setting: Ariadne

One young man must become a Knight and use his powers to stop the infiltration by Earth forces, who are determined to undermine freedom and a peaceful way of life.

Not sure what to say here. I think it needs some improvement.

The Knight of Ariadne: Book Two

This is, of course, the sequel. It’s a continuation, but is itself a self-contained story.

• Character: A young Knight (same character as before)
• Conflict: A cult-like group saps the energy of other people to plunge Ariadne into chaos
• What’s at stake: Peace and order
• Action: The Knight takes charge of a company of Knights and discovers the extent of his powers
• Setting: Ariadne

Many people fall victim to a cult-like group of energy vampires, while a young Knight uses new powers along with his companions to preserve peace and restore order.

I found this one tough to write. What do you think?

The Knight of Ariadne: Book Three

This if the final part and will bring to close this trilogy. However, it marks a big change in the world, and leads to some interesting future stories.

• Character: A young Knight (same guy as before)
• Conflict: The Earth-loyal faction returns to release an alien biological weapon and gain control of an unlimited source of energy
• What’s at stake: Millions of lives
• Action: The Knight and his partner seek the Earth-loyal agent to prevent him from achieving his goal
• Setting: Ariadne

Bitter after repeated failures to control Ariadne, the Earth faction sends its best agent to release an ancient biological weapon and gain control of an unlimited source of energy, but a young Knight and his partner must risk everything to stop the deaths of millions.

Although the third one is longer, I feel more satisfied with it. Oddly, I have an impression of James Bond when I think of the actual story.

What do you think of these three one-sentence summaries? Let me know which ones work for you, and which don’t. I’ll have more for my fantasy stories soon in part three. The comments section below is at your disposal.

One-Sentence Summaries – Part One

Sometimes a single sentence can sell a book. It’s also called a hook. That’s what you want to do, you want to attract potential readers with this sentence. This post has a good summary of how to write a one-sentence summary.

Looking at what it says, you should have a character, conflict, what’s at stake, action, and if necessary, the setting. So, I thought I’d give this a try with various upcoming books I have planned.

Ariadne: Origins Book 1

This is going to be my debut novel. It takes place several years after the colonisation of Ariadne. It’s called Origins because the two books will show how important features of Ariadne develop or are discovered.

• Character: A young woman with unusual powers
• Conflict: A hostile takeover
• What’s at stake: Survival of the colony
• Action: Lead a resistance
• Setting: Ariadne (though this may not be necessary to mention by name, so I may call it a distant colony world)

On a distant world, a young woman with unusual powers must lead a resistance against a hostile force threatening the survival of the colony.

Ariadne: Origins Book 2

This is the second book in the Origins duology.

• Character: A team of investigators
• Conflict: A former team member who defected wants to control an alien biological weapon
• What’s at stake: The lives of the colony
• Action: Discover the secret of the alien presence
• Settings: Ariadne (or a distant colony world)

A team of investigators must discover the secret of an alien presence to prevent a defector from destroying everything with an alien biological weapon.

Honestly, I don’t like this one as much. I need to figure out a way to make it sound better.

Untitled Solar System Exploration Science Fiction Series

This series is a collection of shorter books that I have in mind that mostly features only one character and a handful of minor characters who don’t appear much at all. It’s a solitary exploration.

• Character: A terminally ill man
• Conflict: An internal struggle with mortality
• What’s at stake: A dying wish to see the Solar System
• Action: Test a new spacecraft and space suit.
• Setting: The Solar System

A terminally ill man battles with his own mortality as he tests a new spacecraft to fulfill his wish to explore the Solar System.

This one seems simpler and I think the story itself is a straightforward tale.

These are the three most immediate books or series I plan on writing. There are others that I have planned for the future, as well. I’ll do another post summarising those.

My question for you is this: Which of these one-sentence summaries catches your eye the most? Are there any that don’t sound very good? Any that sound very good? Let me know in the comments below.

Also, if you want to share your own one-sentence summaries for books you’ve written or plan to write, please include those in your comments.