Of Whispers and Wanderings - Free Promo

Let me guess, that 'free' in the title is what caught your eye. Shush, now, don't deny it. You know it did. ;)

Anyway, yes - I published Of Whispers and Wanderings last year. The ebook is free until May 19th. This isn't a big event or anything like that; I'll save that for my next published work (and no, you don't get any information about that, because for one, I have to finish writing it, and for another, telling you about it ruins the surprise). Here's the link to it on Amazon:

Of Whispers and Wanderings

All that is happening here is that my collection of short stories and poems is free, as far as the ebook goes, for five days. Part of this is to hopefully get more people aware that I'm a writer. The other part is, hey, free books. Everyone likes free books. And it will make them happy to get something for no money. Right?

So yes; that's about all that needs to be said...

Oh! One more thing! I would appreciate it so very much if those of you who do download and read Of Whispers and Wanderings leave a review for it. It would mean a lot, regardless of whether you hated or loved the book. *grins*

I would also appreciate it if anyone who sees this (if they're so inclined) can share the blog post on social networks and what-not. Like I said, I'm trying to get the word out about my books and such. :)

That's all, I suppose. Have fun! I hope. You're free to sue me though if my book, like, makes you blind or gives you permanent brain damage. ;)

Until next time,

Theodora Ashcraft

Of Solarii, Worldbuilding, and Procrastination

(I think that may just be the lamest (or most creative) title I've ever come up with...)
Anyway, I haven't been doing much actual writing lately. I have been doing a lot of planning though (and a lot of procrastinating, unfortunately).

For those of you who are wondering, Of Whispers and Wanderings is still in the editing stages. What with my starting college classes, I haven't had a lot of time to work on it.

However, I haven't completely pushed Of Whispers and Wanderings to the sidelines. I've been planning things out for it. I have an idea for a few new short stories to add to it, so I'm going to start working on those, hopefully today sometime.

I've also been working on other things for this short fiction collection--cover information, acknowledgments, and other details CreateSpace insists on knowing before they do anything at all with the project you want to self-publish.

Anyway, I've also begun planning for two different projects. If I didn't have my hands full before, I certainly do now.

The first project is my fantasy trilogy. I'm sure some of you have heard of it - I've mentioned it several times. I've written three or four drafts of the first book, but was never truly serious about it until now.
Well, I've (finally) started working on planning out the trilogy again. I'm sorting out the important details and plot points so that I hopefully won't write more than two or three more drafts of the first novel.

I have a title sorted out for the trilogy already: The Songs of Old trilogy. I had a title for each of the three books a while ago, but a few changes I made to the plot turned it all around. So now I have to come up with new titles. Oh well; it's no big deal. I think actually writing the books is more important at the moment.

I haven't only been making changes to the plot; I've also been discovering information and details of Solarii.

See, I pushed Solarii to the back of my mind a couple of months ago. Actually... I pushed pretty much all of my writing to the back of my mind. I was dealing with a lot of stuff and starting college, so I decided I didn't want to write.

I didn't notice anything at first, but after a month, I realized - I was really missing my writing. Even if I didn't write anything constructive, at least I was writing; using my imagination and exploring possibilities.

So I decided that this year, I would plan out my fantasy trilogy and write the first draft of the first book.

Lately, my mom has been doing a lot of yardwork. This is the perfect time for me to puzzle out things about Solarii. So whenever she tells me to come outside and help with the yardwork, I turn on my CD player and start thinking about Solarii. Nothing in particular; just the world itself. I let my mind wander and see where it takes me.

An aspect that I've been pondering a lot lately is the cultures of the races in Solarii. You know, the kinds of laws they have, their traditions, and things like that.

Now, this is where my next idea for a project comes in (if you recall, earlier I mentioned having begun planning for two new projects).

During a point in time when I was extremely bored, I was commenting to myself about how I should worldbuild on Solarii more often. At the same time, I was also berating myself for not working on short stories. I need to write a few short stories from a female's point of view, because - though completely unintentional - almost all of my short stories (and longer works, for that matter) feature a male as the main character.

Well, this matter of the worldbuilding and the short stories clashed, and I had an idea: why not write a bunch of short myths, fables, and other such things from different cultures in my Solarii? If I did that, not only would I be writing short fiction like I need to, but I will also be learning more about the culture and history of the cultures of Solarii - which is a form of worldbuilding.

And that was how the idea of writing a collection of events, myths, etc. from the five races of Solarii (men, Elves, Dwarves, Faeries, and Lycans [oh, did I say? I may be changing the name of the Lycans to something else; more on that sometime soon]) came about. So I hope to work on that throughout this year and the next, and hopefully have a good collection done by May of next year.

So, that's another project I have. Let me think how many I have now - I want to write the first draft of the first book in my fantasy trilogy... write that pirate novella... self-publish Of Whispers and Wanderings... and write this collection of Solarii's mythology.

Yeah, I've got my hands full for the next year and a half. I think it's time for me to stop procrastinating and actually work on this stuff.

And that's what's been going on with me lately, writing-wise.

It draws ever nearer...

(I can never decide which words to capitalize in my blog titles. So I decided to only capitalize the first one.)

Anyway. As for what is drawing ever nearer...

That would be the publication of my short fiction collection, previously called Of Warriors and Werewolves.
I say previously, because it has had a title change! Thanks to my friend Ophelia (if you haven't followed her blogs yet, you should; I'll be waiting for you when you come back. Followed her? Okay, good), Of Warriors and Werewolves is now known as Of Whispers and Wanderings.

The new title seems to fit it better, so that will probably be the final title.

At the moment, Ophelia and another friend of mine, Jeremiah (I interrupt myself again to say: if you haven't followed his blog, get on over there and do that; seriously, you won't regret it) are test-reading the collection for me (and doing an amazing job, knowing them). While they do that, I'm making evil plans.

...evil plans being better described as trying to figure out formatting, planning how I'll promote it, and working on covers. I know, it's not evil, but hey, I enjoy pretending to be evil.

Formatting is still posing a problem, since I've zero skill in that. Fortunately, I know a lot of wonderful peoples who do have skill with interior formatting, so I'll probably be able to get that set up. Promotion ideas are remaining top-secret, just because I can keep them secret and no one can stop me. XD

As for covers... I had a ton of fun playing with Cover Creator on CreateSpace, and ended up making nine different covers. But I, being indecisive me, now has no idea which one to choose. I'll post them below and see if any of you have an opinion or suggestion. If you do, be sure to let me know in the comments.

(Oh, one more note, when I made these covers, my title was still Of Warriors and Werewolves. However, that has been changed now, so just disregard that when you look at the covers.)

So, without further ado (and because my frazzled brain can come up with nothing else to say), I shall post the covers below. Let me know what you think, my friends. Unless you already have, in which case you don't have to leave a comment if you don't want to. XD