Greetings! 

Being here in the cave, it's been hard to keep track of the time. But there has been a lot of bustle outside, so I took a peek and lo and behold! 2024 is due to dawn in jut a few hours! 

This year could be best summarized in a lot of little steps. I backed off a little on the platform building (which, in hindsight, might have been a mistake) and tried to focus a little more on my writing. 

Early on in the year, however, I had a huge life change - I got a full-time day job! I thought that with my evenings completely free, I would be able to devote a little more time to writing. But, early start times at work force early rising, and having only a half hour break really limits my ability to do much. Needless to say, smooshing 8 hours of "normal" duties into 4 or less proved to be a challenge. 

I decided to use what limited writing time I had on line-editing my debut novel, The White Rose. I could do it in chunks and I didn't have to put much effort into it. More on that in a moment, lol. 

For the majority of this year, I left off blog writing - except for hosting the Silmaril Awards, which I enjoyed immensely. Part of the reason for that is...I've kinda run out of things to talk about? I watch a lot more films and read a lot more books, but I don't really analyze nearly as much as I used to. 

In self-publishing news, the Fiat Self-Publishing Academy has been a good investment for me. While I haven't had much use for the majority of the resources at this time, I have had some great experiences with them so far. I met an amazing life coach who helped me with some writers blocks and had my Instagram critiqued by an Instagram coach. I'm also chatting with an editor about improving TWR's manuscript. 

Speaking of that, let's do a quick progress update!

The White Rose

This was Year 3 of implementing the edits that I received in 2020. This last year has been much rougher than the previous two. I started the year with 34, 726 and I ended the year with 68, 398 words. I am surprised that I managed to nearly double the word count considering that I barely got 10k last year. 

I finished the first 20 chapters in May of this year, and I sent it out to beta readers for critiques. 9 readers took the challenge, and they gave me such wonderful feedback. I can't wait to implement it fully. 

As I kept going through the draft, the more frustrated I got with the edit quality. I can tell that my editor was also frustrated with the plot. The straw that broke me was that the ending scenes were all suggested to be scrapped, which didn't go very well with either me or my fellow readers. I ended the work on the line edits late in the fall without the ending scenes. I took a hiatus from it after that, and will go back to it in January. 

I did commission a book cover for The White Rose, which was completed in September of this year. I'm super thrilled with the job that Benita did on it and I'm so excited to show you all the cover next year. Besides this, I have not made any more progress on self-publishing The White Rose at this time.  

Fair Winds

One of my stated goals for 2023 was to finish Draft 3 of Fair Winds. I must admit that once the clock to 2023....I forgot about this goal. I wrote not a word on it. It is a rather unfortunate turn of affairs. 

Supposing Erroneously

Due to my frustrations with my debut novel, I wanted to try and whet my muscles on a brand new story. The only one that fit into my schedule and my mood was Shattered Chandelier, so I decided to write a sequel for it back in December. I decided to base it off of the musical Singing in the Rain, as it seemed to fit the direction of the story. 

I experienced a minor setback when I discovered that all of my world-building notes for Shattered Chandelier had disappeared entirely. The good news is that with a contemporary story, there isn't *as* much work as a fantasy novel. 

Like Shattered Chandelier, Supposing Erroneously will be published on Wattpad. I have already published TWO parts for your reading pleasure (yes, I know, I probably should have announced it in it's own thing, but I.....completely forgot). You can read Supposing Erroneously HERE. 

Goals for 2024 

I must admit, setting goals right now is not very attractive to me. There has been little change in them from year to year, which has been very frustrating for me as well as for you dear readers.  

I still have the long-term goal of publishing either The White Rose or Fair Winds in the near future. But whether they will be completed in this year of grace 2024 or not remains to be seen. But I'm going to place these as goals and then reevaluate them in about six months: 

- Finish Supposing Erroneously

- edit another 20 chapters of TWR (maybe even finish them!)

- Blog at least once a month

And that wraps up 2023! I hope that you all have a very blessed New Years and I will see you in 2024! 

God bless, 

Catherine <3

Well, this is an awkward way to introduce a new story. 

For indeed, I am creating a new story, as I hinted at in my last post. And also as hinted, it will be a sequel to Shattered Chandelier. Upon deliberation, I decided to go ahead with the title Supposing Erroneously, with the musical inspiration being Singin' in the Rain. 

(And if you don't know where the reference is, watch the clip HERE)

The great thing about sequels is that the world and characters are pretty well established. Or, at least they should be. The prose from the previous story can usually provide some clues, but if you're like me, there are a ton of details that you think of that don't make it into the actual drafts. So naturally, when I decided to re-familiarize myself with the world from Shattered Chandelier, I go to find the notes that I made when I created that story. 

Only to find that all of my world-building notes have completely and utterly....

Disappeared. 

Vanished. Into thin air. Without a trace. 

No digital notes, no paper notes. NOTHING. 

I know I had them at some point because I made reference to them in one of my previous posts. But I legitimately don't know where they are. And I have looked in every single spot I can think of. 

Which means that I need to reconstruct an entire world from the materials I have left. Specifically, the story itself, a YouTube playlist, and my old Pinterest board. 

And....my faulty memory.

However, upon examination....I find that my muse might have inserted a "fail-safe". 

In my original story, I was surprisingly unoriginal when it came to some of the place names. The town names of Carbon Hill and Logan are real towns in eastern Ohio. Even the name of the campground that Jessamine and Kestrel stay at was a real campground near that area. Not exactly my strongest work, but coming off of a high fantasy with complex naming structures....there is little surprise that my muse had basically thrown in the towel. 

However, this proved to be a blessing in disguise. Because this allowed me to retrace exactly where my world-building inspiration came from.

If I remember correctly, I had originally tried to base "Shattered Chandelier" near Athens, Ohio. One of Jessamine's character details was that she had attended a theater program at Ohio University. I don't remember any particular reason why I chose that university - unless it was one of the top theater programs in Ohio. There is a possibility that I had another city in mind in the very beginning, but goodness only knows what it was. 

Anyway, I started in Athens and I looked for towns nearby to base "Shattered Chandelier" in. I remember coming across the city of Logan and deciding that it was a good "big city" to look near. I had debated whether to use the towns of Ewing or Rockbridge before I decided to look east of Logan. There, I found the towns of Haydenville, Nelsonville, and Carbon Hill. 

Carbon Hill stuck out to me the most in 2020, not because of what was there but what was not. The real Carbon Hill has less than 10 streets and is basically a hamlet. But I liked the name immensely. It seemed to fit the romantic manufacturing small-town aspect that I needed. Plus, with it being a small town, I figured that it wouldn't be recognized, and I could do whatever I wanted to it. 

However, upon revisiting it in 2023, I find this to be....unsatisfactory. And mayyyybe slightly unethical.

Comparing it to the map now, I find that the "Carbon Hill" in Shattered Chandelier matches a little closer to nearby Nelsonville. Upon researching it further, I found that Nelsonville actually boasts of its own opera house, called Stuart's Opera House, located in the center of downtown. It's fully restored and is currently used as a community center, event venue as well as a performing arts center. Looking at Stuart's history, I see a lot of similarities between the real-life story and the fictional story of West Side Theatre.  

Speaking of West Side, what was the inspiration for that? (Hint: it wasn't Stuart's)

I had looked into quite a few abandoned theaters in 2020, including famous ones such as the Majestic/Palace theaters in Bridgeport, CT; and the Variety Theater in Cleveland. I remember there being a specific theater on which I based the majority of West Side's story, but for the life of me, I don't remember which theater it was. I do remember cutting and pasting a few details from other theaters. Although to be fair, many of the abandoned theaters in the United States have similar stories so the plausibility would still remain high regardless of which theater the information came from. Still, it was fun (and rather creepy) to see the remains of those theaters and imagine how West Side would look in that state. 

While reconstructing the world took a few days, it felt much too quick for me. Going forward, I think I'm going to change a couple of things. 

One is the name of the town that the story is based on. Carbon Hill and Carbondale are both real names for towns in Ohio and I think it would be more appropriate to have a fictional name for my town. Taking both Carbon Hill and Nelsonville as inspiration, I decided to officially change the name of the town to.....Carbonville, Ohio. Logan, Athens and other large city names will still be in place to give the reader an orientation of the region. 

Another minor change will, of course, be the name of the campground. Rather than William's Campground, it will be changed to Billy's Campground. 

As for the time period, it will still be pre-COVID contemporary fiction. So...around the year 2013 or so. Everything else in the story will remain the same as it was in Shattered Chandelier.  

As to what this story will be about and what characters it will feature....that is still up for debate. Jessamine and Eric will be in there, but more as a subplot. Kestrel will get her own story, but it won't be this one (I'm thinking 42nd Street retelling for her). Will Chagney is out of the picture. 

This means the most likely character would be...Sarabelle Dickens. Unless I elevated one of the chorus girls. I'll need to think on that for a while. 

I hope you enjoyed this ramble through my muse's attempt at reconstructing a vanished world. Has this ever happened to any of you? How did you recover it? Let me know in the comments below! 

Scribbling with love, 

Catherine