Hello again! I decided it was about time that I did a new, more polished wip introduction post. A re-introduction as it were. My last was, admittedly, bland and uninspiring. At least in visual design. I’ve been trying to get a little fancier with blog headers and such. So here goes nothing!!!
Status: Partway through draft 3.
Characters: Isra Maxima, Cassie Barone, Finn Costen, Avery Stark, Ollie Bridger, and Val Galen. Plus a whole host of aliens!
Themes: Exploration, War, Friendship, LGBTQA+ relationships, Found Family, Aliens, Space, Romance, Love, Corruption, Politics (More to be added)
Genres: Young/New adult, science fiction
Summary: When a message comes from the stars to invite humanity to a summit of the United Galactic Senate in a garbled mishmash of human languages, it's suspected to be a joke. Even so, a band of six plucky and definitely crazy explorers are sent off into the great unknown to find out just what waits at the other end of the message. Things don't go as expected. Between the endless amount of secrets lurking in the shadows and sinister plots around every corner, surviving to the next day becomes that much harder. Every step leads to trouble of every kind. The universe just got a whole lot bigger and a lot more dangerous; humanity has to find its place, one small step after the other.
Extract: Valesk itself is a very different planet. The two habitable continents are dry and dusty for the most part, stretching out like massive sandy beaches among the bright blue ocean, dotted with tiny green patches that form a polka-dot pattern of forests, grasslands, and jungles among the savannahs. Tiny islands glimmer like jewels laid on a shimmering blue blanket. The other two continents are black and molten, rolling with clouds of ash and streams of hot lava from the rings of volcanoes form towering mountain ranges that spew pumice and sulphur. Even as they fly thousands of metres above the volcanoes, flakes of ash form a thin layer over the many small windows of the shuttle. It’s beautiful in its’ own way.
Title: The coming of the Queen
Status: Mostly just planning and the beginnings of an idea. Not much written for this yet, but I might focus on this one when I finish the first draft of One Small Step.
Characters: Iona - illegal fae challenger for the throne. Iona’s mother. Literally no other characters yet!
Themes: Rebellion, Revenge, LGBTQA+ relationships, War, Corruption, Fantasy, Loss of home, Royalty, Retaking a kingdom, Magic, Good vs. Evil, (more to be added)
Genres: Young/new adult, fantasy
Summary: Deep in the snowy mountains of Corenulla, lies the kingdom of Fallrona. Here any young adult may enter a series of challenges to earn the ultimate prize of ruling the kingdom for 25 years. But, for the past 300 years, the tyrannical Seonerars have ruled with an iron fist. Any threat to their power gets dealt with brutally and efficiently. Twelve years ago, they succeeded in destroying the last fae stronghold in Fallrona. But now the Seonerars’ actions are finally going back to haunt them. Iona is a young fae woman with only one goal in mind: revenge. She’ll stop at nothing to restore her people’s pride and remove the Seonerars from the equation. Permanently.
Extract: Being killed would be a fair better fate than many of the fae have received; Iona’s own grandmother was taken to be drained of her blood in the misguided belief that drinking fae blood ensues longevity. All it ensues is the wrath of the butchered fae’s family, much like Iona has sworn vengeance on the family that stole away her grandmother. She’ll have their heads for it.
There’s just one small problem. The humans in question are the current rulers of the kingdom and despite the tradition of a new ruler every twenty years – the winner of the challenge – they have been ruling for almost three hundred years. But this year, the throne will be hers. Any young adult can enter the challenges and Iona, despite her fae blood, is also a member of the kingdom. She might just a scrappy young woman from a backwater village, but she’s also fae. She can do this. She has to. Her people are counting on her.
Title: Treasure across the sea
Status: Mostly planning. Some chapters written through the power of pantsing.
Characters: Princess Orla Niamh Foy (Quarter-siren, quarter-fae, 100% better than you), Captain Sam (pirate scourge of the West Islands and the Ruby Sea), Lia Basker, Princess Tempest Storm-wielder, Count Aleksandr III, Lady Malia, Crown Scion Cameron.
Themes: Piracy, Adventure, Royalty, Myths, Legends, LGBTQA+ relationships, Survival, Ancient evil, Magic, Fate, Power, Ancient maps, (more to be added)
Genres: Young/new adult, fantasy, adventure
Summary: Orla is everything a princess shouldn’t be: impulsive, reckless, and too adventurous for her own good. With both siren and fae blood within her, she’s always been called to the wide sea and sprawling forests of her home country. Her life is simple and it’s hers. But when an old friend comes knocking, Orla is swept into events far stranger than she’s ever had to deal with before. Could this be the adventure that breaks her? Or will she come out of it stronger than ever before?
Extract: It hits Orla then: everyone here is related to the original seven royal families that stood against the last Shadow King and sealed his treasure away. Their blood has power. The seven of them are links to the distant past, bridging the gap between history and things yet to be. This cannot be a coincidence. Perhaps the blood of the originals is needed to access where the Shadow King’s treasure is. Sam gathered them together for a reason, and it’s not for their pretty faces or special talents. No, this is about the blood in their veins. How curious.
Status: 22 chapters in and I’ve just won NaNoWriMo 2023 with this. Nearly 50000 words added to it (a few of my NaNo words were from One Small Step and The Adventures of Lara and Theo but less than 2k because I ended up only focusing on the one thing after all.)
Characters: Most of them only have first names at the moment but a few have last times too: Eloise Martins, Imogen Van Arkel, Benedict, Dom, Charlie, Rebecca, Maria, Mirabella, Mavis, Jimmy, Aamir Kumar, Nadiya Awad, and a host of other side characters.
Themes: Sci-fi, space, space travel, conspiracies, mystery, strange disappearances, desire to uncover hidden truths, LGBTQA+ characters, (more to be added)
Genres: Sci-fi, adventure
Summary: Eloise Martins wants to be an astronaut. There are several reasons for this but one of these reasons is that her dad went missing on a deep-space mission and no one will tell her anything about it. She wants the truth. She needs it.
So she does what any sensible person would do: pushes herself to be the most exceptional candidate she can and signs up for astronaut program at her dad’s place of work. While studying to qualify as a pilot and an engineer, she hunts down any information to do with her dad and that final mission. Eloise will stop at nothing to achieve justice for her dad and all the missing astronauts and maybe, just maybe, bring them all home--dead or alive.
Extract: On the mind-numbingly grey wall across from her, a retro clock ticks and tocks loud enough to wake the dead. It’s a strange thing to have these days. Most people have holo-clocks and even physical digital clocks are going increasingly out of fashion; an analogue clock is a bizarre thing to use in a building as advanced as this. Even if it is a waiting room. The International Centre for Aerospace Engineering and Exploration is nothing short of a technological marvel, filled to the brim with the latest and greatest inventions, oozing with innovation, and the workplace of many of the greatest minds humanity has ever seen.
If you can think of it, ICAEE probably has it. For some reason, that includes old-fashioned clocks as well as the fastest planes and spaceships ever created.
The waiting is no doubt part of the test process. Eloise knows that. Her father told her as much and after years of listening to his and his colleagues’ exploits both at ICAEE’s academy and on interstellar missions, she’s almost more familiar with the ICAEE qualification process than the examiners themselves. Almost. Some things have changed since her father’s day and the tolerance of purple hair seems to be one of them. No one has ever commented on the colour. The legacy of her father may have something to do with that; the speed and excellence with which Eloise has ploughed through the astronaut program might be the other reason. If she’s right, then she has qualified in record time. The examiners, waiting through a set of dull grey doors at the left-hand side of the room, will assess her one last time before declaring their judgment. But Eloise is certain. She will be an astronaut before the day is up.
If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read all of the above! Hopefully these make for a much more aesthetically-pleasing and more informative overview of my current wips!
