The Southern Isles and a Semi-Viral Reddit Post
Oh boy, now that’s a title, isn’t it?! Weird things happened this week, pretty much entirely because of my own doing, but I managed to survive, and I’m only partially traumatized! Hooray! Anywho, it’s a new week, so it’s time for a new blog post and… a new short story! Let’s dive in!
The Southern Isles
Following Tearna’s adventure on Garodar, our explorer finds herself sailing to new lands once again, but this adventure is going to be far more tropical! Sitting to the south of Thericia, the main continent, is a verdant chain of islands commonly referred to as the Southern Isles! Inspiring, I know… These islands are a paradise with exotic fruit growing on every tree and a plethora of life that impresses with every new creature found, but the surrounding water is where the true finds rest! Every inch of the Southern Isles, be it underwater or in the sky, harbors exotic life of all varieties, and for someone like Tearna, she truly is going to be in a wonderland!
We are not, however, just going to be cataloguing life this time! In addition to the exotic fauna packed into every corner is one of the largest cities on the planet, Aqua Narssada! Aqua Narsadda is a massive, colorful island city paved in canals with roaming fruit stands and a massive shipbuilding industry! Aqua Narssada has an impressive history, both in terms of its heritage as well as its resident Archon, and it frequently hosts travelers from all over. While the city would have no doubt ended up on the expedition’s list of of places to visit, there is one more reason for them to visit! This is none other than the home of Bren, so it’s time to answer a few questions regarding her overt love for extreme heat!
All of that and more await in Tearna’s next journal entry!
From day one of writing the Sapphire Verdict, the Southern Isles have been a place of legend for me. This island chain was meant to be the ultimate tropical paradise, and is the one place Sapphiria wants to visit more than any other. Making up creatures that live here was beyond easy simply because there were no restrictions! The waters of these islands harbor life of every kind, including some of the big hitters from the Sapphire Verdict! In essence, I was able to do in this short story what I’ll never be able to do in the main book because of word count stuff, so enjoy all the creatures! After this, we go back to the main continent!
A Viral Reddit Post
So… I may have broken r/writing. Woops! Last week, I got to the true end of my last editing pass, and I was at an impasse. My word count was way too high to land an agent and I had no idea what to do. So I did what any sensible person would do. I asked a professional in the writing field for their refined, thoughtful, and exact opi-
I asked reddit.
Yeah, I asked reddit what to do, and I practically caused a meltdown! I was even careful with how I worded it, but many of the responses made it VERY clear that people stopped reading after they read 1.4 million words. WOO! I didn’t really expect to cause a meltdown. Honestly, at most, I thought I would get a few comments calling me an idiot, which I did get and that’s fair, but I ended up inspiring MULTIPLE other counter posts including someone wanting to know how anyone could ever write so much and a circlejerk post… So, go me I guess?
Either way, the post ended up getting hundreds of comments that I dutifully responded to over the days that followed, and it also started multiple direct messages with numerous people who’s writing credentials were untraceable. It was a lot to process, and I basically was functioning off adrenaline for well over 72 hours. It wasn’t a good time for me, but it was inciteful at the end of the day.
In short, I ended up getting some meaningful feedback and learned how to identify more things that could be cut from my story, which lead to me already cutting another 2500 words from the first chapter alone. I also learned of some alternative publishing options, some in person writing meetups, and other helpful tidbits from like 6 or 7 of the 200 something comments. The rest were… Yeah.
How did I get to this point?
To answer at least one of the most frequently asked questions in depth, I got here over the course of 10 years, thanks for asking! No, seriously. I started this writing journey at the tail end of 2014. I don’t really know what came over me. I just started writing out of nowhere for an idea that had been lurking in my head for so long that I can’t even remember when it first started. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and after 6 months, LITERALLY 6 MONTHS, I had a 1.4 million page book done.
Now, just to state the obvious, I had NO idea at all how to write a book. I didn’t care at all how it read or what norms it followed. I just wanted to bring my universe to life. That’s how it got so big right out the gate. Eventually, I figured out that the word count was a problem, so I, stupidly, cut it in half. Big mistake! I cut it in half and then began revising the first half so it could stand on its own, which pushed it right back up to the SAME WORD COUNT. It was just how my mind worked back then. At this point, I realized things needed to be cut, but then… My mother passed away without warning.
This massively fucked me up more than I can convey in words. For me, my mother was my biggest support and my best friend, so when I started writing this book, I had her full support. After she passed, I kinda lost everything at the same time, and the trauma that followed isn’t worth repeating. I’ll just say that her death was a domino that caused all sorts of other things beyond my control to go wrong, and I mean that extremely literally. I was just kind of along for the ride as things fell apart, so yeah, my writing took a massive hit and I entered a sort of trauma bubble. Cue the passing of many years.
As all of this was going on, I stubbornly continued to work on the book. I eventually got the stupid idea to split the first book in half to try and break it down further, and WOUND BACK UP IN THE SAME SPOT AFTER REVISING IT. At the time, I was a little too broken to realize how much of a mistake this was. I then spent I don’t know how many years editing my prose, diction, word smithing, etc. etc. etc. until I finally was like “Ok, time to cut!” I then proceeded to lightly remove things, and by the end, my book was down to 860,000ish words…
Yeah, clearly that was a problem, so I hit it again. After that second pass, I got it down to 560,000 roughly, and I was like “Ahh, this is fine.” I then proceeded to take a break and rewrite the second and third book, which actually went surprisingly well and really, REALLY helped fix my broken heart. Genuinely. That’s when I finally started actually fixing myself.
After working on those two books and kinda coming back to life, I realized I had a problem, so I went back over the Sapphire Verdict and actually began to cut real content. By the end, I was down to 375k, and… well, here I am! I’m working on cutting it once again, but this time I’m using a chainsaw and REALLY cutting stuff. Not sure what the final word count will be, but we’ll find out soonish.
And that’s basically it. That’s the full story of how in the world all of this happened. It’s worth mentioning that when I get humming and in the zone, I write at about 4000 words an hour, and that’s still true somehow even after all the editing and learning I’ve done. It’s how fast I went through the Tearna short story at least!
Conclusion
I think that’s enough for one week. There was a LOT that happened, but it’s behind me now and a new path forward has been revealed. I’m going to pursue this for all I’m worth and see what I can make happen, so, with that being said, I’ll see yall next week! Cheers!