In Which I Introduce You To My Two Writing Projects For The Year | And Give a Life-y Type Update

I’ve got a two posts in one thing going here. For those of you who really don’t care about the life update, don’t worry, it’s a tiny part of this post and down at the bottom so you can totally skip it! I’ll mostly be talking about my two WIPs/To-Be WIPs.

This is the year I plain to actually plain out my novels. I’m talking basic outlines, and actual schedule, and deadlines. All the deadlines. I work well with deadlines, which I think is why NaNoWriMo and I are so agreeable.

I haven’t really talked about these projects a whole lot. If you follow me on Pinterest you’ve probably seen the storyboards for them, but other than that, if I’ve mentioned them, it’s most likely been in passing.

First up,

This is my epic-slash-high fantasy novel. It’s about a newly crowned queen who happens to be a necromancer (but didn’t know it). She goes to her father’s funeral two days after her coronation, and accidentally reanimates the entire graveyard. Que massive panic.

Set in a France-inspired fantasy world, but with a few twists; small kingdom with a small army, survives by welcoming in travelers and traders from other lands.

My characters include:

• Queen Rose Marie Marvel Bouvet: The Skeleton Queen. Nineteen, newly crowned, newly discovered necromancer. Really does not want to ability to reanimate skeletons, especially since they’re really just really creepy puppets. Extremely stressed out all the time.
• Sabine Charlier: Daughter of the witch that put the magical block on Rose’s magic. Rather cute.
• Prince Yu Huan: The quiet, artistic prince from a neighboring kingdom. His parents are trying to make him fall in love with Rose, which may be a problem because he’s crushing on his very cute personal guard.

I’m playing right now with how the various people react to Rose’s brand new death powers. There’s always the people who pray whenever she passes by because she has been cursed by the god of death, but I’m also playing with the idea that there are people-rulers of other kingdoms especially- who suddenly see her as this all-powerful queen, and people who normally couldn’t care less who the queen of this tiny kingdom is are trying to get in her favor. And all this is happening while she’s still in mourning over her father, been contacted by her mother for the first time since she was five, and still has no idea how to really deal with her powers.

Also, all the food, because I’m literally surrounded by classic French pastries all day and of course my novel is going to reflect that.

I don’t really know what genre to call this. Dystopian? Urban fantasy? It’s about an alternate universe where werewolves exist (I’m trying to decide right now if they were created; joining human DNA with wolf DNA, or just have always existed). While some live relatively normal lives, others are stolen off the streets as young children and used for what are basically werewolf dog fights.

There are two levels of wolves; the underworlders, who live in the conditions like how dogs in real dog fights live in: tight cages that they only leave to fight or to train. They’re the lower ranking wolves, who haven’t won enough fights yet to get better conditions.

Then there are the royals, who live in the (often very big) houses of the dog fighters, are dressed in finery and fed the best food, but their fights are the most brutal, because their fights end in death.

My characters:

• Sable: An underworlder. She’s a bit too tenderhearted to really do well in this kind of life, so she does just enough that she won’t be used as one of the bait wolves, and other than that, kind of skirts the edges and hopes she doesn’t get noticed.
• Arrow: A royal. She’s one of the fighter’s favorites, mostly because she’s pretty, and therefor attracts attention, which gives him a status boost. And she’s angry. She’s very, very angry, and has slowly been making friends with other wolves, and developing plans to get everyone out.
• Lucille (Lucie) Sullivan: The fighter’s daughter, who he’s attempting to bring into the life and show how to run things. Small problem: she used to go to school with Arrow and they were best friends.

This book is dark and bloody and brutal, with a very open ending. I don’t think this one will be one I intend to try and query. I’d think I’d post it to a website like Figment or Wattpad, or maybe submit it to Swoon Reads. Either way, I’m excited to write it.

Right now, The Skeleton Queen is my number one priority, but I’m swearing, swearing that I’m going to write both of these this year. I’m actually going to buy the full on, non-free version of Right Or Die, because while the web version is awesome, I feel like I need the extra motivation that the non-free version gives.

This will be quick! It’s mostly just telling you what things I’ll be at this year.

• I’ll be at Emerald City Comicon in March! I’ll most likely be in a hipster Belle cosplay. Mostly ’cause I have hipster glasses that I can wear with this cosplay. Although, I should say unintentionally hipster, because my face looks weird in glasses that don’t have big square frames.
• I’ll also be at V.E. Schwab’s Seattle tour stop in February. Probably not in cosplay.
• And murder mystery weekend. We can’t forget that.
• I’ve been slowly saving up recipes and photos to start a baking-slash-food blog, which might (MIGHT) go live this summer.

And…that’s it!

What are some of your writing projects? What’s your main WIP? Will you be at any of my mentioned things?

Happy Wednesday,