A. B. KEUSER

I’ve seen a lot of posts about how to make maps of your fantasy worlds. And I thought I'd share mine with you.

Because this is a long-ish process, I'm breaking it up into four easy to follow parts over the next weeks.

Having a map of your own world can be useful when plotting quests, or just figuring out how things relate to each other spatially.
The maps I've created are almost exclusively for my fantasy worlds (In the Clockwork Fairy Tales as well as unpublished works).

Part One: Scour the Globe “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” may ring hollow in a lot of cases. Here it is the most helpful way I’ve ever found to deal with coast lines.

Spend some time on Google maps. I suggest the map version, not the satellite one, just because it’s going to be a better, more solid line. Follow coast lines, look at the features you want and need.

Have a set of islands you need to put together? Look at the islands that already exist.

Need a bay or port? Look for those specif…

It’s Friday, time to look at what we’ve done for the last week.

The first real “weekly” progress report for the year. It’s been an interesting one, and lacking the focus of the last check in.

Words written (week/YTD): 12,414 / 26,457

500-words of admin and 4 projects. The bulk of those words were put into a single project (one I should have done this weekend!) and I feel pretty good about that.



I also passed my 2015 January word count on Wednesday. I think I can probably push through to beat the rest of the counts 2014 through 2019, but I’ve got just over 70k before I meet 2013 (the year of 1 million words) and I’m going to be realistic and say I might get close…. But I’d really have to push for it.

Getting to 2013’s Jan w/c would be pretty cool, but I don’t have as much time to write right now as I did back then. And putting in the time needed on top of other commitments would mean sacrificing more sleep than I’m willing to right now. So I’m going to chose to be kind to myself and kee…

There are some things that are always going to be difficult when writing a book. I don’t care how long you’ve been doing it. I simply don’t believe those few things will ever get easier.
However, one of the things that I’ve become immune to--that used to be SO. DANG. HARD.--is cutting words.

For The Boundary Zone, I removed a lot of random sections and sentences. Things that don’t feel big in the scheme of things anymore (though I know that would have felt like cutting a piece of myself out back when I started).

Shedding words by the hundreds is just a part of the process now.

But the thing that actually stood out to me was removing four whole chapters in one of the later revisions.
It was necessary, but it still felt a little like an amputation at the beginning.
Now, if feels like an appendectomy.

According to my first save date, I started compiling thoughts and snippets for The Boundary Zone back in 2012. The file those are still in is titled with the main character’s name (I shou…

It’s Friday... time to look at what we’ve done for the last week.

This one’s a touch different, because it includes the first two days of the year on top of the seven before this.

Words written so far: 14,043 After you remove about 1k-worth of admin from that count, the remaining is divided almost perfectly between two projects. (Which is a win in the focus category).
And the blue portion of the chart above represents the first completion of a story for the year. Woo.

0 pages edited I’ve got to get this started. There are three projects in need of editing with too-close of deadlines to be putting them off the way I have.


What I’m reading I just started Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron and am very excited to see where it takes me.

And, I just set my Goodreads goal for the year.

Hey Guess what, it’s a new year! How’d that happen?

I posted my 2019 wrap-up last week, and my 2020 goals on Monday. Give those a gander, or just go ahead and hop to the comments to let me know what your biggest accomplishment of 2019 was, or what your number one goal for 2020 is.

On the the Insecurities….

What started you on your writing journey? Was it a particular book, movie, story, or series? Was it a teacher/coach/spouse/friend/parent? Did you just "know" suddenly you wanted to write?

The simple answer: Boredom.

I know that’s probably not going to be a particularly favored answer, but, at the time (2006) I was in a job that had an incredible excess of down time, a “stay in your chair” requirement, and a computer.
So I wrote. My first book was inarguably horrible. 
It was a mess, full of typos, pacing issues and cliches. I didn’t understand the market, or even plot structure at that point.

But, when you’ve spewed 120k words of a complete story out of your finger tips…. …

Writing

The General Idea: Getting back into the swing of things, carving out the time out of each day to get words in.
For the majority of last year, I didn’t take very good care of myself. I started getting better about it in December, and, as expected, I got back into the swing of writing on a regular basis. So… going to continue to work on the healthy body/healthy mind thing… and use that to keep myself on track work-wise.

Goal: Averaging 1,000/words per day, minimum.
This shouldn’t be hard (for me, ymmv). From 2013 - 2018 my average was ~2000-wds/day. And those calculations are for writing 365 days/year. I have a habit of taking weekends and vacations off. In 2013, I didn’t write at all in December (that was the million word year). So 1k average for 3 months, shouldn’t be difficult… I don’t think.

Editing

The General Idea: Chip away at the ENORMOUS stack of drafts that need edits.
I have a nasty habit of finishing drafts, recognizing how much work they need, setting them aside so I ca…

Happy New Year everyone.  I hope your 2019 wrapped up beautifully, and that there are amazing things in store for you in 2020!

Not A Lot To “Show”
2019 was the first year I didn’t actively track things. I don’t have a spreadsheet to show you, or accurate numbers to cite. (My very incomplete 2019 count was 600,113-words for the year.) I barely managed to updated GoodReads.

The Big Personal Life Change (AKA Where I Place The Blame) In February, my husband and I quit our day job (we worked together) and left an incredibly toxic work environment. At the time, we didn’t have new jobs. There was something in the works, but there was no hard start date. We’d gotten ourselves to a place where we knew we could wait upwards of three months before we needed to start worrying. It was an exodus we’d been planning since November 2018 and honestly, one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.
A month of doing the writing-only thing later, we started our new jobs (we still work together), and they kind …