Tag: outer space

Getting re-acquainted with an old work

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

After a day’s break, I’m back to work on another story that I’ve left dormant for maybe months. Beyond This Little Moon of Ours is a young adult, science fiction story about a lost human colonised planet that is currently in the throws of re-discovery. The main character Medina is in a personal crisis after having lost both her mother and older brother in separate incidents. What’s more is that the outside influence of the Azeel Empire, the offworlders that re-discovered them, are imposing their presence and culture as they are fighting against terrorists bent on the destruction of the empire. Medina is stuck in the midst of this. The suspicious circumstances of his disappearance haunt her, while her community is in transition. The Azeel have brought so many benefits to their world, but what do they want outside of a base of operations against an unseen terrorist threat?

The story revolves around the upheaval of gender and society norms and expectations in a technologically devolved community. The main character is a young woman who has to decide whether finding out her brother’s fate and by extension, the activities of the Azeel empire, is more important than her station in life.

Currently, I had 35,000+ words written for the story before I left it for other projects. Now I’m planning on editing what I have and at least create a story plan for the rest of the book by end of June 🙂

New story idea brewing

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Currently, I’ve got this new space adventure idea churning in my head. The main novel, which I’m planning on calling Fine Tune, is still forming in my mind. But I’ve already written just under 12,000 words for a prequel. So far the two books will be under the banner name of ‘Odine King’s Space Adventures‘. The genres of the series are sci-fi, young adult, paranormal and space adventure.

The prequel is more thriller and mystery because of the main character, Odine King, is in the process of learning to utilize her psychic powers. Initially, she goes into a psychic research study with the hopes of finding her father’s killer. He’s been missing just under a year and things are not looking good. However as her powers begin to grow and she starts to control them, the story takes a darker turn as another ghost makes contact with her. This begins her journey of amateur detective in the cold case of a missing, presumed dead young woman.

I’m not sure how many more words it will be, but I think I’m about 1/2 to 2/3 complete for a draft 🙂

How I wrote a 119,000 word draft in 57 days

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194 pages, 95 chapters and 119,000 words. All written in 57 days.

I just finished my first draft of The Cadetship and it’s the longest story I have ever written. I have consistently been working on it for pretty much every single day since the first of August when I sat down and word vomited 8,100 words. And those were good quality words as well.

I started off with the story idea just a week before I started writing it. And I’ve been building on ideas since then. Most times I made things up on the fly, other times I had a goal scene to get to and I made my own path to it. There were only two occasions where I had faulted and drew a blank on what happened next. The first time I decided to go back and do a light edit of my past writing to see if my brain was able to create something more, which it did. The second time I had reached the 3/4 mark and I began to panic. During that time the stress of coming so far and the thought of not completing it propelled me to brainstorm what I could do to my characters. This worked and I added some new ones in, including sub plot story lines.

I wrote, for the most part, every single day, working around my split shifts at work. I have managed to write on average maybe two thousand words a day. You can vaguely track my progress through my twitter account. I can’t believe I’ve been able to produce such a thing 🙂 Knowing I can write something like this means I can write anything I put my mind too.

God damn, how I have managed to surprise myself. I didn’t know I was capable of this until now. My future stories will be so fun and easy to write 🙂 Editing too will be a blast. I’ve already identified what things I need to work on and change too 🙂

By the time you read ths post I would have had a few days break before returning to the story tobegin my second draft. Honestly I’m not sure when this YA sci-fi will be out, but maybe next year. Here’s hoping 🙂

 

My new YA sci-fi book

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

I’m writing a new story and you know what? God damn I got a good feeling about this one. I’ve already written 20,000 words in two weeks and I think I have a ton more to go. The story focuses on a teen call Ilona and her life on the run from her father in a sci-fi centered universe. It involves alien planets, military environments, the dastardly lives of smugglers, the struggles of family identity and the unbridled desire to be free above all else.