Updates on Wattle Fires + My Camp NaNo Project

Look, here I am…posting. I know, my schedule’s been irregular and pretty patchy, but that’s how life is at the moment, and I just ask that you bear with mefor now. 😀

Today, I thought I might just give you a general update/ramble on how my writing is going at the moment, because I haven’t written one in several months and a lot has happened.

Wattle Fires

First up, updates on Wattle Fires. Most of you will probably remember my unfinished fantasy novel from NaNoWriMo last year.

Well, good news is…I finished it! I left it from December 1st, until about February 28th. And then, on a whim, I decided to write a few more words into it. And then I kept going. Before I knew it, I’d added 40k extra words and finished it.

It’s so extremely messy at the moment that I’m not letting anyone read it until I’ve completed a second draft. It’s also changed a lot since my original inception of it. Instead of just being an Australian fantasy story, it’s expanded into a Pacific fantasy. And I love, love, love it. The main four countries/cultures are based on are Australian Aborigines, Tahiti, New Zealand/Maori, and the Philippines. I’ve been neck deep in research ever since, and just enjoying it so much.

I love my corner of the world, and I really want it to be represented more in fiction. It just takes a lot of research. 😛 But I like research, so that’s okay.

A few of the changes I’ve made:

-Courageous is going to get a new name! I haven’t settled on a new one yet, but I’ve decided to drop the Puritan virtue names, since a) they don’t fit with the new Polynesian culture, and b) they didn’t end up having the significance in the theme that I planned them to have. At the moment I’m tossing up between several different names, I’m partial to the name Moanaiti for Courageous, but honestly, all the lists of Tahitian names online are a bit sketchy looking and I want to do some serious research into old names and their meanings, etc.

-I’ve changed the plot a bit, but I haven’t worked out all the finer details.

-Much of the symbolism I was using the names for has been replaced to be more subtle (at least to a more English speaking audience) symbolism in the form of, mainly, tattoos. In fact, I’ve become quite interested in tattoos.

-I also changed High-Praise’s culture from being an Indian/Persian inspired culture to being based off the Philippines. The Philippines is not technically
in Oceania, but it’s an archipelago in the Pacific, and since High-Praise is supposed to be foreign and removed from the other cultures in the story, that seemed to work.

Anyway, there’s much work to go on Wattle Fires, but if you’re interested in reading it, keep an eye out for the beta reading opportunities that are inevitably coming up 😀

Seal Up The Stars

So, here’s some exciting news…

My Camp NaNo project this year is going to be the third and final book in my Infinity trilogy. It was originally known as “The Author of Infinity”, but “Seal up the Stars” sounds better (at least to me) and it has a meaning that is rather special to me.

I’m a mixture of sad and excited to be reaching the end of my trilogy. I know that I’ll be spending a lot more time with the characters as I rewrite and edit, especially if I get published, but there’s something special about writing something for the first time. You can only write something for the first time once.

Anyway, this one is a retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel, so there’s lots of excitement and danger and just-before-death escapes. It’s going to be great. But also long. Much longer than The Stars Fill Infinity.

How’s things? What are your current projects and how are they going? Are you going to participate in Camp Nano next month?