oh my gosh yes
would you guys believe that i plugged in my camera to vlog and the battery was dead off to a great
start guys thank goodness for camera batteries that plug into the wall just saying but anyway we
are here finally for the second vlog in writing the sequel to my why fantasy on wings of ash and
dusk and the last time i talked to you guys it was february 11th and now it is the 24th but
the good news is i have made progress even if i didn't get to vlog it and i am vlogging today so
i'll catch you guys up a little bit and then uh we'll see what i can get done before the end of
the day last time we left off i was trying to finish the outline for book two but i had also
started watching this playlist by abby emmons and her videos all about the plot points that she uses
when she's outlining using the 3x structure and they were proving super super helpful
but the thing was that watching all of them and taking notes on them was slowing me down
and getting the actual outline done and so what i ended up doing is actually just
kind of processing and listening to them without taking notes while i was getting
some other stuff done like chores and stuff but then i decided that you know what i just need to
finish what i have because what i really want to do which i was telling you guys before is actually
send a kind of narrative version of my outline more like a synopsis to my critique partners
to see what they think of the direction of the story and the basic plot points of the story
before i actually start drafting and again if this is a method you've never heard before i do explain
a ton about it in this video right here so i'll link that down below if you want to check it out
but that's been really my main goal and so i was thinking you know what it's probably a better
use of my time to just get my current outline situated so that it is readable and not like
brittany bullet point gibberish for my critique partners and then just send it to them they'll
probably take a couple days to get through it anyway and then while they are going through
that i can go back through abby's videos take more thorough notes and apply what i'm learning to my
outline along with whatever feedback i get from my critique partners and this past tuesday i finally
started writing that narrative synopsis for my critique partners hopefully you can't read any of
that so no spoilers and the first act definitely took me a lot longer to get through it ended up
being 2500 words and that is going to end up being episode one but then once i got to episode two and
three that has like a lot less fleshed out details right now so i got through that a lot better i'm
in episode three or for the full novel act two part two for a grand total of drum roll please a
3798 words and i'm not even done my poor critique partners are just gonna have a lot to read through
but i do feel like even writing it out narratively is super helpful in me figuring
out a few more things as i'm wrapping stuff up so my goal between today and then tomorrow is to
finish the synopsis which means finishing episode three and episode four so i can meet
at the deadline i set for myself of sending this to my critique partners by tomorrow
okay so we're taking a little road trip break to ups where my mailbox is because
i have like three packages waiting for me which doesn't usually happen so i'm really excited so
let's go see what i got okay there they are uh i'm probably gonna wait until i'm home to like
actually open them but i'm so excited you guys i feel like it's like christmas or my birthday or
something there's so many gifts here i did before i open up the other packages i wanted to show off
this maternity sweatshirt that my dear friend and fellow author holly davis got me oh my gosh
it's so cute it says blessed mama it's so soft and cozy i've been wearing it pretty much every
day since i got it so thank you so much holly and then i kind of pre-opened these so that you
guys didn't have to watch me like struggle with that i'm pretty sure this one is from my friend
ally oh and i think it's baby stuff too oh my gosh so i have a couple onesies one says i am here
and it definitely looks anime which both ali and i who is also coming out with a fantasy novel on
may 4th ally and i both really enjoy anime and it looks like there's an anime character on here i'm
trying to tell if it's one from one of the shows we've talked about but i'm not sure but it's still
really cute and this second one oh my gosh we both talk about the mandalorian this is the way
and um i'm pretty sure ally like just got into that tv show i think that was one that i was like
you really have to check it out because she loves star wars and she hasn't seen it yet i'm pretty
sure or maybe we were talking about boba fett maybe actually i'm having baby brain and she's
actually been a huge fan of this the whole time i can't remember but i love this this is the way
awesome tv show great great options for our little one thanks sally i'm pretty sure these next two
are from jj otis who's also another fantasy author and ooh they're in little packages oh so cute
um okay then this one has a card brittany i had something similar to this when my kids were babies
and it was a lifesaver i hope you find it helpful with your little guy from jj otis you're so sweet
this is not my birthday this is like a pre-baby shower from all my author friends this is the best
oh baby crib mattress pad and it's a perfect color because we want to do like a blue gray white theme
in our baby room and then the second one i'm pretty sure is also from her because she said
she was sending two okay brittany i saw these and couldn't resist from tj otis you guys are so sweet
oh my gosh yes you guys know my favorite fandoms so well but these are onesies of harry potter
and this one says snuggle this muggle yes yes this smuggle will be snuggled so much
this one says mischief manage we've got the slytherin after we've got gryffindor and then
hufflepuff which says wizard in training oh my gosh when they're so soft too i love it and
little wizard for ravenclaw which i don't know if you guys know but i'm like probably
a raven puff um so it'll be exciting to meet this little guy and learn what personality he is
and what hogwarts house he fits into um but he's so gonna wear like all of these oh my gosh
so thank you guys so much for all of these it was really sweet of you it's really fun to have like
my own author mailbox that people can send me things and i did not expect to get so many very
cute maternity and baby things so you guys are the sweetest thank you so much that was a lot of fun
hey friends it is tuesday i don't know how that happened um but obviously i didn't get my synopsis
done and sent down on friday it ended up being a busier weekend than i thought we did a lot of
stuff for the nursery which i'll show you guys a sneak peek at the end at any time we were not
doing stuff for that pregnancy was just making me not feel so great and really tired and hence
i am determined to finish the synopsis today but i am super cozy on the couch today in a
different environment i don't know about you guys but i think some days it's really really
helpful for me to be in my office and just focused and sitting up right and being all
official but um today i think i'm gonna get a lot more done if i just sit here comfy cozy on the
couch i do have an exciting update though because on thursday i did get a lot done i just forgot to
come on here and actually tell you guys about it but i got all the way through to episode four and
my word count for my synopsis is now over five thousand what is that six hundred something words
oh my gosh and i'm so close to finishing that last episode and sending it off to critique partners
but what happened is in episode 4 you get to learn a lot more about a particular villain's backstory
and i had a ton of fun kind of fleshing that out with even more details than i already had
planned and even within that coming up with a few different options i want to send to my critique
partners to see which ones they kind of like better which ones fit with the story better so
i got about halfway through episode four and now i just need to knuckle down and seriously just
get to the end there's a lot of details about this ending that definitely need
a lot more work but i think if i can just knuckle down today i can get this done
send it to critique partners get their feedback and then keep flushing it out from there so
what i'm going to do is just quickly review the five point finale that jessica brody talks about
in her save the cat book and i'm going to flush out a little bit more of these ending details and
then i'm going to put all of this in a google doc with a little bit of formatting and send it off
okay i'm grabbing some much deserved lunch of leftover chinese food because i finished
the synopsis and right now i am like sort of re-reading it and just tweaking little things
to make sure that everything makes sense for my cps but then i'm going to put in a google doc
and send it off to them and so i will let you know when i've got that done i'm so excited
also i just wanted to thank you guys so much for 11 000 subscribers on youtube
oh my gosh this is like a huge milestone your support means the world to me and it
definitely motivates me to keep getting you guys content and keep getting you guys books
all right we're back in my office because my camera battery was dying but let's see
about four hours later i read through and tweaked up my synopsis i also had lunch and
talked to my mom on the phone and did other things as well during this time but i finally
am done the synopsis is a honkin 7,228 words then i took some time and put everything into separate
google docs for each of my critique partners so they can leave comments as they read and i can get
feedback to make this story even better and just in case some of you wanted to use this approach
with your own critique partners i figure i just give you a little bit of a low down of how i put
this together so first of all i just included a few notes for them in the beginning the first one
saying that i've divided the synopsis or narrative outline into episodes one through four and then
what story beats for the overall season are in each episode so you can see here on the side we
have all the episodes and then all the story beats for a complete story are divided into the episodes
so we have that overall story arc for the complete serial series if you're not doing a serial series
like me obviously you can just separate your story by the story beats you don't even have to do that
but i decided to do that because my critique partners are writers they know the story beats
so i knew that we would be speaking the same language if you're sharing this with someone
who isn't a writer and doesn't know names of story beats you probably don't even need that but i
thought it might be helpful for them then i just gave them a little bit of direction in what kind
of comments i'd love to get from them like what things they really like about the story so far
and what things they think could be stronger anything that they have questions or confused
about or any ideas they have i also said there's definitely some holes and things they need to
flesh out a lot more like a specific romantic subplot that is continuing into book two and i've
marked things i'm unsure about or where i have multiple options of where i could take the story
highlighted in red so it really sticks out to them so in addition to their general thoughts i'd love
to know their thoughts on these specific spots and then this is just a fun little tidbit that i
wanted to let them know even though book one only was written from quinn's main pov or point of view
i am playing with the idea of weaving in sub chapters from the other characters points of
view and if you know the story specifically i mean the other four heirs vail aeron hickory and alys
and i'm just asking do you like this idea do you think it'll work let me know as you read i also
whited out a section where i had a suggested book title for booktube i didn't want to show you guys
that quite yet but i will be asking their feedback on that as well but it is officially sent to them
i'm actually excited to take a little bit of space from the story while they have it while they give
some feedback i'll probably finish taking notes on those abby emmons videos and working on a couple
other projects that i have in the works one of them i'm actually really excited about because
while it's not actually writing a new book it is going to be a resource it's actually going to be
a mini course for any writers who want to learn how to write and publish their own serial stories
this course would succinctly and step by step kind of share all the things i learned while
i was plotting writing editing publishing and marketing my first cereal and then as time goes
on i will just keep adding to the course as i come out with future cereals that all current
students will get automatic access to i got really excited about the idea while talking to my friend
katlyn duncan who's also a fellow writer so thanks katlyn then i brought the idea to my writer
mastermind groups to see if they thought it was a good idea i then asked some of my patrons and some
other people i know that are working on cereals if they would be interested in this and i already
have a potential test group of like 13 interested people who i can bounce ideas off for this course
and hopefully get the core material maybe like five core videos recorded over the next month
or so and then have it available maybe even before the baby comes so if you have thought
about writing a cereal or you are currently working on one and this sounds interesting to you
definitely let me know down below because i'd love to know how many people might be interested
and of course i'll keep showing you guys the behind the scenes of doing this second cereal as
we continue these series of vlogs hopefully in the next one i will be drafting but before we go i did
want to show you guys a little sneak peek of the nursery because we have added a ton of stuff and
it's really coming together okay i totally should have filmed this when it was like lighter outside
but here's the wonderful accent wall that i showed you guys last time that ben put together
but now we have a crib that was wonderfully given to us by ben's cousin and we have a
little dresser that's going to also act as the changing table and eventually we'll have the
actual kind of glider rocker that i've put on my registry and yeah it's just getting really
cozy in here getting very real i'm currently 25 weeks pregnant which means i only have 15 weeks
until this little guy is here which is also motivating me to try to get as much done as i can
before he gets here i hope you guys are enjoying this series so far if you are please give it a
like make sure to subscribe share this series if you're excited i am putting the whole playlist of
these vlogs down below and hopefully we'll see you very shortly in the next vlog bye guys you