How I wrote "Nicholas raven and the wizards' web"

On my previous website, I had posted 53 monthly updates from April 2011 to August 2015 about writing Nicholas Raven and the Wizards' Web, my Lord of the Rings inspired epic fantasy novel I had been working on in various capacities since autumn 1978 and published in 2015. As time and ambition allow, I will repost those entries here with some minor grammatical corrections, when needed. Some posts are more nuts-and-bolts info than others, but I wrote what was on my mind at the time. Some photos also accompanied the original posts, and I will include them in a photo gallery below each post. Hope you enjoy!

I am currently working on a huge epic fantasy novel that I first began to develop in the autumn of 1978, nearly thirty-three years ago. As the outline now stands, the book consists of a short prologue and ninety-one chapters. I've divided the ninety-one chapters into ten parts based on the different plot and character threads in the story. Two days ago I finished the last chapter of Part Eight which takes me through Chapter Seventy-Eight. The total number of finished typed pages now stands around 1700 with thirteen more chapters to go. I'd been working on Part Eight since mid January and will now take a week or so off before moving on to Part Nine.

I've written an extensive outline for the book which I revised several times, though the first version was completed in 1988. I also created four detailed maps and other related material to help keep me on track as I write. The first words of this book were penned in June 1999, and by late January 2008 I had completed the prologue and the first twenty chapters, working on the book whenever I had some free time between my other writing projects. Since this is my dream novel, I've felt guilty for neglecting it for long periods at a time, so after completing A Christmas Castle in 2008, I decided to dedicate 2009, 2010 and 2011 to work on this project alone. I plan to finish the first draft of the book by late summer or early fall. Keep your fingers crossed.

Since I'm seeing the light at the end of the literary tunnel regarding this book, I will provide a few more details about the project--except for the plot! It is an epic fantasy geared for teen and adult readers, though some preteens may enjoy it, too. I was inspired to write the book a few years after reading The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien which I discovered in the spring of 1975 when I was twelve years old. Besides the interesting characters and events in Tolkien's story, I was greatly impressed by the grand narrative sweep of the work, so much so that I reread it several times in my youth (along with The Hobbit) and a few more times since. After reading the three volumes the first time, I felt as if I had taken the journey myself, often thinking back to particular sections of the book and consulting his maps as if they represented a real place. It wasn't long after my first couple of readings that I began to imagine snippets of my own narrative, some more developed than others, and many not even connected to one another in a proper storyline. But I knew then that I wanted to write my own grand narrative someday. And nearly thirty-three years later, I'm almost there.

I hope to finish Part Nine (which currently contains nine chapters) some time this summer. I'll provide another update when I finish, though perhaps from time to time I'll add some more recollections about how I went about tackling this writing project from its earlier days to the present. Until then, all the best.

On May 2, after a two-week writing break, I started pounding the keyboard again (and occasionally put pen to paper during my lunch hour at work) and began Part Nine of my latest project. As I mentioned in my previous entry, this book is divided into ten sections, so I'll give a brief breakdown of the novel's structure now that I'm nearing the end of the first draft.

· Prologue (finished)

· Part One - Chapters 1 - 10 (finished)

· Part Two - Chapters 11 - 20 (finished)

· Part Three - Chapters 21 - 27 (finished)

· Part Four - Chapters 28 - 39 (finished)

· Part Five - Chapters 40 - 47 (finished)

· Part Six - Chapters 48 - 59 (finished)

· Part Seven - Chapters 60 - 70 (finished)

· Part Eight - Chapters 71 - 78 (finished)

· Part Nine - In progress (nine outlined chapters, though that may change)

· Part Ten - (four outlined chapters)

That's all for now. Stay tuned for further updates. Take care.

I just finished a late-night writing session and decided to post another book update. I've been hard at work for the past two months on Part Nine and am nearly finished with Chapter 81. That may not sound like much work since this section begins on Chapter 79, but these three chapters are running just shy of a hundred pages at the moment. I didn't expect them to be this long, but that's the writing process. Some of it has been a struggle, but I think my subconscious was working out some plot points along the way in spite of my written outline. My last few sessions have been free flowing again, so I guess a mental logjam was removed somewhere along the way. When I penned the first words of this book in June 1999 (though I had been planning it since 1978), I quickly realized that I needed to construct some maps in order to follow the progress of my characters and the several story lines. So, putting my limited artistic skills to use for the next three months, I created a series of four maps to guide me on this literary journey. Without giving any specifics away just yet, I'll briefly describe them.
 

The first map depicts a large region of the world I created, including numerous mountain ranges, river systems, forests and the like. There are also several kingdoms scattered throughout. The second map focuses on the principal kingdom in the story, again illustrating various geographical
features and highlighting the different county regions in that kingdom. The third map is of one of those particular counties, and map four is a drawing of a small village in that county where the story begins and later comes into play in other parts of the book. That's all I'll say for now.
 

I did create maps for two other books of mine, namely, The Saving Light (Book 3 in the Endora trilogy) and Gabriel's Journey, but the maps for this current book are much more detailed. I drew them by hand in 1999 (more times than I care to count), but after I bought a computer in 2003, I was able to scan the maps and can now manipulate them when I need to add or change a few details as the story develops. It's pretty neat to be able to move mountains, grow a forest or change the course of a river with a few clicks of a mouse. If only the rest of the book were so easy to create. Until next time.

I just came back from a three mile walk this evening and decided to post another update before tackling more of Chapter 84 of my current project. I used to run years ago, though I prefer walking both now and then, and twice ran the Utica Boilermaker Road Race in 1993 and 1997. The 15k (9.3 mile) race takes place in Utica, NY which is about 17 miles west of Little Falls. I recall the difficulty of the course into the seventh mile during both races as I ran up Champlin Avenue under the hot sun, wondering at that point why I ever decided to compete and if I would ever finish. (Enduring a toe blister my first year and recovering from shin splints the second time didn't help either.) But I managed to finish both races with respectable times of 85 minutes in 1993 and 81 minutes four years later. I can't even imagine what my time would have been at this year's event held just over two weeks ago, 14 years since I last ran the race.

PHOTO #1: These are my two Boilermaker 15k Road Race finishing pins from 1993 and 1997 that I received when crossing the finish line. What a sense of accomplishment (and relief) I had on both occasions when I felt them placed in my hand.

As I'm nearing the 90% completion mark writing this book, I occasionally feel like I did during that seventh mile of the Boilermaker, wondering how I got this far and if I'll make it to the end. Of course, in my heart I know I will finish this tome as I have completed many other books both published and unpublished over the years. Yet I do admit to a few invisible mental walls I encountered on occasion and had to write through as this project got longer and longer. Other times I was just plain exhausted yet managed to keep to my page quota even if I had to catch up on the weekends. But one of the things that kept me on course was having a thoroughly written outline to refer to and change as required.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I completed my first outline in 1988, written in a 100-page spiral notebook, single-spaced, with several additional pages stapled in. I just took a look at it and the completion date written on front reads 7-25-88, twenty-three years ago yesterday. When I finish writing this book, I'll have to reread it to see just how many changes I've made.

I revised the outline three more times before and during the writing of this novel, and as I continue to write, I've made many changes to the fourth outline and so will have a fifth revision when it's all over. I could never have completed this project without such a detailed outline primarily because I would have forgotten most of what the story was about with its complicated, yet I hope enjoyable, narrative. I once tried writing a book without an outline, having a few vague ideas in my mind. I think I got to chapter seven or eight before giving up to properly plot the book before I continued and eventually finished. I plan to dig that one up some day and revise it. I admire those who can write without a road map, but I am definitely not one of those authors. I may veer from my map from time to time, which I've done here and for the better, but without the outline (or the accompanying four maps) on a project this size, I would have gotten lost in a hurry, no doubt. Talk to you again down the road.

I was going to post this update as soon as I finished writing Chapter 85 of my book, expecting to have finished it about a week ago. But since it turned into another grueling chapter (45 pages long, but a good one), I only just finished it earlier today. Now I can relax a bit and bring you up to date on my progress. I'm currently writing Part Nine (of ten parts) which was supposed to contain nine chapters according to my outline (see Update #2). Seven chapters are now completed (Chapters 79 through 85) with several more, not two, to go. A few of the completed chapters were split into two as some parts were long enough and contained their own story arc to serve as chapters by themselves. These seven chapters alone, which I began in early May, account for just over 190 pages of the book. Right now the total number of completed pages in the novel stands at a little over 1900. Can't wait to do my major edit on that!
 

Now after completing four more months of constant writing, my brain needs another rest. I feel like I was writing that last chapter on fumes. My creative gas tank is definitely low. I'm going to take the rest of this week and all of next week off to recharge and then continue with Part Nine on September 12. But I will not be completely pushing aside this project until then. I have some minor adjustments to make to my outline again. I had already changed a few things before I began writing Part Nine, but now I've reached a point where I must add a few items and remove some others. Some of the events that were originally supposed to have occurred at the ends of Parts Six and Seven were moved to the beginning of Part Nine. I did this to end those two parts at a more logical place in both their time lines and plot lines which I think vastly improve the story. Also, I expanded the beginning of Part Nine, adding a few events and characters which logically grew from the writing and weren't anticipated in the outline. I really like some of the scenes I've developed.

Now I'm at a point where I have to reconcile what I've just written with where the rest of the outline stands. A few proposed scenes I can now get rid of (and will happily do so) because some are not necessary. Others scenes I can streamline, having found more interesting and logical ways to present them. So while I'm taking a short vacation from writing, I will still be writing, only a different type which will not be as taxing. So when I post my next update, which I've been doing monthly and will try to continue, I can give you an exact chapter count for Part Nine. Part Ten, the last section of the book, still contains four chapters. I don't expect that to change, but then, you never know. Now it's time to sit back, put my feet up and do a little reading (instead of writing) for the next few days. Later.

We finally made it to autumn, my favorite season of the year, though the ideal fall weather most imagine lasts for far too short a time. Spring ranks a close second, and as I get older, I look forward to its arrival more each year. I guess getting through winter is the real trick here in Central New York. As for my current book, my characters have just gone through their winter season, but only for a few chapters. Most of the novel has been set in the autumn months, and now as spring approaches, a few new developments are blooming as the book winds down. But as for the writing of the book, here's where things now stand.

I took some time off from writing to rework my outline as I mentioned in the previous post, stopping in what I thought was the middle of Part Nine. With the outline now mostly up to date (more on that shortly), I've decided to end Part Nine with Chapter 85 and finished editing that section (Chapters 79 - 85) two weeks ago. Since those seven chapters work together thematically and also end on a surprising note, I realized they could stand alone as a whole. Part Ten will now contain the remaining chapters that I had envisioned (and partially revised) for the second half of Part Nine, and a new Part Eleven will end the book.

I am currently near the end of writing Chapter 86 and hope to finish that up this week. And as I have over the past several years, I'll probably keep writing up to December or thereabouts, and then take a break until early in January. By mid springtime or so in 2012, I think I finally might have the first draft of this very long book completed--and it only took a year longer than first anticipated. Oh well, the heart was willing but the mind had other plans. Here's what the book's current structure looks like.

· Prologue (finished)

· Part One - Chapters 1 - 10 (finished)

· Part Two - Chapters 11 - 20 (finished)

· Part Three - Chapters 21 - 27 (finished)

· Part Four - Chapters 28 - 39 (finished)

· Part Five - Chapters 40 - 47 (finished)

· Part Six - Chapters 48 - 59 (finished)

· Part Seven - Chapters 60 - 70 (finished)

· Part Eight - Chapters 71 - 78 (finished)

· Part Nine - Chapters 79 - 85 (finished)

· Part Ten - (eight outlined chapters, 86 - 93)

· Part Eleven - (four outlined chapters, 94 - 97)

Earlier I wrote that the outline was mostly up to date, and while I don't anticipate any more changes to the number of chapters, I've been playing around with some of the events in Chapter 91, one of the major chapters of the book. Though the basics of the plot for that chapter had been outlined years ago, now that I draw closer to writing it, coupled with some of the other changes I've made, I'm looking at more interesting ways to handle the events in terms of both plot and theme. That's the writing process, I guess, and part of what makes it challenging and fun. So until I write the words THE END, the book, like the seasons, is ever changing. Talk to you in October.

Since October is nearly over, it's time that I posted my promised monthly update. I was working on Chapter 87 earlier today and let loose a pounding, day-long rainstorm on some of my characters. Coincidentally, a cold, dreary rain has been falling in my hometown all day, and just now in the fading daylight, I noticed a scattering of large white snowflakes parachuting among the raindrops. A preview of wintry things to come, I suppose, but I won't take out the snow shovel just yet. I hope there'll be plenty of time before I have to resort to such a drastic step.

In my previous entry, I mentioned that I had a week's worth of writing left to complete on Chapter 86. Not surprisingly, that turned into three weeks before yet another monster chapter (53 pages) in my book was completed. I'm about halfway through Chapter 87 today and it is moving along nicely. My goal is to write to the end of Chapter 89 by late November/early December and then take off until sometime in January when I will start work on the final eight chapters. But enough nuts and bolts. I'd like to give you a little more insight into the flavor of the story this month, but again, holding back on the plot points. Too soon to divulge that information.

Many people have asked me where I get my story ideas from, and I'll expand upon it regarding my novel in progress, specifically Part Six (Chapters 48 - 59). The middle chapters in this section entail a journey to and through a mountain range that was inspired in part by several hikes I took in the Adirondack Mountains, a large region of forests and lakes in northeastern New York State. The southern border of the Adirondacks is about ten miles north of my hometown in Little Falls, and when walking on the hilly roads just above the city on a clear day, I can see the distant tips of some of the nearer mountains while looking to the northeast. Most of the higher peaks (4000 feet or more), are a few hours' drive north and are bunched together south of Lake Placid. I climbed six of those high peaks several years ago, including Mount Marcy, the state's tallest mountain, with my oldest brother serving as guide.

My last climb, and most favorite, was Mount Skylight which I climbed with my brother on September 10, 1995. Skylight is the fourth highest mountain in New York and is open and rocky on the summit, providing a spectacular 360 degree view of the Adirondacks. The abundant sunshine that day highlighted the beautiful colors in the rock which gave the summit an almost magical look. I've kept in mind this moment and others to use in various ways when I describe the setting in this section of my book.

PHOTO #2: View from the summit of Mount Skylight in the Adirondacks. Photo taken on September 10, 1995.

The above pre-digital camera snapshot doesn't do justice to the scenery, but it's still not a bad photograph for the pocket film camera I was using at the time. I also climbed nearby Gray Peak that same day before ascending Skylight. As I recall, the top of Gray Peak was covered with trees and didn't offer much of a view. Below are a few more pictures from this hike and a couple of earlier ones. Hope you enjoy them. Back next month.

PHOTO #3: Another view from the summit of Mount Skylight in the Adirondacks. Photo taken on September 10, 1995. 

PHOTO #4: A view from early on the trail up to Mount Skylight. Photo taken on September 10, 1995. 

PHOTO #5: Here I am standing next to one of two cairns on top of Mount Skylight. To ensure good weather, hikers are supposed to carry a stone up the mountain and add it to the pile. My brother and I did and the weather was great all day. But look at some of the larger rocks that were left there. Some people certainly had a workout on the way up. Photo taken on September 10, 1995. 

PHOTO #6:

PHOTO #7: 

The above two images are from my first hike ever in the Adirondacks up Snowy Mountain which I took with my oldest brother and several other family members. About 100 feet shy of being considered a high peak, Snowy Mountain is in the southern Adirondacks. Indian Lake is visible in the second picture. Photos taken on August 30, 1983.
 

PHOTO #8:

PHOTO #9:

The above two images are both taken while climbing Mount Marcy, the highest peak in New York. This was my second climb. Photos taken on September 22, 1984. 

The countdown has begun to 2012 and so this will be my last update for the year. And it has been quite a productive but tiring year as I close in on completing the last chapters of this literary behemoth. As I mentioned in the last post, I had planned to leisurely finish writing Chapter 88 sometime in early December, but I guess I was enjoying my time off and worked too leisurely as I only just completed it yesterday. But the chapter is done and so there are only ten left to go. I will use the first two weeks in January to read the 2000 pages I have written so far just to refamiliarize myself with the story as a whole and then begin work on Chapter 89. Other than skimming short parts of the story now and then to refresh my memory or answer a question in the course of my writing, I haven't read through the entire completed portion in about two years because it has grown so long. I think it's time to do that again and see where it all stands.

And since the year is rapidly ending, I thought it would be a good time to tell you a few things about the beginning of this novel--not the plot, of course (too early for that), but a part of its origin. I've mentioned before that I first started developing ideas for this story in the fall of 1978. Most were unrelated bits of plot and setting and a few vaguely developed characters, all of which swirled around in my mind for about a year like bits of space debris that hadn't yet coalesced into a star or a planet, or in my case, a proper story idea. Finally, and by chance, there was one particularly interesting spark that started me on the road to laying out a viable storyline which I'll get into in more detail in a later post when I'm ready to reveal some of the specific plot points. But during this same time when I was mentally nurturing the first seeds of this novel at the ripe old age of fifteen, I was also writing another fantasy novel, without an outline, and made it all the way to Chapter Seven.
 

I remember writing it (printing, actually) in pen in one of those black and white speckled composition notebooks, each line single spaced. Even now when I write by hand I still print, finding it much faster going than cursive. But somewhere in Chapter Seven of that book I came to a screeching halt, having no idea where I was going with a flimsy plot and a collection of characters popping in and out of each chapter. So I set it aside, planning to tackle it at a later time, but nothing ever came of it. I wish I had kept that notebook which I must have discarded years later, probably thinking what a lame idea it had been. I even recall typing up those seven chapters on my mother's blue metal manual typewriter (I believe one of the Smith-Corona models), formatting each sheet of paper so that it looked like a page of an already published book. But, alas, a published story it was not to be.
 

Still, one idea (a character, or more precisely, a group of characters) from that early attempt at a novel does survive in a slightly different form in my current work in progress. So, in a way, part of that old story lives on. One day I'll explain in more detail when this book is done and in the publishing part of the process. But it just goes to show you that any idea, even the discarded musings of a fifteen-year-old, may sprout up again in a stronger, more substantial literary form--and with a much cooler name, too. But as I said, more details about that and other topics as 2012 unfolds. Happy New Year!

Half a million words later (just over 550,000, to be exact), here I am again.

As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to take the first two weeks in January to read the prologue and eighty-eight completed chapters of my novel in progress to see where it stood as a whole. That task took me almost three weeks as I fit it in between working, occasional snow shoveling and watching several NFL playoff games. I'm happy to report though, that it was an enjoyable task. A fun read, if I do say so myself, where I looked forward to coming home each day to continue with the next chapter even though I already knew what was going to happen. I'll take that as a good sign.

As I read a printed version of the book in my reading chair, I kept a running list of typos, grammatical errors or minor word changes that I wanted to make and will correct on the computer later. There were under a hundred that I had missed during previous edits. Since the last three chapters (Chapters 86 - 88) are in Part Ten of the book which I'm still working on, I read those on the computer as I hadn't made a good print copy yet. That gave me the chance to re-edit those three chapters as I went along, cutting unnecessary words, phrases and whole sentences here and there and rearranging the same in other places. I enjoyed doing that and look forward to editing the entire project when I finish the last ten chapters without the pressure of having to write every day hanging over my head.

I always liked editing my work--getting rid of needless words, neatening up clunky sentences and tightening the story as a whole. Editing is like putting your work on an exercise regimen to trim it up and put some added spark and vibrancy into its pages. When I finished editing Chapter 86 the other day, it started out as 53 typed, double spaced pages. A few hours later, I had it down to just over 51 pages. That's nearly two pages of what I once thought were precious words now removed from throughout the text, making it leaner, meaner and more enjoyable to read. Though I've been editing as I write, I can't wait to go at the whole book with a literary scalpel when it's finally finished. Though I was pleased with how much I liked the novel up to this point, I found a few "talky" passages in two of the later chapters that I have to tighten up. Out of the 2000 plus pages, those were the only parts I thought dragged a bit. I wanted to sit down at the computer right then and fix them as I knew what needed to be done, but I decided that I'd better get to work on Chapter Eighty-nine first and save some of the editing fun for later.

So starting tomorrow, it's back to the keyboard, or occasionally pen and paper during my work lunch hour when necessary. Another update next month. Take care.

I had intended to post this month's update about a week ago, but my plans went awry thanks to a sudden head cold that dropped by unannounced. I am much on the mend now, and though I tried to write through the stuffed head and the need for extra sleep, I'm still about three or so days behind where I wanted to be. But I'll make it up with some additional time at the keyboard during each writing session so as to keep me on track. Briefly, here's where things now stand with my book.

I began writing Chapter 89 in mid-January after reading the first eighty-eight chapters just to get my head around the whole story again, and happily finished it in February. It stretched out to thirty-eight pages, a little longer than I had expected, but I was pleased with the results. I am now eleven pages into Chapter 90, and as there are ninety-eight chapters in the book, I am excited to have at last reached the "90s" though there is still a good amount of work to be done. So, starting tomorrow (actually today since it is nearly 2 AM as I write this), I will get back to work to drive this story to its conclusion. I'll try to write something a little less cut-and-dry for my next update in March. Until then, enjoy the extra twenty-four hours this year brings you on Leap Year Day on Wednesday. Use it well!

And then there were eight (chapters left to write, that is). It has been a long road since I wrote the short prologue and Chapter One of my current project, an epic fantasy novel, but slowly, very slowly, I'm reaching the end. And as they say, it's the journey, not the destination. So, I had better enjoy this process with all of its ups and downs, because pretty soon I actually will finish this nearly lifelong project. Then what will I do!? (Don't worry. Several other books are already lined up in various stages of completion).

When I wrote February's post, I was working on Chapter 90 of this novel, having completed the first eleven pages at the time. When I reached page thirty-three, I realized, just as I have at other parts in the book, that the chapter had arrived at a natural and logical conclusion. So, I decided to end Chapter 90 at that spot and continued writing as per my outline what is now Chapter 91. I'm happy to report that I also finished that chapter yesterday, adding another forty-two pages to the total.

Since my originally outlined Chapter 90 has now been divided into Chapters 90 and 91, the final chapter of the book will be Chapter 99. (Do I dare aim for one hundred?) I've done this chapter splitting several times before as noted in previous posts, but I thought I wouldn't need to anymore. But a chapter takes on a life of its own when you actually write it as compared to the ideas you once jotted down in an outline, something akin to the theory and practice argument. In this instance, the chapter shifted about midway through in the type and flow of action as well as the focus on particular characters. Splitting the chapter only made sense, though I never expected the two parts to run a total of seventy-five pages.

Now it's on to Chapter 92, one of the four remaining chapters left in Part Ten of my book. Part Eleven will also contain (as of this minute) four chapters. Both Chapter 92, and particularly Chapter 93, promise to be challenging to write as they represent the culmination of the main storyline in the book. I've revised parts of the outline for these two chapters as I near writing them, and at the moment, several of the plot points and character actions are still up in the air as I am considering many ways to mold the grand finale. I'll be interested to see where my creative instincts take me when I begin to tap at the keyboard on Monday and transfer my thoughts into a more concrete form. Whatever the result, I know it will be far different from what I originally had in mind when I completed the first draft of my outline almost twenty-four years ago. For those of your keeping score, here's the current status of my novel broken down section by section.

· Prologue (finished)

· Part One - Chapters 1 - 10 (finished)

· Part Two - Chapters 11 - 20 (finished)

· Part Three - Chapters 21 - 27 (finished)

· Part Four - Chapters 28 - 39 (finished)

· Part Five - Chapters 40 - 47 (finished)

· Part Six - Chapters 48 - 59 (finished)

· Part Seven - Chapters 60 - 70 (finished)

· Part Eight - Chapters 71 - 78 (finished)

· Part Nine - Chapters 79 - 85 (finished)

· Part Ten - Chapters 86 - 95 (86 - 91 finished, 92 - 95 to be written)

· Part Eleven - Chapters 96 - 99 (to be written)

So, until next month, enjoy wherever life takes you (only good places, I hope), and I'll get busy doing some more writing. All the best!

More to follow--eventually!   :  )