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Seven Sons, That Book I’m Writing
Every time someone asks me what my dream job is, I always say a sci-fi/fantasy author. If I could make money writing cheesy books for the rest of my life, I’d be a terribly happy man. The only thing better would be getting paid to play video games, but even that would lose some of its enjoyment after a time. And this is coming from a video game nut.
At the end of last year, I decided to finally try my hand at writing a novel. I’ve had ideas of doing it for the longest time, big ideas that I’ve been keeping in my backpocket until they were developed enough. I decided to finally go for it because I accidentally caught that my word count of blog posts on GamerSushi and SmoothFewFilms combined came out to a total of 250,000. This was with just 2 years of posting. If you’re unaware of just how many words that is, imagine one of the later Harry Potter books, or anything in the Wheel of Time series. That roughly translates to around 800 pages or more of sheer nerdy prose, and I had done it by accident, accumulating volumes of words by posting a few hundred each night. I figured, well, if I can do that, I can do the same thing towards an original story for an entire year and see what happens.
Enter my novel, whose working title at the moment is Seven Sons. I’ve been holding off on talking about it too much until I was ready, for fear of the whole thing exploding in a ball of Death Star-y combustion. But at 60,000 words in, I think it’s OK to start letting the curtain open a little. Seven Sons is an idea I’ve carried since college, and it was really built on one simple premise: a fantasy heist. Since then, it’s morphed more times than I can count, and has turned into something that I’m very proud of.
Sons can best be described (as coined by my friend, Ben) as a medieval, post-apocalyptic fantasy adventure. Close to a century before the proper story begins, the land of Arta was living in opulence. The discovery of a precious mineral known as gema, the orphan stone, launched the seven kingdoms of the continent into a new age of science and technology. Think of gema as a hyper-powered coal. They went from caravans to locomotives. They balanced ships in the sky and called them cloud busters. Everything worked on gears, wood, iron and the raw power of gema. But as men are wont to do, they used it. All of it. And then they destroyed each other for what was left. When the orphan stone was gone, it left their civilizations in ruins, and set their way of life back hundreds of years.
The story starts on a bounty hunter, Micah Furina. Micah is searching for his father, traveling the ruined countryside to find the man that abandoned him and his mother. His father is a well known criminal, and Micah is attempting to bring him back to justice. There’s a problem, though: it seems that others are looking for his father as well. And in the process of capturing him, Micah becomes unwittingly involved with the man’s newest scheme: namely, that he knows the location of the world’s last gema deposit… and plans on selling it to the highest bidder. Micah is faced with the choice of helping his father pull off one last great heist, or seeing the world fall back into ruin as it scrambles to get the last of the orphan stone.
There are no doubt many elements of this story, including the title (I’m also considering Sons of the Orphan Stone), main characters, etc., that are going to change by the time it’s all on the page. My goal is to continue writing about 3000-4000 words a week, and finishing the first draft sometime in August at around 100,000 words total or more. After that, I’ll print the whole mess out, go through it with the reddest of all red pens for several weeks, and then rewrite until the end of the year.
This is one of the most ambitious, grueling and rewarding things I’ve attempted, and even if it doesn’t go anywhere, I’ll have learned a great deal about the process. Next week, I’ll be adding an excerpt of the opening scene of the book, so you can check it out. Anyways, feel free to give me your thoughts on the premise!
Discussion
14 comments for “Seven Sons, That Book I’m Writing”
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That sounds absolutely incredible. You can bet that I’ll be buying a copy as soon as you finish this and get it published. Note, I didn’t say if. I have full faith that this is more than good enough to get published. I look forward to hearing more about it!
I’ll be sure to look at the opening scene.
Looking forward to it.
Love reading original fantasy/sci-fi books. Love your other work, so this is definitely something I would read. At least one book sold so far.
Nice to hear about a fellow writer. I can’t wait to read some of your work!
Thanks for the comments, guys. Really excited about the response and how the whole thing’s going so far. Hopefully the excerpt I post next week does not disappoint.
There’s going to be an excerpt next week? Needless to say, I’m excited.
I might have read some of the book, and it might be excellent. You guys are in for a treat.
The web site is looking really good, Eddy.
Looks really cool, Eddy! I enjoy much of your gamersushi/SFF posts, and I cant wait to read that excerpt of your novel! I’m actually working on a novel myself right now, I’m just trying to get the bare bones of it out before i go back and re-edit, re-write, and re-work a lot of it. It’s called “Project Scythe: Day Zero”. I’ve had the idea since about 07, and it has evolved constantly (much like you said yours has, in your post :))
Its a Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Mystery, Drama and Action all rolled into one. The story follows the main characterize, Ryan Prowler, as he investigates the mysterious circumstances of his father’s– his only known relative’s- untimely demise. Along the way, he finds friends, enemies, and a secret so deadly that it could destroy the entire world. Ryan and his friends’s eyes are now wide open: they see the truth. But they can’t hide from it; they can’t run from it. The world that had been pulled over their eyes was nothing more than a ruse. The greatest cataclysmic disaster is about to occur; and now, the only way to find it is at it’s source.
Oh, and there’s dragons. :)
I’m just posting this because I think it’s an awesome idea to share each others ideas, personally. The story mentioned above has a two-story arc, the second book might be called “Project Scythe: Endgame”. I can’t wait to read your excerpt, I might go back to the prologue of my book and heavily re-edit and rewrite it so I can share it with you guys :)
You need an edit button, for typos :)
I meant at the end of my post “The only way to STOP it is at it’s source”.
Brilliant man, as a fellow sci-fi/fantasy enthusiast, I’m really looking forward to this ;)
1 question, though, are you (forgive the criticism) giving it a corny name on purpose? It just seems a bit generic (fantasy wise) for such a great story. Something a little more luring to the reader would be cool, but it’s your story and your name non the less. You can always count on me being one of the first of your buyers ;)
Main thing is it’s something YOU are happy with
Love the title, nonetheless.
I do a bit of writing myself and I have to say I’m kind of jealous that you’re actually managing to get into the later stages of working on a book :p
Mostly I write the occasional short story for my own enjoyment, but I’ve always had an whole myriad of novel ideas rolling around in my head smashing into stuff and picking it up… eerily like a Katamari that’s in my head…
Anyway, I look forward to seeing how you write — the idea is great and I’ve always loved Steampunkish settings but, for me, a good book often comes down to the author’s writing style.
Good luck with the endeavour, I’ll be keeping an eye out for anything more you throw out here.
Hope you’ve copyrighted/trademarked/patented or whatever your idea for this book and, maybe, the title.
Gotta make sure someone else doesn’t rip you off.