Good morning, this time I’m ON TIME!!
As y’all might have noticed, the next two chapters have been put out, so I’ll address some things written in #4, but first, we feast – on the stats for the story as of today!
Continue readingTHIS IS TAKING LONGER THAN I INTENDED.
Story of my life. Before I get into details, here’s the stats for this month:
Current Chapter: 10 (Status and Poison)
Pages: 143
Word Count: 65,015
Before you ask, yes, these are the numbers with the ToC and title page taken out. About a 2000-word difference from the last post; not great, not terrible. Could be better, but most of the work done this month was corrections and clarifications, so I think it evens out.
So, as I said, the release is taking longer than I intended – my original goal was to be done with Chapter 10 by now, and have the Prelude and Chapter 1 released for you to read.
To my misfortune, life was extremely busy this past month, and I lost some motivation in the past three weeks. I was running overtime like crazy, alone for the longest amount of time I’ve been in a while, and just generally bogged down and exhausted.
I did, however, keep listening to the story over and over again to catch mistakes and inconsistencies, and to make sure where the next chapter was headed was where I wanted it to be. Chapter 10 is going slow, but it is about halfway done, so with any luck, I’ll have the first chapters out by the end of the month (though to be honest, it’s looking more like mid-next-month now…)
I’m doing a few more once-overs when I can only listen, and I’m trying to write after work or on my days off. Here’s hoping that the schedule sticks!
As a final note, I wanted to share something relatively special upon release. I’m going to be sharing maps and designs as the chapters come out – maybe one every three releases. If I’m able to, I would love to release one alongside every chapter, but to do that I would need better skill with the tablet I’m using, or (something I’d love to do) hire an artist for scenes and profiles. Right now, I’m looking at just releasing the world map of Kiria with the Prelude, but please tell me if you’d be interested in this sort of thing.
For now, back to writing.
-Marcosias Isif
I AM LATE BUT I AM HERE~!
I apologize for the delay getting to the story update, but I’ve been finalizing(ish) the prelude and first chapter of the story for release, which should be available sometime this month or next. I’m very excited that we’re so close to release!
In other news, here’s the current status of the series:
Current Chapter: 10 (Status and Poison)
Pages (not including title and ToC): 138
Current Word Count (same): 62,730
I think that I’m nearing the middle of this part of the story, if I’m being honest. I was originally envisioning the first “book” to have 30 or so chapters, including asides. With the way things are playing out writing-wise, I may end up only releasing 25 chapters, if that.
I also wanted to clarify something I may have forgotten to mention in the last update; I had to rearrange some of the paragraphs as I reviewed the story to fit the… “pacing” of the speech and thoughts. I’m not a professional, and I’ll never (truly) claim to be until I release a physical book or something. I rewrite my chapters regularly and I read and listen to my story whenever I can to catch hiccups and mistakes. But I am not perfect, and I have learned to accept that.
The story’s endgame has not changed, just some wording and clarifications fixed or added. Because I haven’t really said anything about the story, I realize it is a completely mystery to anyone reading these updates. But please believe me, I am putting all my effort into making this story enjoyable to some degree.
As I said previously (I think in the March update), I am using Autocrit to help me close the gaps. I want to be very clear about this, however: Autocrit is a support tool for me. I use it to catch repetitive mistakes and unresolved plot threads, but I do not generate any of the text that will be released. I do not like the idea of writing a story completely with AI, and I greatly enjoy creating my own worlds from scratch and mind. I take any suggestions from Autocrit with a grain of salt, but I do trust that the mistakes it catches can help me improve.
Sorry, a lot of infodumping at the last minute, but I felt I should be very clear about everything regarding the story – why I’ve been delayed, what I’m using and why, and my level of dedication to this project. As I said, I’m extremely excited to share this.
Keeping in touch,
-M. Isif
Good morning, everybody!
I wanted to take a few moments to alert anyone interested in reaming my content that I do have a couple of presences online already.
Primarily, I’d been using Fanfiction.net and FictionPress (they are general fiction sites that were easy to upload to in the past), but I also have a Wattpad account that I’ve uploaded three stories to (none of which are done).
I am writing this post specifically to point people in the direction of where Hell/Dolls will be released; I will update the blog whenever a new chapter comes out, but I don’t think I will be releasing it directly on here. I’ve been toying with WordPress / Jetpack since I came back to this blog, and I’m fairly unfamiliar with the new layout, as you’ve probably seen.
In short, until I get a better handle on this blog’s makeup again, I think I’ll release it on the other sites, and post links in my writing diary.
For now, await an update on the blog for the first releases. In the meantime, I have some short and unfinished stories available on each site:
Also, don’t forget to support my ko-fi if you like my creations.
Thanks to all my readers for your support!
Love you all,
-Marcosias Isif
Good day to all!
Today, I’d like to provide a short update on my Hell/Dolls story, as it stands right now (though, truth be told, I started this article on the 23rd).
As it stands, here are the statistics I have:
Current Chapter: 8 (Talks and Whispers – tentative name)
Pages: 89
Total Word Count: 41,110
So, something some of you may have noticed is that the word count hasn’t gone up much despite entering a new chapter (the last update had 37,185 words, so barely over 4,000 words since the last update). Part of this is that I went back some days and reconfigured some wording and events, but the other part of this is that I haven’t been able to work on this story as much as I would have liked. Between a surprise guest in our household and holiday hours at work, the most I’ve been able to do is finish this chapter (a little abruptly), start the new chapter, and review what I’ve written and edit the errors out.
All in all, this is a short update telling you that I have indeed been working on the story despite my personal life. I have been able to do some work on my reviews during the weekends, but my story has suffered a little due to this.
Update (12/30/24): So, this WAS supposed to come out this morning, but I forgot. Instead, I’m sscheduling it for the ACTUAL end-of-the-year post.
I did want to address the decision I made regarding the novel’s release – I have decided to release the first four chapters (as well as the prelude) once I reach chapter 10, on FictionPress as I normally do. My train of thought is that by the time I get to Chapter 10, the wording for the story should be finalized, or at the very least need miniscule changes. I will also probably do an audio recording at some point, both for myself and for the readers.
What this basically means for the novelization is that it probably won’t be available on hardcopy, unfortunately – I think that releasing the story for free gives more access to people who want to read it, and it gives me less of a headache trying to find a publisher, dealing with fees, and other problems that come with publishing full-on books.
On the plus side, this means that once I feel a chapter is done, it will be available to read (and record). I won’t (or, will try not to) edit any posted chapters, and I’ll probably start a ko-fi or pull up my Patreon for anyone who wants to support me monetarily. Both links will come soon.
For now, keep an eye out for the first few releases! I hope to have them ready by mid-2025.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!
-Marcosias the Isif
Marcosias's Life Blog 