I figure it’s about time I share the main project I’ve been up to as of late, considering how overdue this is in the first place.
I’m just about finished with The Ones Who Follow the Water, a new adult fantasy novel.
This is a story that will always be dear to me. When I was in high school I wrote short stories, mostly for fun, and I didn’t have many ideas I could see taking up a full novel. That changed during a camping trip with my best friends, when I had a dream that inspired one.
I tried to write it as soon as I got home. Something like 300 words in, I realized I wasn’t ready to write it. I had about a page and a half, and it read like a summary of the dream I had, not actual storytelling. So I shelved it for years.
I wrote the first draft much later, during NaNoWriMo 2010. I could go on about the process behind the book, but to make a long story short, I edited the life right out of it. The final result was boring, stagnant, almost like that two-page summary I had written years before. I had told the story I wanted to tell, but that was all it was—a sterile recount of a story I could see so well in my head, but failed to get down on paper.
This year I decided to go back over it and breathe some actual life into the story. I re-wrote most of the novel with a better understanding of how to write, how to edit, what audience I was going for, and how to translate the story I saw in my head.
But enough about me. Here’s the synopsis for The Ones Who Follow the Water.
The town of Welby is surrounded by a high wall, erected in long-forgotten days when people remembered their magic and Immortals walked the earth.
Oren and Carah grew up together in Welby, but when Oren makes a mistake that could get Carah exiled, he has no choice but to climb over the wall and enter the unknown world beyond, following a river and looking for a necklace.
The world is full of creatures and people Oren never dreamed of, but friend and foe alike offer him the same advice: Don’t follow the water.
Oren’s journey leads him to an impossible castle, and inside, Oren finds the necklace, and a reason to never go back home.
The Ones Who Follow the Water will be available November 25th, 2014 in e-book, hardcover, and paperback editions. I’ll post store links (including pre-orders) on the book’s main page soon. The Smashwords page is already available, with others coming soon. In the meantime, here’s a trailer for the book:
Faded Pages 