I think Arrows and The Woodsman are going to be knocked down in priority. At least for a bit, because another, larger project has completely captured my imagination and now I can’t focus on TW, much less Arrows.
To begin with, I have multiple Civil War stories. There’s a novella connected to Arrows and a post-war novella connected to The Woodsman, and a whole series called A Time For Everything that has almost always been connected to Preserving The Past as a prequel.
If you’re asking why so many Civil War stories, it’s because I’m somewhat of a Civil War buff:
A Time For Everything started out as a sappy romance that happened to be set during the Civil War. It had the dreaded love triangle in it (which I personally don’t mind when it’s done well) and…well…if you want more information, just go here.
At some point, it started to morph into less of a romance (though it does still have that) and into more of an actual war drama. It also turned into a four-book series and gained a series name based off of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 – A Time For Everything, with each individual book also gaining their title due to those verses. Then sometime between 2015 and 2018, I decided to make ATFE a prequel to PTP.
Anyway…last week, I got a maybe-brilliant, maybe-not-so-brilliant idea to merge those two standalone novellas into the series, upping the number of families involved to seven. It also has five books now:
I’ve already started reading some of those books shown in the first picture and found a couple of YouTube videos featuring Civil War veterans and ex-slaves. I also went hunting for regiments for the male characters to be in to see who would be where because of course I want Shiloh, Gettysburg, and Appomattox in the series (at some point I had to tell myself that they can’t all be at Gettysburg).
Honestly, I feel like I hit a gold mine when I found the 1st West Virginia Cavalry Regiment because it was at not just both Gettysburg and Appomattox BUT also Cedar Creek, which I wanted [REDACTED] to die at but neither of the regiments I’m considering to stick him in would’ve been there. But he’ll still be at Gettysburg…
Another thing to note is that aside from wanting to be historically accurate and balanced as I can be, it’s also going to be emotional. Very emotional.
Anyway, that’s about it for now. How’s your writing going?
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