T.A Cole

Thank you :)) I'm going through some preliminary rounds of editing before I do a print copy to send out, but once I get there, if you're still interested sure thing! Thank you 😁 I appreciate it!

Writing update, day twenty-three
92,257 words. Preliminary edits of acts one and two complete
First day of the first round of editing. It feels weird to have my word count going down instead of up... got a feeling a lot of stuff I struck-through today wont survive a second edit. Good day though!

Thank you so much :)) it feels awesome!
It's a gothic horror set in the Midwest. It follows a journalism student who goes looking for ghost stories to write about, and ends up falling into something sinister when she meets a stranger in a coffee shop who feels unnervingly familiar :)

Putting some distance between myself and my first draft so it can sit for a minute, so I'm on my tablet adapting a cover doodle into something a little more presentable :)

Midwest supremacy :)) I love setting stories "somewhere in the midwest," it really lends itself to the mystery :))

Cheating ever so slightly with "academic."

From chapter 1 of "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade"

Movie pitch: a Forrest Gump-esque epic adapted from the Diary of Samuel Pepys that traces all the immense historical moments of 17th Century England that Pepys brushes past without noticing, because he's too busy insulting sex workers and complaining about his wife

I don't think it's too many for a first draft :) I usually try to overshoot on the first so I can edit down to genre convention. It also lets me know as a writer not to treat every word in the draft as sacred, you know? It makes the ol' hack and slash of the first edit easier :))

That's the hope :)) I like settings that feel like they have their own character

Thank you :) it ended up a little over 92k, but I want to trim it down a LOT before I get it printed. Aiming for somewhere between 70k and 80k

Got that "first draft finished" feeling 😎

Writing update, day twenty-two
92,319 words. Four more completed chapters, act four and epilogue complete.
FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE
I'm ironically lost for words. I used them all up
Honestly, this feels amazing! I haven't finished a story since "The Blind Game" in 2019 :))
#writing #wip #firstdraft

From chapter 27 of "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade"
Note to self: I have 35 of these, several on the same pages and multiple doing the same thing. Just a reminder for the edit.

Writing update, day twenty-one;
83,389 words. One more completed chapter.
VERY late writing stint today, I didn't even start until after 8pm. But when the words come, it feels stupid to sit on them.
Next chapter is the climax, Elara and Cassian have one last dance, one last clash, one final hope...

From chapter 28 of "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade," and specially chosen by my wife

Kinda. "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade" is set over Summer, however, the weather in Ebonhollow is eerily unseasonal. Something in the district makes the air bitterly cold, as if the whole place is being held hostage by winter. There's an unnatural chill that lingers and bites even on sunny days...

Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade

When a journalism student investigates a forgotten district, riddled with disappearances that it seems determined to ignore, she becomes entangled with a haunting stranger whose presence feels disturbingly inevitable.

#writing #wip #gothichorror

From chapter 10 of "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade."

Writing update, day twenty;
79,738 words. Two more completed chapters.
Elara's having a rough couple of days 😅 I got over that weird turn last week eventually. Back to feeling good about being this close to the end, even if I feel bad putting Elara through this...

Cheating a little for this one, my "troll" is wedged between a "pa" and an "ing" 😅
From chapter 28 of "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade." In this scene, Elara stalks the terrible Ebonhollow Gloamhound, desperate to understand what it is and how something so debased could possibly exist

Well my current WIP is a gothic horror, and the MC struggles with increasingly disturbing dreams, and this just gets me right into that headspace. It definitely has an influence, I was writing a dream sequence recently and sort of struggling with it. Couple minutes of this and I was flying along 😅

𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐕𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 | 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐕𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐜 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞, 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲, 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 | 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐀𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐚 YouTube video by Demure

I've been using this one, similar idea to what you mentioned. It's dark, it's gothic, it's just enough to get my brain going without distracting me. I can't do anything with lyrics, so this has been perfect

www.youtube.com/live/FqS5i94...

From chapter 15 of "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade."

Thank you :) I appreciate that! Putting a life-long fear of mirrors to good use 😅

From chapter 22 of "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade"

As nightmares and hallucinations take their toll on Elara's mental state, even her reflection in the bathroom mirror is no longer safe.

From chapter 6 of "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade" and specially chosen today by my wife :))

An Ebonhollow local recounts his terrifying encounter with the Gloamhound, and the price it exacted...

Writing update, day nineteen;
75,668 words. Three more completed chapters, act three complete.
Is it normal to suddenly lose a bunch of confidence in your writing when you realise you're in the final straight? Does it go away? Asking for a friend.

Drew this almost a year ago.

Today I finally get to write this scene.

#writing #wip

From chapter 16 of "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade"

I think one of the things that makes Cassian so subtly scary is the immense power he has over Elara. The emotional manipulation, the gaslighting, and how her rational sense just surrenders under his influence.

From chapter 20 of "Dark Wings: The Thirteenth Shade"