elizabeth_oswald

Why an epilogue?

I've had stories in my head for as long as I can remember. Ava's is in there pretty firmly now, and when someone on RR asked me about a chapter for Aspen, I just knew he needed one that would lead into Ava's story. So, here you are, another Patreon exclusive! Aspen's final chapter will appear in the last book of LF, but nowhere else. I hope you like it!

Epilogue - Aspen

Epilogue - Aspen

It was late, and the sun was setting over the vast plains and forests spread out to the west. Aspen sat in a chair on the small parapet that would have been a porch when his house had been more conveniently situated on the ground. A quiet scuffing sound warned him that he was no longer alone, and he turned to smile at his wife.

“She’s finally asleep,” Sarave said quietly, coming to stand beside him. Her slim hand slipped into his own, and ...

New cover for book 2!

Book 2 is now Harrowing. I honestly wasn't too sure what to do with these 'extra' covers, so I decided to focus on some of the main characters. Since Rouge already has Sowing, I gave this one to Aspen.  So here he is in his middle-aged, rugged handsomeness, complete with really ugly hat (and Silus, hiding on his shoulder).

Cultivation cover!

At least for now, this is the cover for book 5: Cultivation. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to improve it? I'm going to start work on a cover for book 2: Harrowing, next. Hint: Aspen figures prominently.

Three books or five?

I've been reaching out to some people on Fiverr to see about getting help with formatting the books for print and ebook. Now, they, in turn, have been asking me some good questions, which have resulted in some changes.

As it was, I was trying to keep the books as a trilogy. Admirable, because series that go on for too long are annoying. I like to know that a series will conclude sometime before the author gives up, keels over, grows stale, or (I'm looking at you, TV shows) gets cancelle...

Ava - Chapter One

Ava stared down at the spreadsheet displayed on her screen, tapping her stylus against her teeth with a soft click. “Just two hundred dollars, huh? Just.” She laughed bitterly, tossing the stylus down on her desk and leaning back to stare blankly at the ceiling.

Ever since her mother had lost her battle with cancer the year before, Ava had been drowning in debt. Not that she begrudged the expense, since every moment she gained with her mom had been worth any price, but she ...

Ava

Ava is the protagonist of the next book in the Legendary Farmer universe. She's a tough, independent woman, who faces quite a challenge when she suddenly finds herself as...the last vampire?! Or is she?

I'll only be writing the beginning of Ava's story for now. I want to finish Grimalkin's Test, and then I'll decide what's next. Ava will be getting three(?) chapters, which will go up on RoyalRoad when LF is taken down. As always, you guys get a sneak peek. I'm...

Grimalkin's Test - Chapter Two

Chapter Two

When one begins to take things for granted, it is best to venture forth upon a new adventure. Upon one’s return, they may find that they see things with new eyes.

-Lady Chatterwick

“Mrrowr!” Maria complained indignantly. A little brown paw clapped itself to her fuzzy mouth even as she realized that some part of her had automatically translated the yowl into what she’d meant to say, which was, “I’m a cat!”

...

Maria

Sorry I didn't get a new chapter of Grimalkin done on Monday. My lovely child brought home a cold on her last day of school, and generously shared it with me. I can't think when my head is stuffed with cotton, and writing requires at least some mental capacity 🤣

Here's a quick image of Maria in cat form, though! Chocolate point Siamese cats are lighter brown than seal points, and while in reality they can't have any eye color other than blue (though the shade varies dramatic...

Cunning plans

My daughter is out of school for the summer, so she's home, and while she's awesome and keeps busy playing Harvest Moon: One World, she's also very cute and distracting! Nonetheless, I'm working away, and I have a Plan! When I'm done editing Tilling, I'm going to pull all of the books, and do the things. There's a surprising amount to do.

My brother bought me some ISBNs, because he's awesome, so I have to go assign the digital and 'to print' versions to those numbers. I'm going...

Chapter One (GT)

Chapter One

While a lady never shirks her duty, it is also the duty of her family to remember that the lady has her own opinions.

-Lady Chatterwick

Glancing around, Maria tugged off her shoes and tucked them under her arm. They jostled the book already lodged there, and for a moment she juggled shoes and book, barely managing to hang onto them all. Involuntarily, she breathed a sigh of relief, and a bright-eyed little b...

Okay, I can't stand it.

I'm officially not a fan of editing. It's hard. Waaay harder than editing papers or short stories in college. So, once a week, I'm going to write a chapter of something. I'm going to start with Grimalkin's Test, which I was calling Cat Scratch Fever. I'm not posting it anywhere else, so yay, Patreon exclusive!

The End!

Here are Bree and Aspen side by side. I used Bree's image to crate Aspen's on Artbreeder, so they should look related. Now, why didn't I mark LF as a gender bender? 1) Bree wasn't really Aspen. She was more like a ghost who occasionally possessed him a bit. 2) If I did that, it would spoil the surprise! Not that there should have been much surprise by the end, but it's the principle of the thing.

So, what's next? Well, first, I send you copies of all three books, as promised. I've been ...

Editing is hard!

Now that LF is complete, I'm going back to the beginning to look at edits, and I can see how much I've grown as a writer. There're a lot of tweaks to make in creating the imagery and character development that I want to build, especially in these early chapters. Actually, there's a lot of work to be done, and it's kind of hard to make myself do it! Honestly, I'm kind of overwhelmed, and procrastinating 😬

This past week, I volunteered at book fair at my daughter's school, and it was a...

Final chapter count

The last chapter of Legendary Farmer will be chapter 275. That means you have about two and a half weeks left of LF. Everyone who is a Patron at that time will be sent documents with all three books in whatever form they are in at that time.

I'm going to start edits tomorrow, so there will definitely be changes from the version posted here and on RoyalRoad, though it definitely won't be the final version. If you want to end patronage, I totally understand, since I won't have much to pos...

One last sprint...

My daughter's school has Book Fair next week, and I really want to be done with LF before that because I signed up for way too many shifts. Fortunately, I think I'm only about two chapters from the end, and I'm having a blast finishing up. I will say, I was actually worried for Zoey at one point though, and I'm the author!

Between yesterday and today, though, I wrote five chapters, and it would have been more if Google Docs hadn't changed their character limit and locked up my ...

Drama!

I have things in game all wrapped up, and now I'm dealing with real life. How did Zoey get herself into this situation?!

(Oh, wait, my bad...)

Anyway, here's Amy as Gina. You'll understand why soon 😉 (She needs freckles, but it's really hard to Photoshop those in, so you'll just have to use your imagination.)

In-game to out

I'm writing chapters 266 and (part of) 267 today, which will wind things down in-game. The main story there is over, but there are a lot of much smaller stories to be told. I'm considering writing a kind of anthology of short stories. Some thoughts on title possibilities: 'A Day in the Life', 'Life is a Gift' (though that sounds like a self-help book), or 'One Day at a Time'.

Essentially, it would be a series of short stories from the perspective of various characters who are n...

Heroes

Chapter Two hundred sixty-five is done, and it was really hard to write. As I've gone along, things have often happened differently than I thought they would, since my heroes (and villains) sometimes seem to have minds of their own. This part, however, really needed to go according to script, and it was difficult to make that happen without seeming to make that happen. Hopefully, it flows naturally to you when you read it.

I've been building up to this for a long time, and from...

Writer's Block

Have I talked about this before? I don't even remember 🤦‍♀️ I'm going to give a quick example today, though. Last Friday, I spent the day staring at this:

Chapter Two hundred sixty- Aspen

I got absolutely nowhere. Couldn't even find the first words. I know what Aspen needs to do, but couldn't get him there. I even gave up and played Wordle for a while 😂 By the time I needed to leave to pick up my daughter, nothing had changed.

This morni...

Three more chapters? Nah.

Atae and Gina just showed up, and theoretically I only have three more chapters before the book is supposed to be done (going by the 20% of the book should be the final arc thing). I'm not going to make it, but it's definitely getting there.

Ganbatte, Aspen and Rouge!

Killing him softly

Just killed off another major character. The end is nigh!

Challenges

Writing the end of a story I've been working on for so long is more difficult than anticipated. I have to reveal all the secrets I've been hoarding, and knowing when and how is hard. I feel like I'm moving too quickly, and then I think I've slowed down too much. I definitely think there's going to have to be some adjustments made for pacing reasons in editing, but at least it'll be down and ready for those edits soon!

20ish chapters left!

My brother keeps telling me that the formula for a good/satisfying/well-paced ending is to have the beginning of the final arc take up the last 20% of the book. Book three is right on track to run about 100 chapters, and no more than 110. I began that final arc with the chapter I wrote last Friday, so I expect LF to be complete in 20-30 chapters. That means I'll only be writing for another 4-6 weeks before either taking a break to write something else, or beginning the editing process.

...

Aspen or Rouge?

Waaaay back when I started LF, I began the way I did so I could get to know my characters. That's why there was a big chunk of just Aspen, and then a big chunk of just Rouge. When I do revisions, I'm going to move those chapters around so that they happen more or less at the same time. The question is: Who should be first? When I wrote the beginning, it made sense to me that Aspen would be first. (For reasons that you STILL don't know, but which have to do with the no-longer-published prologu...

Down with villains!

I just killed off one of the villains, so look for that in about two weeks!

Creative influences

My family moved from the Midwest to Seattle when I was nine. I wasn't exactly an outgoing kid, and I didn't make friends easily, so this was the time when I really started reading. My dad had a ton of books, and I devoured them all. Westerns, romances, hard Sci-FI, epic fantasy, I read all of it. Some of it was definitely not age-appropriate, but I didn't care.

When I got to middle school, I was bullied pretty badly. I didn't even eat lunch for two years because nothing good would come ...

Goblin Translation guide

Refuge is going to have some unwelcome guests soon, and they don't like to speak Common. Incidentally, these are the chapters where I discovered that I don't like having characters talking in a lot of foreign languages that I keep having to look up even though I created the language!

In any case, here is my Goblin Language Guide. Be warned that there are some potential very minor spoilers, so it's up to you if you want to look at it or hang onto it until you need it.

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Vacation time!

My kiddo is on spring break this week, so we're doing a little road trip. No big deal, but I'll be *gasp* away from my desk, so I doubt I'll be able to write much, if at all. I hope I can get some writing in, though, not only because I miss it, but because I always lose track of the character's feelings, as well as what they're up to. I honestly don't write much in the way of an outline, but I will tonight, before we leave, because I don't want to lose what everybody was up to. I have another...

Jace and Fluff

It's spring break time, so there will only be four chapters this week, and four next week! (I figured that was better than 5 this week and three next? Yes? No?) But here are my 'inspiration' images for Jace and Fluff, so you're not LF-free today!