Despite trying to keep my attention on only one long project, my novel Faeblood, I can’t help but keep thinking up new exciting projects that I want to bring to life one day. Once I’m past the rough drafting stage for Faeblood, I might consider working on one of these while I work on editing it.
Escape (working title) is going to be a standalone fantasy novel set somewhere in the Wexlan Empire, possibly at an earlier point in history than when Faeblood takes place, perhaps even before the empire is fully formed. I have actually gotten a good ways into a rough draft for this novel before, and spent several years working on it, alternating between it and Faeblood. The one major issue holding me back from making real progress forward despite all of the time that I spent on it was that I didn’t know where I needed the plot to go, or how I wanted the story to end. When I return to this project, I plan to spend a decent chunk of time plotting out the major moments in the story, so that I actually have a road map to follow when I return to actually writing it.
The idea for Escape came from a short story challenge on the writing website Jottify (a site that no longer exists). The challenge was to write a story under a thousand words about winter. I wrote Flight, a story about a girl fleeing from a pursuer in a snowy forest, who meets a stranger who recognizes her, and aids her in her escape by using a magic teleportation spell. My fellow Jotters loved the story, and several really encouraged me to build on it and write a longer story with the characters. And so Flight became the prologue for my novel Escape, a story set three years after the events of Flight.
I have some strong ideas for what I want to do with this story, and what themes I want to explore in it. I’m going to have a lot of fun writing when I reunite with Azaira and Darenth and explore their story again.
Gothica (working title) is another standalone fantasy novel set in a different area of the Wexlan Empire, at a different point in history. I’ve put far less work and planning into this novel, but I have some strong ideas for it. This story will probably take place later in the history of the empire than Faeblood. The city where Gothica will take place will have some decently advanced steam technology. The protagonist, Larzia, will journey outside of the city to search for a coven of witches, hoping to learn how to do magic from them. Larzia will learn whether the coven will accept her into their circle, and whether it’s even possible for her to learn magic at all.
The Gate in the Forest is going to be a middle grade mystery adventure novel about a group of kids who research and later explore a mysterious abandoned gated mansion in the middle of the forest. Although this story may seem to be more of a contemporary novel at the beginning, there will be fantasy elements in it, especially when the kids learn more about the mansion and its history.
The Bard’s Story is going to be a middle grade fantasy adventure set in a land where society is separated into various groups. Each group has control over a certain type of magic, that they alone can use (e.g. fire magic, ice magic, love magic, story magic…) The protagonist will be the from the Faction of Bards, the group that is able to use story magic, so she will be able to magically tell stories that feel so real that the listeners believe that they’re actually in the story. During the story, she will begin to question why her society is organized the way that it is. The themes that I want to explore in this novel are friendship, arrogance, rivalry, and believing that you are better than others.
Poetry anthologies: I love poetry, will continue writing it, and so I will put out collections of my poetry at some point. I plan to organize them by certain themes, like poems about nature, or fantasy inspired poetry.
Short story anthologies: I have fallen completely in love with flash fiction, and my collection of stories continues to grow. I will most likely also publish collections of my flash fiction based around certain themes.
Nicole Horlings 