《Lost Dreams Book Club》Read Cycle 68
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Hello and welcome to the next cycle of the Lost Dreams Book Club!
We are ready to get started with the new cycle and we hope you are, too! Below you will find this week's groups. If we haven't found a group for you yet, you are on the waitlist. We'll make sure to group you up as soon as we can.
To make sure everything runs smoothly, here is a quick overview of what you'll need to do:
- The assignment is to read 3 chapters of each partner's book over the next 2 weeks. The deadline for this is May 14. The next update will be the next Sunday; .
- Remember to give the best feedback you can. .
- When you've finished your assignment, report to us with what you've read in this chapter. This should look a bit like this: Three chapters read of Speaker's Way; last chapter read: chapter 24, and three chapters read of The Root of Magic; last chapter read: chapter 24.
- Remember to talk to your group members. If you want to read more than the required 6 chapters per 2 weeks, talk to your partners to see if they want this too. If one of you has a book that's shorter than the others', see if you can fix this by letting your partners read a second book of yours once they finish the first one.
- Let us know if your partner does not provide you with adequate comments.
Here are this week's groups.
What Life Holds -
The Monsters in My Heart -
Beauty from pain -
A Fighting Chance -
Impish Gambino -
Cheer Me On - [HIATUS]
Legends of Taljin: Secrets of the Sword -
Celestia Netherbane -
little darklings: the other side -
Famous in Love -
The first fae mate -
Challenge Accepted -
Starlight -
The Man in the Cave -
The Silver Lining -
Vanguard Of The Mutants -
Lullaby of Death -
Moonlight's Deception -
Flashfire - [HIATUS]
The Harbinger of Nor'wester -
Coyote -
Cultured -
The Empress of Doom -
Daniel Heron: Becoming -
Nobody!
P.S. Please don't forget to let us know if one of your partners goes above and beyond with the feedback on your story, so that we can give them a shoutout!
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- In Serial49 Chapters
Sorcery in Boston
The timid daughter of some of the greatest spellcasters ever to have lived has found herself in another world, courtesy of magic gone awry. In Boston, Massachusetts, in the year 1935, she finds some kind souls in a hard era. In the heart of the Great Depression, as war looms around the corner, she seeks to find her place, and must come to terms with both who she is and what she truly desires. Author's Notes: Release Note: I recently realized what the hold up is. My current mental state is not compatible with the planned ending. If I wrote the ending according to what currently feels right, it will be a wretched, cruel ending that feels monstrously unfair and invalidates the work of the various characters... because that's how my life feels at the moment. The planned ending is coming out hollow and awkward, no matter how I write it, and so I've been bashing my head. I will finish it, once I manage to either brute force something decent out, or once my head gets screwed on straight. Audience: This story is not for young children - it contains some profanity, sexual content, violence, gore, and significant adult themes. Most of these are handled delicately enough not to upset teens or adults (hopefully), hence the lack of relevant tags, but it is nonetheless unsuitable for youth. It's fairly slow paced, and focused on the development of very human, very flawed individuals. Length / Completion Estimates: The outline currently involves two books. Book 1 is expected to be done with Chapter 43. It'll probably be completely finished by sometime in March of this year. I expect to move on to the far-more-lighthearted Of Gods and Dungeons (currently in progress / on hiatus). Afterwards, I may decide to redo Book 1, or write Book 2, or actually start sharing the story most dear to me, that I've been working on for several years now. Draft 1: Please be aware that this is first draft material. I do intend to come back to do a second draft after the story is complete. If anyone notices any issues whatsoever with the story, please let me know (pm, etc) so that I can improve the second draft. Writer's Pledge: I've taken the Writer's Pledge, meaning I'm commiting to completing this story. I'm a proud member of WriTE, a group dedicated to finishing stories. It will be done! Behind the Scenes notes: This picture was commissioned from an inked artist by the name of DanP. Up until the time of the protagonist's arrival, history has proceeded as before. Some places and characters have been borrowed from wikipedia entries of interesting figures from the time. I will make note in the chapter comments when such things come up. Naturally, I've taken a great deal of liberty with them. In interest of respecting individuals, I've either attempted to portray them as accurately as possible, or modified them sufficiently enough that they're simply an inspiration, instead of a real portrayal. I've attempted to be as accurate to the era as possible, but I'm not a historian. If you're aware of inaccuracies, please, bring them to my attention so that I can correct them.
8 118 - In Serial20 Chapters
Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
8 153 - In Serial12 Chapters
Sortis Online (The Demonborn)
Book 1 now avaiable on Amazon Kindle! https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B08BR99Y1R Book 2 draft now posting! A young eccentric couple, Rowan Black and Gabrielle Allaire, endure typical lives as college students trying to make ends meet, but during an intersemester break, they decide to experience more action and adventure while at the same time grow their MyTube gaming channel. They book extended immersion slots in an upcoming virtual reality game, Sortis Online—a base-building, open-world multiplayer RPG. Except Sortis Online offers a tempting twist: players are given the option to choose from unique starting conditions and character backgrounds called Fates. Rowan is one of very few with a legendary Fate: Demonborn. Together with his wife, he finds himself injured and chained in a jail cell. They end up chased by man-eating Orcs that banish them to the Arctic wilderness, which happens to be inhabited by Woodland Trolls that run a slave trade. In the safety of a costal fjord, Rowan and Gabrielle start a settlement from humble beginnings, fighting off worsening dangers and inconveniences by the day. A base-building fantasy VRMMO litRPG featuring slice of life and dark themes. This series is part of the LeMort Multiverse.
8 152 - In Serial19 Chapters
Twin Worlds: Warriors and Mages
[What if two different worlds—practicing two different disciplines: one, magic arts; the other magic circuits—one day become one? Gaia and Aether were once two separate worlds that has now become one.]Arthur Crane is a police officer who once worked as a secret agent. He may have a mere level 4 activation power but he has some tricks up his sleeve.As it turns out, the girl he falls in love with is actually a princess of an aetherean kingdom and a tier-SS mage engaged to the hero of his country for the sake of stregnthening ties (it seems she only dated him out of some mistake!)To win her back, he must reveal the truth: that he is the true hero of his country. People may laugh, considering he's weak, but it's the truth.Find out more in this sci-fi/fantasy/action/romance novel Signed: Secret Memories Update will be within 1 to 4 days.
8 70 - In Serial24 Chapters
Lucky Kiss Number 13
Pineview High's Football team has a tradition. Before every game the Quarterback throws the ball randomly into the audience, and the lucky girl who catches it gets to kiss him which brings the team luck. For more than a decade, the tradition has been successful, until this streak has been broken when one girl refuses to give a kiss. What happens when its the final game that decides whether they make it to semi finals and Tessa gets hit by the ball? The exact same girl who happened to refused to give away a kiss before? What started of as a little thing called revenge, but things don't go by plan. One cold harsh jock along with a sarcastic and broken girl are thrown together, showing a side of them that no one ever knew existed. Its a change of plans.
8 171 - In Serial20 Chapters
The Slump God (Stokeley Imagines)
Imagine that...
8 254
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