IT IS FINISHED: Fragments of Time - 1st Draft
- Beth Hodgson
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Greetings and Happy Late New Year to all those reading this post. Without further ado, I am proud to announce that just this morning I finished the first draft of 'Fragments of Time.' What a wild journey it has been.
A long time ago at the end of high school, I had these characters that I drew, over and over again. To those of you who have read my books, they were the beginnings of Emerald, Kyle, Ikaria, and Derek (who's original name was Sama.) Later in college the characters Drew and Telly entered into the world of Arcadia, and I began to write out the story. At the time I had envisioned this story and characters, I had seen it as a graphic novel, and had worked on it off and on throughout the years. But ultimately, I had stopped several times, not satisfied how the story played out, and had scrapped the project. After many years later, I had picked up the story again, inspired by some crazy dreams I had of Emerald and Kyle. With that new inspiration and fire inside of me, I decided to write my story as novels, being as I was an avid reader myself of all things fantasy, scifi, and romance. The beginnings of my series started in 2016, with my first book published at the end of 2018. And here were are now, in 2026, with my first draft complete of the final book in my series. It's been a long journey, and the toughest creative project I have ever done in my entire life. Having patience has been key, even when I just wanted to give up. I kept going, because I felt I just had to tell this story. Even if it changed just one person out there in this world, that would make it all worth it.
Thought I have finished the first draft, there is still much work ahead of me for this book. Starting next week, I will be going though the draft, cleaning up scenes, possibly moving them around, and doing some rewriting. I do know that I have to add some details within certain scenes, and I have to add a few scenes pertaining with a particular character. For right now, I have placeholder scenes to fill in the gaps; this helps me write in details when I go through the manuscript in it's entirety to make the scenes more fluid. I project that it will take roughly 12 months before I send it off to my editor to publish. This is typical of all my manuscripts; and in all honesty, this manuscript has gone rather quicker than FotH and FoT. The only other smooth book was FotM, which only took me a year and a half from start to finish (the 6 months after was when it was in the hands of my editor.)
Reflecting back on this project, it looks quite a bit different than I first had imagined it. Without too many spoilers, I had imagined that Emerald was a lab experiment, and that her power was being drained from advanced technology. Telly was in charge of the lab and ultimately, Ikaria being behind it all. Ikaria, being from the future, was 'weak' compared to all of the other magical persons in her time. And because of that, she traveled to a time where she wasn't considered weak, and became powerful through the experimentation of Emerald's blood. Emerald had escaped from the lab from the help of Violette (this character is sort of Geeta and Auron's character combined) and she meets Kyle unexpectedly to save her from Ikaria and Derek - the evil prince, to whom her father wanted to marry her off to. Of course, that story is much different than what now is written in Fragments of Time, but you can see the bare bones of it and how the story evolved into something much greater, and far more epic.
Various artworks of Emerald throughout the years, ranging from 2005-2021. It feels sad writing this post; as it feels like the beginning of the end. Though my last book hasn't been published YET, it feels like it has ended. But that goes without saying that even though I am wrapping up the end of this story arc, that doesn't mean that it's the end of these characters. In fact, I have another story arc that I have thinking about for many years - which involves several of said characters which takes place after this arc ends. I also had written a prequel to the series - not finished - but a good chunk of story written. I would like to publish that at some point, as well as a WIP short story dealing with a featured character of FoT. I cannot promise that all of these will make it to the publish line, but I have full intentions to at least give some insight into the lives of the characters beyond FoT.
As for now, I will give myself a week writing break before I dive back into the world. I am also getting ready for Game On Expo, which is in March. I have already ordered my books, have more goodies to give away, and have the next weekend planned to make up my character trading card packs. It feels good knowing that I can go to this con, assuring all those readers that YES, I have finished my fourth and final book; that they will see an ending to this series, instead of the GRRM complex (no ending in sight.)
There have been other things that I've been wanting to say, but I will leave that for another post. Until next time! -Beth #fantasybook #fantasynovel #spectrumofmagic #cyberpunk #inksketch #cyborg #princessemerald #emerald #arcadia