2025 Second Quarter Writing Update

It’s hard to believe half of 2025 is already past. Yet here we are, the first week in July, which means it’s time for my second quarterly writing update! If you’d like to read my first quarterly writing update, you can check that out here. The stories which I have asterisks beside are those which are referenced in my first post, and therefore I will not be going into an explanation of what they’re about. Refer to that post for their descriptions.

Writing Update: April Through June

I’ve mostly focused on three stories:

Nothing As It Seems: A YA Romantasy*
Faith Steadfast: A Christian YA Non-Magical Fantasy*
A currently unnamed story inspired by the Wars of the Roses and other Medieval people and events.

As mentioned above, those with the asterisks beside them I will not be sharing too much concerning what they’re about since it is explained in previous posts. I will be updating how the writing process is going along, however.

Nothing As It Seems

A prince with a reputation for killing his knights, and his bodyguard who may be working with the assassin out to kill him, have to join forces against a group targeting them both in a kingdom where nothing is as it seems.

If you’ve been around my blog for longer than a couple months, you know my romantasy is my main work-in-progress. Or, I’m trying to keep it the main one, anyway. But as I mentioned in the last quarter’s post, I had taken a few weeks break from it because it was giving me issues.

I am happy to say that during this quarter, I have rewritten fourteen of the chapters (which I’m actually quite impressed about, I didn’t realize I’d done so many) which is about a third of the book. Total word count is somewhere around 42K. Yeah, I’m going to have to cut down on some of the word count, but I am an overwriter by nature, so hopefully it’ll go smoothly when I go to do cutting in the future.

Unfortunately, this past week I ran into another minor plot hole (don’t you hate those pesky things?) Thankfully, I think I resolved it, however because it required changing something I hadn’t accounted for changing, my mind is still trying to mentally process it. So who knows if I’ll take another mini break (maybe a week or so?) from it to refresh my mind at least a tad.

Faith Steadfast

Thrust from luxury, family, and everything he’s known in one traumatic night, Brenton Rochefort, 6th Grand Duke of Kithage, finds himself hunted with only his father’s seal and the treacherous Herbert Langton’s wrath for identity. Forced to lower himself to the position of a common esquire and an assumed name, he struggles with adjusting to the inferior treatment while dealing with his personal grief and fighting to stay hidden–and alive.

On days where I needed a break from Nothing as it Seems, had already worked on it for the day, or was too tired from working my other jobs to truly give my romantasy the attention it needed, I often worked on this story. This story is definitely my comfort story–it possesses many of the tropes I love, and I absolutely love writing the main character, Brenton. (Though I find it ironic most of the good quotes I’ve found to share with you all come from my second main character Arden’s point-of-view.)

Seeing as I started this story a long time ago, I had some old chapters I needed to rewrite in order to make the story go smoother. So most of my writing in this project this quarter was rewriting in nature. Although I did work on a couple side stories (which may or may not make it into the actual novel–I’m a panster, I never know this early!)

It looks like I got about five chapters plus the prologue reworked, so for an on-the-side story, I’d call that a win. Especially when I add in the actual first draft chapter I finished and the two side stories I worked on! All added together it looks to be around 24K words, so again, I’m quite happy!

Currently Unnamed Wars of the Roses Inspired Idea

Okay, so last quarter I mentioned having an idea of writing a fantasy Wars of the Roses story–that is not the same as this one. I pretty much knew next to nothing about the Wars of the Roses except it was, quote, a dynastic struggle for the crown between the houses of Lancaster and York. Through researching it a ton these last three months, I can state that, actually, that’s an almost entirely incorrect statement. I won’t go into too much detail on the historical aspect (although if anyone wants me to do a post on what I’ve learned about the Wars of the Roses, I’d love to, just let me know in the comments) but needless to say, that idea has not been touched and can’t really be compared to the Wars of the Roses, technically speaking.

This new idea is much more inspired by the actual events in the Wars of the Roses, but also mixed with other elements of historical events and figures, such as Joanna Plantagenet, Richard the Lionheart’s sister.

This project is very much a work-on-when-inspired non-serious project, and one that I randomly write bits and snippets of from a cast of characters that is slowly growing. As I said in last quarter’s post, I’m very much a “let the idea simmer for a few years before actually writing it” type of girl so I’m not trying to force anything to come, and just writing little shorts and snippets as they come to me.

But I’m certain you’re just wanting to know what the idea is about already–besides being inspired by the Wars of the Roses. Well, I don’t have a blurb. But I do have this nice snippet and a highly-subject-to-change description for you.

If anyone is familiar with the Wars of the Roses, they know they involve political turmoil. And that’s very much what’s going on in this story world. A king obsessed with finding his missing wife and son, allows his closest friend, Aurivier, to run the government under his name. Aurivier is in a rivalry with the king’s second cousin–and a possible heir presumptive–Algerion, and seeks to exclude him from the government.

Algerion wants the king to forget about his almost certainly dead family and focus on running his kingdom–and presumably stop treating Algerion like a rebel outcast. But the king has no intention of stopping his going-on-fifteen-years search, and several of the nobles favored by Aurivier take advantage of this, carrying on feuds with those supporting Algerion. The populace themselves become agitated, as they support the better-liked Algerion than Aurivier. (The quote in the snippet above is Algerion’s, speaking to a subordinate.)

In the midst of all of this, Algerion, on the prompting of his favorite nephew, Richard, takes on a new esquire, a boy who’s parents are unknown, but who was raised by a well-respected noblewoman. His new esquire, Edward, though quiet and shy, turns out to be quite loyal to him and strikes up a warm friendship with Algerion’s daughter, as well. Edward helps to fight off some of the rival noble families attacking Richard’s lands, he and Richard becoming close in the process–until the king recognizes Edward as his son and Aurivier schemes to pit him against the very ones he cares for, with national consequences.

As mentioned, that description is highly likely to change as time goes on. The story itself already has–I wanted Richard to be the main character and Edward the secondary, but for as sweet and shy as Edward is, his own passivity has made him become the character with the most at stake, oddly. Or maybe I’m just getting more ideas with him, at the moment. I have a few for Richard–I do know Richard’s inciting incident already, and Richard is a much more proactive character than Edward, but I just have gotten more ideas with Edward, for some reason. And one with Algerion and his daughter.

Something I have enjoyed about brainstorming and writing this story, though, is the ambiguity in it. While the blurb I wrote there seems more favorable towards Algerion, it’s merely because I haven’t yet explored Aurivier’s character and his side of the feud with Algerion. Each person believes they’re doing what’s best for their nation and king. It’s really anyone’s pick, who is the real bad guy here. (Feel free to speculate in the comments on any of this–maybe I’ll find some inspiration from your suggestions!)

From the bits and pieces I wrote on this, it looks like I wrote around 11K words. Seems less than I thought, but probably because in the brainstorming process not as much gets written down as thought up.

Total Quarterly Word Count: ~77,000

Average Words Written Per Month: ~25,500

Well, that’s it for now! What have you accomplished in the second quarter of 2025? If you’re a writer, tell me what you’ve worked on! If you’re a reader, let me know what your favorite read of the first quarter was! And remember, if you’d like me to do a post on the Wars of the Roses, or have any ideas for my Wars of the Roses inspired idea, let me know below! God bless. ~ Kay Adelin