I don’t want to talk about everything else here, so I’m not going to. You want to hear about my angst around the current political situation, you’ll need to wait for another post.
‘The End’ books I’ve been working on are a pretty ambitious project, at least to me. This is my high epic fantasy gather ye heroes while ye may type effort, and it is proving to be just as full of magic and wonder as I wanted it to be.
To catch up the folks that are just now joining, After the End is book 1, because why the hell should I do anything normally? It is set after a massive cataclysm that robbed the eastern half of the world of much of it’s ability to use magic. It’s grim, dark, with a time gone by feel that I am pretty proud of. We also get a glimpse into life on the western side of the divide, where there’s prosperity, but at a certain cost of personal freedom. All is very regimented.. or is it? (And if you’re curious about how all that goes, feel free to hit Amazon or Audible and check it out.)
For book 2, we’re going back to Before the End and getting a glimpse into the beginning times that shaped the world. I had the damn thing done, then screwed up and went to see Fellowship of the Ring in the theatre again… which exposed some things I wasn’t happy about. The thing worked, but it didn’t soar. It wasn’t getting to my ideal vision of a classic that you keep on the shelf. So instead of releasing a book I didn’t love last year, I decided to pull it back and give myself the time and grace to get it right.
Cue the cuts… three of the character point of views I was working with didn’t please me, so they went to the cutting room floor. Two more weren’t going in a direction I liked, cue rewrites. The funny part is, probably due to the fact that I’ve structured my writing life around Nanowrimo, I’ve conditioned myself to WANT to write in the fall. In the dark, with soft jazz playing and puppies trying to steal my keyboard.
That brings us to where we are now. As of today, I’m pretty sure the core of the book that remains is clocking in around 60k words, and there’s more to go. I’m not even looking for a word count anymore- my goal is to bring this book to completion within the next one month and twenty odd days. That’s writing, that’s editing, that’s everything.
I know I *can* do this, I do. I know it can be the work I want it to be.
Just hope yall like it when it’s done.
Curiouser and Curiouser 