The End Is Near! (For Book 2, At Least)

About time I update this, for the one person who actually reads it. Book 2, The Forsaken, is coming together quite nicely. I'm expecting I'll be done this draft in about 10K words maybe, which shouldn't take too long to write. After all, since this quarantine thing started, I've been crushing it. In a span of 10 days I managed to write 45K words, including and 11K word day. Most I've ever done. That's more than a 3rd of the whole book in a week and a half. It's slowed down a bit since then, but I'm still happy with my progress.

I've mostly filled in the gap I skipped on the first go-around and I'm quite happy with it. It really brings the spy part of the story line to the forefront, while also including some scenes that set up important things for later books. I do have to change the very first chapter, however. I want it to grab you right away, get you hooked and the way it starts right now doesn't do that. But, when writing a first draft, it's more important to just get it down than get it right. After all, that's why editing is a thing.

I'm also quite pleased with the ending. I don't know if it'll be a huge surprise, it's not as if it's something that just comes out of the blue, but I suspect that most readers will be expecting it to happen in later books and get caught off-guard. I can't wait for the reactions it gets.

On a different note, last week I created a spreadsheet of all the characters in my series, from the MC's to the ones that barely get mentioned, so I can keep track of them all. I put in tons of details about all of them and it took a long time, but it's actually really nice to go look through it and remember, oh yeah, this is that guy that showed up fro one chapter in book 1. I'm gonna add him in another scene in book 3. There's a lot of them. 130, to be exact. Quite a few only show up in a chapter or two, but I find it just helps build the world a bit more. Most of them the average reader won't even remember, but that's ok. I had fun with it.

I also recently added a new page here on my website about Blackthrush. It has a map and some info about it. I hope to expand on that later, but most of the time, I'm focusing on finishing Book 2, which I hope can be by the end of April here. Ambitious, I know, but I might be able to do it. Then, it'll go off to beta readers, who hopefully will catch all the mistakes I undoubtedly made.

That about does it, I guess. To whoever reads this; you're awesome. Ok, cheerio.