Some of you might have noticed a lack of updates on both the blog and in the progress bar on the homepage. I wanted to take this time to let you all know what’s going on. I’ll also share some links I’ve come across these past few weeks that I thought interesting.
On My Writing
I have been writing, in fact I’m nearing the end of The Living Sword 3. It is taking longer than I thought because the story is turning out to be bigger than I had in mind when I started. It can happen. I hope to finish this month, at which point the long process of turning my scribblings into a real book begins. That will take many more months.
I think this is a good time to take you through that process. After finishing the first draft of the manuscript, I’ll let it lay for a couple of weeks and write something else. After that, I’ll do a rewrite or even two if inspiration strikes or I find myself wondering what I was thinking when I originally came up with that chapter.
Only after that is done will I send it over to my beta-readers. Incidentally, if anybody is interested please email me. I could use one or two more. But yes, taking their feedback I once again go over the story. Then it’s on to the editor. I used Lynda Dietz for the last two books in The Living Sword series and I hope to use her services again, if I can fit into her schedule.
Then there is the cover and formatting, and only then is the book ready to be published. All in all, six months if nothing goes wrong and everything goes right. And how likely is that?
It might take longer, as I have a new job that I’ll start on this week. This will cut into my writing time, I’m sure, but at the moment I don’t know what that impact will be. I will keep you up to date on that.
While You Wait
I haven’t just been writing and I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve been doing/reading/watching with you.
Medieval Misconceptions: THE BLACK DEATH, one of the worst pandemics of history
In my last blog post I promised to talk about past plagues and I started writing a post only to come across this. Shadiversity is a fellow author and has extensively studied the medieval period. His video here on the Black Death covers a lot of ground better than I could. I recommend you give it a watch, and his channel a follow.
A Collection of Unimitigated Pedantry
I’ve been reading Professor Bret Deveraux’s blog for some months now and I can heartily recommend it for anybody with any interest in either military history or fantasy. Especially Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. He takes a deep dive into some fascinating subjects and updates far more regularly than I do.
I have to admit, I’ve been playing quite a bit of this game these past few weeks. It has been called the Dwarf Fortress of Space 4x games and it shows. It barely has graphics, but it’s deep. The game is the work of one man and recently got a massive update which changed a lot of things.
It gives you a great appreciation of just how big space is and if you have some spare days, I do hope you’ll check it out. Just be warned that you should watch some tutorial videos first. The game doesn’t bother to explain much.
Book Sale
I almost forgot to include this, but I’m participating in Smashwords’ Authors Give Back sale. It has been extended to the 31st of May and you can get a lot of books for a steep discount or free! The Living Sword is indeed free while the new The Living Sword 2 – The Road Ahead is 60% off.
If you haven’t bought either one yet, this is your chance.