Category: New

My editing process is kind of weird on my books. While I work on the second draft of An Abyss for the Ashes, I send chapters out to my editor. So there are actually two drafts going on at the same time. What this means is that while the bar under this message says I’m 38% the way through, that’s a total of both drafts put together.

The second draft is my current priority so I’m nearly 2/3rds through (38 out of 60 chapters) completion and I want to get it done by early February. I plan on taking a week long retreat and focusing on writing a large chunk of book 3, A Tempest for the Tyrants.

Why work on Tempest?

Writing book 3 allows me to seed more stuff into book 2. I’ve already sprinkled in some foreshadowing in my second draft for the third book and it should make for a better reading experience. I still plan on editing Abyss during my off-week, but the bulk of my time is going to be spent getting as many words in for Tempest. After that, it’s back to Abyss for the next round of edits.

Here’s this weeks numbers!

I just made progress on An Abyss for the Ashes! So far I’m 38% complete on the Editing phase.

An Abyss for the Ashes

Phase:Editing

38.3%

A Veil for the Vanguard is set to be released in February and, to celebrate, I’ll be running an AMA (Ask Me Anything) as r/Fantasy’s Writer of the Day! It’ll take place on February 19, 2020 and I hope you can make it out! I’ll send out a blog post the day of to give you the exact link.

This week’s update is good news: I’m neck deep into An Abyss for the Ashes with the 2nd draft nearing the midpoint. I’m hoping to have it done in late January / early February while my editor continues to send edits. There will be a week staycation coming up for me which I hope to use to make a lot of headway into draft one of A Tempest for the Tyrants which has been on the back burner for a while as I complete Ashes.

I also have been toying with the idea of a prequel novella/novelette for the Aeonlith Chronicles but I haven’t really cracked the story yet. Not really high on my priorities right now but just giving you a heads up that it might be in the pipeline.

Here’s this week’s progress:

I just made progress on An Abyss for the Ashes! So far I’m 28% complete on the Editing phase.

An Abyss for the Ashes

Phase:Editing

28.3%

This week has been interesting in second draft land for An Abyss for the Ashes. The actual editing work needed to stop so that I could go back and write a new chapter since I started moving some around. A plotline got a chapter pushed by quite a few chapters forward because it made more narrative sense. However, that meant the entire plotline gets dropped for a good third of the first half of the book and I needed an “in the meantime” chapter to balance everything out.

Fortunately, what this really entails is splitting one chapter in two, filling in the gaps, and changing things for consistency (it was originally set on the same day). I’m almost done writing it and found that it deepens a bit of the mystery and fleshes out some characters. If not for these new chapters, I would have been much further along in my edit.

That’s not the only thing that I worked on this week. Spent a lot of time doing boring (but necessary) marketing work including getting my Facebook ad account back and a doing a ton of lessons on how to use said ads. I’m hoping to get those up and running in about a week’s time to start promoting A Veil for the Vanguard.

Also finished putting the final touches on a new short story called The Tied Knots which is part of the Aeonlith Chronicles! This story was finished a while ago and I just needed to format it and create a cover. It is only available to my email subscribers so if you want to get this and the first short story, The Wizard and Warrior, just sign up to my mailing list here.

Here’s this week’s progress bar:

I just made progress on An Abyss for the Ashes! So far I’m 20% complete on the Editing phase.

An Abyss for the Ashes

Phase:Editing

20%

Just a quick update for this week. The second draft for An Abyss for the Ashes, the second book in the Aeonlith Chronicles, is coming together along with four chapters that have gone out and come back from my editor. I’m hoping to aggressively work on this book which means writing A Tempest for the Tyrants has taken a bit of a back seat. I truly wish I was a full time writer so I could work on both at the same time.

I’ve also wrapped up work on the fourth short story set in the Aeonlith Chronicles universe. A Dagger in Valtan City deals with a character that only makes a brief cameo in A Veil for the Vanguard but has a larger part in Abyss and Tempest. This short will probably not be available all that soon but it came out pretty well.

Here’s this week’s numbers:

I just made progress on An Abyss for the Ashes! So far I’m 18% complete on the Editing phase.

An Abyss for the Ashes

Phase:Editing

17.8%

I just finished Proof Reading! Woohoo!

This week was filled with work on marketing stuff for A Veil for the Vanguard. The sad part of being an author is how much non-writing work is required! Still more marketing stuff needs to be done but I think everything is pretty much ready for the book launch.

I’m also hoping to start work on the Veil audiobook version today! Yes, I’ll be narrating it myself so this will probably require some testing and tweaking to make sure I have everything I need. Wish me luck!

My latest in-universe short story A Dagger in Valtan City is almost complete and just requires a round of proof reading. To get in on the mailing list and receive a free short story called The Wizard and Warrior, click here!

Progress on books two and three (An Abyss for the Ashes and A Tempest for the Tyrants, respectively) are coming along. I’m focusing more on editing book two than I am in writing book three but am still trying to make sure to make progress on both.

Here’s my current number updates!

I just made progress on An Abyss for the Ashes! So far I’m 16% complete on the Editing phase.

An Abyss for the Ashes

Phase:Editing

16.1%

I just made progress on A Tempest for the Tyrants! So far I’m 32% complete on the First Draft phase. 27 Days remain until the deadline.

A Tempest for the Tyrants

Phase:First Draft

Due:2 months ago

31.7%

I just completed the Third Draft phase of Short Story: A Dagger in Valtan City! Now onto Proof Reading!

Had a bit of a panic attack this week! Due to my Dropbox account running out of space, my files became a bit corrupted and I thought I lost not only some of my current work, but also parts of my first novel as well! Fortunately, I was able to locate some automatically produced backup files and all my work was retrieved. Phew! So, while some progress was made, it wasn’t as much as I’d like this week because I was dealing with that.

An Abyss for the Ashes is now nearing the quarter mark for the second draft. The better news is that I’m now starting to send pages to my editor! Not sure how I’m going to display the updates for this book from this point since it will probably be going through several different edits at the same time. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

Book 3, A Tempest for the Tyrants, is coming along so not much to report other than more words have been written. Nearing the one-third mark for this book by my original estimated word-count… but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s much longer in the end.

Also finished a second draft of a short story called A Dagger in Valtan City. My editor has returned her edits so I’ll hopefully have a chance to go through those next week and do another round of edits. That one is getting close to completion!

Finally, been thinking of writing a prequel novelette for A Veil for the Vanguard. Something that takes place just prior to the start of the novel but I’m not quite sure what the story is yet.

Here’s this week’s numbers:

I just made progress on An Abyss for the Ashes! So far I’m 22% complete on the Second Draft phase.

An Abyss for the Ashes

Phase:Second Draft

22%

I just made progress on A Tempest for the Tyrants! So far I’m 30% complete on the First Draft phase. 6 Days remain until the deadline.

A Tempest for the Tyrants

Phase:First Draft

Due:2 months ago

29.6%

I just made progress on Short Story: A Dagger in Valtan City! So far I’m 100% complete on the Second Draft phase.

Before anything, I want to make sure you know about the Goodreads contest I’m running! I’m giving away five free signed advanced copies of A Veil for the Vanguard! Click here to enter the contest!

Plugging away at the next two instalments of the Aeonlith Chronicles. Both the second draft of An Abyss for the Ashes (book 2) and A Tempest for the Tyrants (book 3) are coming along nicely.

Since I typically underwrite the first draft, Ashes has been getting longer and it has officially crossed the 100,000 word mark. I suspect I’ll add another 10,000 words before all is said and done. For reference, A Veil for the Vanguard is 81,501 words long including the appendix.

Next week, I’ll finish the second draft of my in-universe short story A Dagger in Valtan City and send it off to my editor. With that, I’ll start sending pages of An Abyss for the Ashes as well who will probably start chopping down the words I added.

C’est la vie!

That Sci-Fi Series

I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m currently also planning a science-fiction series as well. Some work has been done on it and I have a working outline for about six novels. Obviously, I’m keeping the story close to my chest right now but I am announcing that it will be a space opera which is a genre that’s really close to my heart. I’ll be keeping everyone up to date on this series from time to time but the Aeonlith Chronicles is still my priority right now.

Here’s the numbers for this week:

I just made progress on An Abyss for the Ashes! So far I’m 19% complete on the Second Draft phase.

An Abyss for the Ashes

Phase:Second Draft

18.6%

I just made progress on A Tempest for the Tyrants! So far I’m 28% complete on the First Draft phase. 0 Days remain until the deadline.

A Tempest for the Tyrants

Phase:First Draft

Due:2 months ago

28.2%

A Veil for the Vanguard finally has an official release date! I finally got my hands on the printed proof and I’m absolutely excited! It turned out even better than I had hoped.

But, of course, I’m not stopping there. Still hammering away at the second draft of An Abyss for the Ashes which is almost 1/6th of the way done. For the third book, A Tempest for the Tyrants, I’ve added over 10,000 more words in the past week so it’s roughly a (theoretical) quarter of the way done.  I say theoretical because the chapters of this book are turning out to be longer than expected. I wouldn’t be shocked if I easily blow past 100,000 words on this one.

Here’s this week’s numbers!

I just made progress on An Abyss for the Ashes! So far I’m 15% complete on the Second Draft phase.

An Abyss for the Ashes

Phase:Second Draft

15.3%

I just made progress on A Tempest for the Tyrants! So far I’m 26% complete on the First Draft phase. 14 Days remain until the deadline.

A Tempest for the Tyrants

Phase:First Draft

Due:2 months ago

25.9%

Big updates this week on the series as a whole!

First up is book 1 – A Veil for the Vanguard. Not saying much about this yet as I wait for Amazon to mail me the proof. Once that’s done, I’ll let you all know more about the release! There will be a contest for advance copies and you’ll know more soon!

Next, book 2 – An Abyss for the Ashes update. The second draft is coming along nicely, but a bit slower than I’d like. The reason for this is…

Book 3 – A Tempest for the Tyrants is zooming along at lightspeed! Well, lightspeed for me, at any rate. I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year and it is going swimmingly! Blasted past 12,000 words on Wednesday and am currently pausing to write this update. I could have been farther along but I got a bit sidetracked. With what?

I completed the first draft of A Dagger in Valtan City which is sitting at 4,007 words. This is a short story I intended to write later– in fact, I was planning to write a different short story first– but I needed to flesh out some previous events that happened… before having to explain said events in Tempest for Tyrants. Most of my short stories are written as a way to explore histories of certain characters and events. The overall plot points typically don’t change, but the details tend to come out different than I imagine. And since I’m a stickler for consistency, I have to write these little side stories to make sure everything sticks together.

All in all, a fantastic week for progress! Here’s the current numbers for all these projects:

I just made progress on An Abyss for the Ashes! So far I’m 12% complete on the Second Draft phase.

An Abyss for the Ashes

Phase:Second Draft

11.9%

I just made progress on A Tempest for the Tyrants! So far I’m 14% complete on the First Draft phase. 21 Days remain until the deadline.

A Tempest for the Tyrants

Phase:First Draft

Due:2 months ago

13.8%

I just made progress on Short Story: A Dagger in Valtan City! So far I’m 100% complete on the First Draft phase.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but my first novel, A Veil for the Vanguard, is finally completed! I don’t mean just written– but the layout and all of the extra stuff like maps and the appendix is finished. In fact, I’ve just ordered a printed proof of the finished novel in paperback which I hope to receive in the next week or two. That means I’m almost ready to announce an official release date… once I take into account all of the marketing.

That’s not the only update I have. Finishing A Veil for the Vanguard has taken up most of my time so I’ve let a few things slide on An Abyss for the Ashes and A Tempest for the Tyrants. To make some progress, I’m trying to get a large chunk of the latter book written by taking part of NaNoWriMo this year. I’m sad to admit that I’ve never actually completed the challenge but hopefully this year will be different. I seriously doubt I’ll have the manuscript completed by the end, considering the length of book I’m shooting for, but I hope to have the lion’s share completed.

Here’s my current progress:

I just finished Proofing! Woohoo!

A Veil for the Vanguard

Phase:Proofing

100%

I just made progress on A Tempest for the Tyrants! So far I’m 5.9% complete on the First Draft phase. 27 Days remain until the deadline.

A Tempest for the Tyrants

Phase:First Draft

Due:2 months ago

5.9%