Life has been its usual mix of chaos and stupidity over the last month – though I think the prize for stupidity this month probably goes to me for parking my car entirely too close to a thorn bush and having to get out that side…! – but solid progress has been made so, I’ll take it.

The plot hole problems mentioned last month are now largely resolved (I say largely because I have one scene I’m still fiddling with) and the final resolution to one of them (caused by fixing the original issue!) actually serves the overall series better so, that’s a win.

For those who like stats, the final word count for this draft is 115k, with another 15-20k of stuff I’ve already cut or otherwise not used. No wonder it’s taken a while…! And as a note, that cut stuff? Filed away just in case it turns out to be useful somewhere else. Admittedly, some of what I’ve cut is very specific to this book, but some of it very much isn’t, and 4k of it will actually go off and be its own book somewhere down the line, so…

The next step (once I finish messing with that scene, of course…) is to format things up, print out and start doing a spot of old fashioned editing with my trusty red biro – which doesn’t actually SEEM to leak, and yet, by the end of a session of editing my fingers look as if I’ve been taking part in one of the more brutal scenes in Game of Thrones!

I also need to get stuff over to my editor (hi J!) and then, once we’ve both taken a pass over it I’ll have more of an idea of where things sit.

In other news, Friday Fiction will be going up at the end of the week. As with last month, I’ve got a couple or so of short stories in varying states of doneness, so I’m not sure which one it will be.

Until then, happy reading 🙂

There are snowdrops, daffodils and crocuses out, the magnolia tree on my regular walking route has buds about ready to pop, my hayfever has started up…and I would swear I’ve just seen a snowflake drift past my window! Welcome to spring…

Still, the days are getting longer which always makes things feel better.

And speaking of making things feel better…I have just about got a completed draft of Ved’ma done. I’ve got to do a full read through and there’s a lot of editing needed, so, since I’ve no desire to kill, maim or otherwise stress out my editor, or have them kill me (hi J!), I don’t yet have a release date. Equally, whether this will impact Sage, I’m not sure at this point. Once I have a date, though, that will tell me more and as soon as I know that, I will share that.

And in even more good news, there will be a Friday Fiction piece out this Friday. It is the tie-in piece for Ved’ma and it’s less of a spoiler and more of a tease, being set some some fourteen years prior to where the book begins…

In terms of catching up Friday Fiction, the aim is to get both missing stories done this month, but edits will be the priority. So if both get sorted out, it either means the edits went well, or they’re going very badly!

So that’s where things sit right now. I’m now off to start the read through!

Happy reading 🙂

After several months of utter chaos and carnage, August has arrived, bringing with it roughly five weeks where I have nothing much on, either personally or professisonally, which means I can draw a breath and catch up with myself.

Well, that’s the theory, at least…

That build up might suggest there’s not a lot to catch you guys up on, but there’s a few little bits, so here we go.

First up, Friday Fiction. I’ve been on a bit of a short story spree, having completed two brand new short stories and got roughly a third of the way into a third. One of the completed stories is a piece of back story for Ved’ma, so that will go up later in the year. The second completed story, Waking Up, will appear next week. The third story, The Show Must Go On, is aimed to be next month’s Friday Fiction – but if I get it finished quicker than that, you may just get a bonus this month instead! I’ve also got a few ideas for more, including a second short story connected to Ved’ma. That one will be less plot-relevant, but will feature a character who gets her debut in Ved’ma so it probably won’t be posted before Ved’ma comes out. Probably…!

On the Ved’ma front, I’ve got a lot of work still to do to get a draft pulled together, but the holes are shrinking (slowly) and I’ve had a major break through in terms of resolving one of my remaining plot issues this week. Hopefully, given this is a quiet month (and assuming that I haven’t jinxed myself, of course!), I’ll be able to largely wrap things up and start getting stuff across to my editor (hi J!). I’m also starting to think about cover art (hi S!) – though I probably won’t actually start on that this month. (Really do need to get that draft together first!)

Sage has made a small amount of progress…mostly in that I’ve removed stuff that no longer fits thanks to Cambiante and Ved’ma. That’s the price you pay for writing stuff out of sequence and adding in things that weren’t in the plan *cough*Cambiante*cough*. I’ll probably have to do another run through as Ved’ma’s draft wraps up.

Book 6 has also inched forwards. This week (see, I said August was my calm month!), I’ve had a few ideas and breakthroughs about the epic climax (I mean, it’s book 6 of a 5 book series; it’s got to be epic to wrap up everything and be a satisfying conclusion to it all) in terms of what needs to happen and where and, just as importantly, who is where, given that by the climax I’m going to be juggling upwards of 30 characters of varying levels of importance! (Yes, yes I do in fact have a score card for this – while I can keep quite a lot of balls in the air, mentally speaking, 30+ characters is definitly a challenge too far.) The real trick with a cast that big will be making sure that each character used has a solid reason for being in that position – because if it’s hard as a writer to juggle that many characters, it’s even worse as a reader.

And given the cast size, you can assume that there will be more Elsehere-related short stories between now and book 6’s release so that I can flesh out a few more of the characters. In an ideal world, I’d get each and every character into a decent sized role in the first five books but that’s not been entirely possible, so short stories it is…unless I get a particularly juicy idea, of course! I’m certainly not ruling out the possibility of more Elsehere books, given that I have such a big cast and I have the whole of human history at my disposal and there are so many fascinating periods to play with. So watch this space!

Finally, Monday saw the launch of my summer fun music feature for Monday Music. There’s six posts in total, featuring six very (very!) different pieces of music that I associate with summer. One way or another, at least!

So there we go.

Happy reading 🙂

Time flies when you spend most of it in conference calls – or at least that’s how the last couple of weeks have felt, at least! The day job is still doing its best to consume my brain and this month (and next) are offically Show Month for my dancing school (while I’m not a performer, I am part of the gang of volunteers who help make it happen) so things aren’t really likely to improve on the sanity front any time soon.

However, despite all that, I’m still making good progress on book 4. Although the first half still isn’t really finished, I have started making inroads into the second half now (believe it or not, I have a chunk of the final climax written!), so my goal this month is the same as last month’s: finish the first half! In an ideal and perfect world, not only would I finish the first half but get it over to my editor (*waves to J*) – but I think that’s severely optimistic, given the RL stuff.

I’ve also continued to work on Sage to get that book into shape. I did mention last month that there was a possibility that I could swap book 4 and Sage over, but the more I’ve worked on Sage and book 4 the more I think it would be better to retain the order as-planned. What this, potentially, means is book 4 may get pushed into next year (I am not trying to do another December release!), depending on how well writing and editing go over the next couple of months. Watch this space.

One thing that did fall quite severely by the wayside last month was the Friday Fiction post. I thought I had a story all ready to go and then I did a final reread of it and spotted about thirty places that needed work, so that ended up being shelved. However, I will have some time later in the month (I actually have a holiday planned!) where I can give it a proper edit, so it will appear later in the month and, in the meantime, I’m working on a brand new short story that I’m hoping will emerge next week. So this month should be a two-fer on the Friday Fiction front.

On the Music Monday front, there’s two posts remaining, plus a round up post. (Gosh, that one’s gone by quick!) Once that’s done there’ll be another haitus until book 4 comes out, although I may do a special music feature through August.

And in other news, Sekhmet has been entered into the SPFBO. This is an ‘awards’/competition for self-published fantasy novels, run by the novelist Mark Lawrence (who writes extremely compelling fantasy, though most tends to land on the GrimDark end of the spectrum). For more information (and to see how Sekhmet is doing), go here . And while you’re there, do check out the other books – there are some seriously awesome books involved. There are also links to past SPFBO editions as well, if you’re seeking more summer reading!

And I think that’s all.

Happy reading 🙂