Target Wordcount: Done

Actual words: Not done (OK, 95500 with probably about 10000 to go).

Sometimes my editor randomly tweets something that makes a lightbulb ping on in my head. I was about to give up on this and come back to it in a month or so after rewriting the first two books of the series, but I can see a little better what’s not working in this one now. First problem are the new characters. Not that they don’t serve a strong purpose, but they don’t get enough airtime to have the strength of the new characters that came into the second book (and took it over) and so they come over as a bit bland and dilute and fade into the background a little too readily. I think maybe this can be dealt with by introducing them earlier in the series, even if they are little more than named spear-carriers at that point. Second thing that’s not right is the antagonist. Not selling himself. And for a while I was going with a Mysterious Dark Force In The Background which is, in hindsight, weak. And not foreshadowed in previous volumes enough. And not necessary when there’s been a perfectly good antagonist waiting in the wings all along.

So a bit meh, but all is not lost, and here’s the great thing about doing three books at once – I can go back and change things in the first book to first the third. Even for us “seasoned professionals” it’s far from a smooth wride. I’m going to stop posting updates now. Maybe once the rewrite is underway. The mental consolation I take is that the book that’s with my editor now had serious problems at the first draft, grew by 60000 words at the second draft and I reckon it to be the best thing I’ve done yet. Ho hum.

Other news: The Alchemist of Souls has been my most popular book give away yet, which is cool for a début novel by a writer I’ve known for a very long time on and off. Winners have been mailed. Not sure what’s going to come up next but I still have that copy of The Witcher II for the Xbox.

Favourite spam this week: A link to a weight loss website (or so I assume from the site name) in a comment on The Order of the Scales congratulating me on “some great advice here.” Not sure what particular advice they meant, but yeah, I guess being chased by dragons across half a kingdom would do some good for the old waistline. I shall begin work on my next book at one: The Dragon Book of Dieting.