Just wrapped up the first draft of a new novella. It’s a fantasy set in the early 1700s. Has to do with sailing and pirates. This draft is 102 pages and 22,299 words. I’m going to let it sit for a while, and then I’ll start the edit process.
I’m still working on the medieval themed epic fantasy novel from fifteen years ago. I now have 571 pages and 114,982 words. I try to work on it every day, but sometimes that doesn’t happen.
I had a late start today, but managed to get 632 words into the novel. The total pagecount is now 534. The total wordcount is 107,548. I’ll probably need another 50,000 words before it’s done.
Between 2002 and 2004, I was writing an epic fantasy novel. I had 491 pages down, and then I just stopped in early 2004. Over the years, I would pull up the manuscript and do some edits here and there, and try and fail to get back into the story. I had not moved the story forward since early 2004.
About a month ago, I started reading it again, and refrained from editing. While reading, I made lists of character names, cities, towns, castles, kingdoms, etc. Anything that had a name went on a list.
I finished reading a couple weeks ago and I’m moving the story forward again. I now have 525 pages down. I’m still not as connected to the story as I was fifteen years ago, but having the lists of names helps.
I had crude maps of the kingdoms, but at some point I threw them away. I just bought this big sketch pad. I’m going to try redrawing the maps from memory, so I can keep track of what’s what and where.
I had also written several spinoff short stories and novellas that were connected to this novel. But I threw those away too. Some of those stories had received positive feedback from editors.
I can’t believe I developed so much self-doubt and threw out all that work. I’m going to finish this novel and the entire series before I start the editing process.
I just sold my story “The Assassination of Stonewall Jackson” to Fantasy Short Stories. At this time, there is no concrete publishing date, but the editor hopes to have it out around May.