Twilight's Herald Audiobook

Quick update: The audiobook for Twilight's Herald is up for preorder at the link below. It will go live on March 23.

Preorder on Audible

Checking in

I wrote a blog post, but ended up deleting it because I thought it sounded a little too whiney. Unfortunately, that still left me with a blog post to write. Welcome to the world of a writer--write a scene, dislike it, delete it, rinse and repeat until you stumble on something that halfway makes sense. 

Lately, all I've had the energy for is to make word count--sometimes not even that. It turns out writing the end of  a series is taxing business. There's all these open loops you have to be aware of and close. Finding a character arc that brings the reader satisfaction without driving them crazy is a balancing act. There's also the fact I want Tate to go out on a strong note. She and Ilith have been with me for so long. They deserve a good ending.

The good news is that I expect to be done with this draft by the end of next week. Honestly, even if I haven't reached the end end, I'm going to call it the end so I can go back and rewrite and fix everything that is bothering me. 

This story went off the rails relatively early in the process--pretty much from chapter one. For once, I stuck with my promise and did no rewriting, no editing or anything like that. It's a good thing too. My original plan was to toss chapters one and two and start the book at chapter three. 

It would have been such a waste of time and energy had I really done that. 

Two a.m. brainstorms are the best--well, maybe not for sleep. But for figuring out the problems areas and reassembling the storyline into something that actually makes sense, nothing can beat them. I finally know how and why things happen. The pacing of the new outline is so much better than the current version. I have room and space to develop the characters who had fallen by the wayside. The best part is my original beginning can stay! Actually, a lot of what I thought I'd have to toss will be able to stay. Just in a new way.

Yes, I'll have to rewrite a significant portion of this book. Yes, I'll have to add soooo many scenes to round out what I have. 

But! The vision in my mind is going to be so much better than what I currently have. All those fun parts that make working in Tate's universe so interesting will get their chance to shine. 

This is a roundabout way of saying--Dragon 5 is progressing along--maybe not nicely or easily but it's heading in the general direction I want.