Volume Two Progress Update – First draft Complete!

The beast has been slain!

Progress Update

The beast has been slain! Or at least tamed. I took a while, but the first draft of Volume Two is complete and in the drawer to chill out. I am calling it The Old Frontier. I thought I would be done with the first draft of volume two sometime in April or May of last year, but that didn’t exactly work out. Well, it sort of did. I got to the end of the story in May, then looked back and realized I forgot to write the middle! The novel needed a lot more meat, so from June to December, I went back and wrote the whole middle section, then went through the whole book to bring everything in line. Sometimes a book will just do that to you – the first one did too! I am preparing a ritual sacrifice to try to convince Volume Three not to pull the same trick on me, but these beasts are unruly.

So, does that mean I’ve done a full pass of editing? It does! I’ve kind of done two, actually, so I believe the editing process for Volume Two is well on it’s way, and will be completed sometime in the middle of this year. I just have to let the book breathe a little bit and turn my attention elsewhere.

Namely, bonus chapters! I’ve been having a lot of fun with these lately. It is nice to let loose and write about someone we haven’t spent much time with, without the stress of working it into the broader narrative/pacing concerns, etc. I have written two for Volume Two, both prequel stories focusing on an antagonistic character from each side of the story – one from Strafe’s, one from Hella’s. I love writing bad guys, too; there’s nothing like writing an unapologetic ass.

I’m going to go back and write at least one bonus chapter for volume one (this in addition to the Highwaymen story), there are some ideas I want to play around with there. Look out for that!

Anyway, I’d like to wish you a belated happy New Year from the land of sometimes winter, upstate New York! Keep cool, but care.

 

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