This place isn’t dead. On the contrary, I have often thought over the past couple years that I have let it go too long without putting anything here. The same goes for the newsletter, but that is another matter entirely. Since it has been nearly two whole years, there is a lot of ground to cover. I’m going to keep this brief for now though.
Where Have I Been?
I have been preoccupied with the mess that is life for the past few years. Never stopped working on the book (not entirely at least), but progress was going much slower than I would have liked. The scope of the project also ballooned significantly. There is a lot of guilt there, though I rationally know that I was dealing with a lot. Of course, I knew I should post here, but because I was feeling so down I felt like I needed to have some big update to justify my going quiet. A silly impulse in retrospect, driven by guilt over my lack of progress more than anything.
What About Book 3 of Honor’s Path?
I recently finished the rough draft and have begun reviewing the whole book. There is a LOT of work to be done. The scope of the book grew and grew until the final word count is just north of three hundred thousand words. That is, clearly, absurd, but I know there is a lot of room to make cuts. The story evolved a lot in the process of writing it, and there is a bunch of cruft to be removed. This, unfortunately, means a lot of rewriting at some points. My hope is that after the review I shall have a much clearer image of what the final product, which should make the rewriting easier. Hopefully, I will also get the book’s length down to something more manageable as well.
Does the Newsletter Still Exist?
Officially? Yes. Realistically? Nothing has gone out in so long, however, that the answer may as well be no. I have yet to decide if I’m going to revive it or not. If I do, I at least want to have content lined up for it.
What Now?
Now, I keep focusing on book #3. As you can see, I’m making a lot of progress in the “review” these days. Already at about 20% after a week. Try not to read too much into this, however, as it is mostly me reading what I have with a red pen and crossing stuff out. Hope to get blog posts going up regularly as well. Or semi-regularly at least. Yes, I realize that is something I’ve spoken about before. Hopefully my next update will have more substance, but for now I just wanted to get something out to reverse my longstanding trend of letting the place languish.