Updates for all!
Welcome back to another blog that I definitely didn’t forget to do last week! Totally normal cadence! Nothing to see here! Anywho, this week, I have multiple updates to provide on pretty much every front! Isn’t that exciting?! Let’s hop in to it and get this party started!
The Sapphire Verdict… Part 2!
Yes, you have read that right! At long last, Sapphire Verdict part 2 is finally on the docket. With the editing of part one finally behind us, one way or another, that leaves us to focus on part 2. This has been a long time coming, but there’s an interesting problem to solve, one which I’ve already committed to a solution on.
While part 2 is in fact already fully written along with part 3, they suffer the same problem that part 1 had originally. They’re too long, and we’re talking probably close to a million words each. That is a LOT of story to sift through in terms of editing and cutting down. Now, I already did this once for part 1, but… I’m not overly inclined to do it again.
Now, that could be interpreted as me giving up on part 2, but that is far from the case! Working on the Harmonizer has made me VERY aware that my writing style has COMPLETELY shifted over the past year and half. What I write now is ten times better than what I could write back then, which makes a lot of sense given everything that has happened. Between my improved writing style as well as the sheer length of time editing could take, I have decided to rewrite part two completely from scratch… again.
So, what will this achieve? Number one, it will be a tighter and better flowing story. Yes, it will be lighter on side comments, world building, description, and side quests, but that’s not a bad thing as Harmonizer has very firmly proven. Number two, it will take WAY less time to complete. If I tried to edit down what was already written, it would probably take me a full year to do. Writing from scratch, however, should take me about two to three months based on my pace in Harmonizer. Between those two things, it makes way more sense to scrap it and restart instead of trying to salvage the monstrosity, not to mention there were a few story beats I wanted to change to really give more development to the antagonist of part 2.
With that update, it means that we won’t be hearing about the Sapphire Verdict for a little while. I’ll still do character deep dives and stuff, but all focus will now be shifting on writing new content, which I don’t want to spoil. In the meantime, part 1 is now being queried to agents, and one way or another we should soon be out from under this first book at long last!
Harmonizer
In other news, Harmonizer is now moving forward with the first editing pass! Based on my current pace, I expect it to be done sometime in late November, and then it will be going out directly on digital because I can’t sit here and wait on the querying process anymore. I want to get to writing, and I can’t do that if I keep getting bogged down with minutia!
For the time being, this means that I will be writing and editing at the same time! Yes, this is a huge development and means that progress on my work has dramatically sped up over the past month. This should work out to where I’m editing one thing for part of the day, and then writing new stuff on the other for the rest of the day! That should get us into a cycle of multiple, many books per year, which is what I’ve been wanting! Get ready for Harmonizer in full! I will warn you now, it is NOT a short story and will make the Wheel of Time look like a novella. Be scared, because I am.
Anywho, this also means that the Harmonizer’s cover is in progress pretty heavily. I’m out from the line work and have begun the coloring process, which is going to be time consuming. I do not have any estimate whatsoever on how long this will take, but I am hoping to be done in a month. I am shifting a LOT more time onto it to try and get it knocked out, especially since I’ve realized that we have a LOT of covers we’re going to have to do. No going slow on these anymore!
Conclusion
That’s it? Yep, sure is! All of my focus right now is on these two stories. There are a couple of other things that I’m thinking about in terms of the website as well as youtube content to try and help promote the Harmonizer, but those are a little further out. For now, that’s all we’ll cover, because I have GOT to get back to work on my cover piece! I’ll be back next week as long as I don’t forget! Cheers!
The Flying Fennec