It's been a while since I last posted, and now here we are -- only two weeks away from the summer solstice.
I last posted on May 2nd, announcing that The Duke of Ithaca was officially published. Since then, it has been a #1 New Release on Amazon, and it's been a multi-category bestseller on Amazon as well. I'm really pleased with that. So far my ARC Readers have loved it as well, and it has five 5-star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, which is, obviously, making my day all day every day.
I haven't started writing the sequel yet, but I have been drafting it. The book I'm focusing on most intently right now is the sequel to A Kiss of Glass: A Shift of Crimson. It's still in its third draft, but I am very close to finishing it. I received incredible feedback from both my beta reader and my sensitivity reader, but it meant some really heavy revisions. I wasn't entirely sure I was up to the task, if I'm being completely honest; I knew it was going to be closer to a total rewrite than a revision, but I was also excited by what their feedback showed me in my mind. It's taken several months of extremely close revisions and a hell of a lot of focus, but I am only about two and a half chapters away from completing the third draft!
Friends, this book is going to be so much longer than A Kiss of Glass. AKoG clocked in around 110,000 words, which, for a fantasy novel, is pretty average. But this sequel is already at 171,000 words and there is at least one new scene I have to add to chapter 23, and there are several scenes I need to add to chapter 24, and then I need to completely rewrite the epilogue, so chances are this book is going to be at least 175,000 words, if not more.
That is the longest novel I've ever written.
That is the longest piece of writing I've ever written.
There are potentially some scenes I can cut, and when I send the manuscript back to my beta readers, I'll be asking them to point out any scenes that aren't adding anything to the story, and can be cut. But I doubt there will be very many of those. And honestly, even though I am a bit hesitant over the length, I can see confidently that the third draft is so much better than the second! Like, by miles! There is so much more character development, there's fantastic world building, there are some interesting points of conflict for the main character; I have genuinely enjoyed this revision process because it's shown me that yes, revision can be extremely difficult, but if given the dedication required, it pays off and delivers a manuscript full of emotion and compelling characters.
I loved Scarlet le Ve when I was writing her as a side character in A Kiss of Glass, but I love her even more now. She is complicated and nuanced, but also sticks to a moral code rigidly. I love her personality, her feelings, her perspectives, her courage, her honesty. I also love one of the side characters, Renji, even more than before. His part in the second draft was fairly minimal, and his relationship as Scarlet's adopted father was not well developed. But this time, it is. He plays an even larger role in this manuscript than before, and the relationship between him and Scarlet is one of my favorite aspects of this draft.
There are also so many hints to other fairytales to come, and I cannot express how much fun that has been! I guess my point is that, if you're an aspiring author and you find revision really difficult, I encourage you to embrace that difficulty. Let it be hard, and then do it anyway. That's what makes us stronger authors; it's what develops our writing skills from novice to master, and it's what actually allows the real writing to take place. Rough drafts are important, but books only become what they're supposed to be through revision.
I'm also working on two side novellas connected to A Kiss of Glass. The first was an exclusive content offer for my newsletter. I completed the newsletter version, and have been revising it to prepare it for publication by the end of August. It's called A Hold of Specters. The second I just started, so be sure to subscribe to my newsletter (link in the upper lefthand corner of the page); it's focusing on a very minor character from A Kiss of Glass who actually will be playing a major role in the overarching plot. It's title for the newsletter is Like a Secret. It will likely not be published until February of next year. And then, of course, the sequel to The Duke of Ithaca will be released (hopefully) sometime in October.
There's a lot of writing happening over here, friends. And I am so excited by all of it!
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