Draft 2 Submitted

It’s been awhile.

Candidly, it’s embarrassing to look at our next-most-recent post and see that it is over two years old. Two years since we submitted the first draft to our editor. It was a few months later that we received his feedback, and we began revisions. As you can see, they have taken us awhile–far longer than we wanted or anticipated.

We have been working steadily on “Buk Tri” revisions. There were some major issues in the first draft that involved re-working over half the book. The ending is mostly the same, as we envisioned it at the start of the series, but how the characters get there has changed–for the better! This draft is far stronger than the first.

We know that there are some of you who have been waiting patiently for a long time to read The Seventh Guardian. We are grateful for you. We want to give you the best book possible. Thanks for sticking with us, and we’ll keep you updated!

First Draft Complete

Happy news today: the first draft of Book Three is complete! We finished the initial composition a few weeks ago, and have been attending to an initial round of revisions. Most of these were small things that changed along the way, so we had to go back and make the beginning of the book consistent with the changes. With these revisions, and a few more additions, we are ready to call it a complete draft.

For perspective: books 1 and 2 were each around 165,000 words in length. In first draft form, book 3 is now over 248,000 words! This will get trimmed down during revisions and edits, but it is definitely a significantly longer volume.

At this point, Buk Tri is headed off to alpha readers. Their initial impressions will shape the direction the book takes, before it moves on to beta readers and rounds of revisions to come. We are excited to jump into this next stage, and soon, to share the story with you!

 

The Truth about the Progress Bar

Our helpful little progress bar for the Book 3 rough draft has been hanging out at 95% complete for several weeks now.

In actuality, we’ve been working very hard on the draft over the past several weeks. We’ve been making excellent progress, and writing a good chunk every day.

The fact is, the percentile for the progress bar was based off the “anticipated” word count we had for Book Three. Both of the first two books were around 165,000 words in length. Upon creating the progress bar (a helpful motivational tool for me, if nothing else) I used the percentage of 170,000 words.

Well…we hit 170,000 over a month ago:

In fact, our draft for Buk Tri just hit 200,000 words! Granted, a good chunk will get trimmed during revisions and editing. But, it stands that this book will be significantly longer than the first two.

This additional length has obviously taken longer than anticipated to compose. But hopefully we will have an update for you very soon. =)

Camp Complete!

Camp NaNoWriMo has been won!

I adjusted the goal to 40,000 words about a week in, given some changes that Sam and I made which required me to re-write a couple of chapters. I just hit 40k, and claimed my Camp win!

That being said, the first draft is not yet complete (which was also our goal). I vastly underestimated the wordcount remaining; that plus the re-writes (which count toward my word-count goals but not toward finishing the draft) put me a little behind schedule.

Do not fear! We are getting very close. Within the next couple of weeks, we should have a draft completed and be able to jump into the next step.

Check back soon!

Camp Eve

Camp NaNoWriMo begins at midnight!

Sam and I have committed to finishing the first draft of “Buk Tri” during Camp. Based on our current estimates, this will entail writing in the neighborhood of 30,000 words. Of course, that’s just a rough estimate, and we’ll just have to see how the prose unfolds! Nevertheless, it feels very doable, and we are excited to jump in.

As a tangent, both of our spouses have decided to join us for Camp NaNoWriMo! I hope I’m not putting words in their mouths by saying that this is not within either Ashley’s or James’s normal comfort zone. But insanity loves company, so I’m excited that they will be participating with us, working on their own projects.

Wish us luck! And if you are participating in Camp also, happy writing trails to you!!