May 13, 2023 - Update

Hi!

Another week of productive writing. I am working hard to finish the book this month as it needs a round of editing before Travis gets it at the end of June. The other thing I accomplished this week was getting a cover artist lined up.

The designer I’d used for the last couple of books is no longer doing covers, and I thought this might create a huge issue for me. Instead, luck was on my side and the designers that did book four had a slot that opened two weeks from now. Hurray!

Now the problem is finalizing the title and figuring out what the cover should look like? I will likely put a poll up this week to get your feedback on what I’m thinking.

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but this is my most heavily outlined book of the series, by far. I changed my process because of Audio of all things. Narrators like Travis who are so tightly booked need a general idea how long your book is so they can schedule appropriately. I had told Travis book seven would be around 110k words. After moving three large sections out of book 7 into later books, I finally ended up around 160k words. Ouch.

So I’m trying to predict better, although I will miss the mark again. I passed a 100k words this week, and I have a significant amount of story left.

One thing I noticed this week, because my outline is very detailed in some sections, is that my typing speed slows me down. Significantly. I’ve never been able to type fast, but it hasn’t ever affected me until now. So I’m probably going to give dictation another shot.

You all know how I worry about everything, and this week it focused on the immense amount of secrets revealed in this book. Not the volume of secrets, just its impact to pacing. I’m hoping the revelations are enough that it doesn’t cause issues. Let me know if you sense something is amiss.

Okay, enough of all that.

I opened up chapters 31, 32, and 33 to Root.

I opened up chapters 34, 35, and 36 to Harvester.

I added chapters 37, 38, and 39 to Step Master, Blapy’s Favorite, Divine, and Axiom.

Enjoy!

Thank you for being here and supporting the series. I appreciate you so much.

Take care,

AFK

PS-I am behind on responding to comments. Hopefully this weekend I can rectify that!