I really do hope, that whatever your faith or beliefs, you are having a wonderful holiday season. It’s a perfect time to reflect on the past year and be reminded of those things most important in life. It’s also a perfect time to be thankful for any blessings and good fortune that have come your way. Certainly, I’ve had a lot to be thankful for in my life.
Just to give everyone a quick update on the series, Volume 3: Heroes of Bardoom is in the final stages of getting ready for publication. I’m not sure why, but it just seemed like this time it took Lulu a little longer to get everything ready. In any event, the cover is done, and as usual, Amy did an awesome job. The color tone is a little lighter on this one, so it shouldn’t suffer the same fate as Dark Passages, which came out pretty dark online. You can see the amazing artwork on the Cover Art web page. The text (or galley as they call it) was sent for my final review about a week ago. I’m 95% through my final edit and should be done later today. At that point it goes back to Lulu and is ready for them to publish. Although, I’m not certain how much work they do during the holidays, so I expect to see it available in January.
Volume 4: Broken Circle is in progress. Amy has finished the cover art and I hope to get that posted for your review over the next week. My final edit review is about 30% done, but I should be able to finish it over the holidays. That means I should be able to send everything off to Lulu by the first of the year. Given their lead times you can likely expect to see it available in March or April. I wish it could go faster, but at least the end product is pretty awesome.
Last thought for the day: It’s kind of silly but anyone who’s read my blogs will understand that I’m absolutely in love with the story told in my series. I love my characters and will stand by my love for these things against anything already out there. If I have any concerns or insecurities, it’s been over the quality of the writing. Don’t get me wrong, I got very good grades in my college English classes, but I just don’t think it’s a strength. Also, a couple of English majors have made a few constructive suggestions that I’ve tried to correct with mixed results.
But here’s the thought. When I started the Verdan Chronicles, one of the creative choices I had was to write a fantasy series set in a fantasy world or I could have written a story about sword and sorcery set in an earlier time period in Earth history. I chose the former for very specific reasons. One important reason is that I tend to be a perfectionist and if I chose an early period in history, I would want to research that history and remain as historically accurate on my facts as possible. By choosing a complete fantasy setting I removed that constraint and was allowed to create my own world and its own history. I could then focus on the story and characters and not worry about historical research. It was a creative choice.
So here’s the silly notion. I’m not only writing about a fantasy world, but I’m writing in the common language of that world. That language happens to closely approximate English, but is slightly different. Grammatical differences with English are irrelevant, because the books are written in Verdanese. OK, I said it was silly. But if I stick to that story it allows me to shrug off those notions that my writing Is less than perfect. It’s absolutely perfect from a Verdanese perspective. So does anyone buy this? Probably not, but for the moment it makes me feel better.