Ryan McClure's Blog

This post is part of a meta-series. Click here for a list of all posts in this series.

Hey, remember this project? This project that I haven’t much talked about in the last, oh, nine months or so? Guess what! I just finished assembling the high-detail paper model for the base mold!

I did indeed switch to using hot glue after my last update, to excellent effect. Rather than applying it via a hot glue gun, I instead used the glue gun to keep the glue in a liquid state and spot-applied it with toothpicks. This worked out really well, with one giant downside that I didn’t recognize until the damage had been done: leaving hot glue to just sit there with heat on it results in some of it vaporizing. My office, where I’ve been assembling this, is not well-ventilated. As a result, once I realized why I had started coughing and feeling miserable, I shelved the project for a bit. Also, finishing Embers and running a D&D game for some friends took over my life for a little while, but Embers is now out1 and I’m finally getting a handle on balancing my prep work for the D&D game, which means time to work on this has materialized once more!

No doubt spurred into action by seeing Rogue One, I dove head-first back to work. This time, I kept a fan running at all times and wore a simple dust mask, which prevented most of the fumes from getting anywhere near me. I also purchased the fellow pictured here on clearance at Target to keep me company while I worked.

Everything has come together exceedingly well, as far as I’m concerned. I hit on the idea of creating small little cardboard cross-section supports, hearkening back to my original design approach to this whole project. I noticed some structural deformation happening to the cardstock due to the growing weight of the model. Given that forestalling this kind of warping with the resin and fiberglass step is the next part of the plan, I didn’t want to go into that step with an already-warped model!

I looked over the major distortion points and created simple planes intersecting the helmet model in Blender, then printed these out with the paper model plugin the same way I had everything else so far. I rummaged around in the basement for a cardboard box of the approximate right dimensions and sturdiness and then got to work slicing these up and gluing them into place. I used a green marker to identify the vertex attachment points on the physical model that corresponded with the origin locations for the planes on the 3D model. Turned out as well as I hoped!

Here’s the completed helmet beside its prototype ancestors. The massive size of the original prototype doesn’t really come across in this picture due to perspective, but it dwarfs both the small sizing prototype and the full-resolution model.

With ventilation now prominent in my mind and knowing that my next step involves resin and fiberglass, I need to resolve the workspace air quality issue. It’s the middle of winter, so working outside just isn’t an option. Fortunately, I have a solution that’s been waiting for me to realize it exists for over seven years: the small, unused, vaguely creepy basement side room beneath the sun room. I can’t realistically ventilate the entire house-length basement to the degree I’d need to for working with resin, but that little room is its own space with its own window. Getting enough airflow to keep it well-circulated is easily within reach of a hardware store ventilation fan and some dryer vent tubing to direct the fan’s airflow out the window.

Making those modifications to this proto-workshop is my next step. I’ve also started formulating concrete plans for the vacuform table I want to build to manufacture the rest of the armor, which I’ll try to post more about in the coming days and weeks.

And the next book’s word count is increasing day by day, don’t worry!

Embers is now available in hard copy from Amazon and CreateSpace!

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What a weekend. What a week. What a three and a half years.

Embers of Alour-Tan, the second volume in the Work of Alour-Tan, is live. Go buy it! (Print version should be available later this week.)

Both it and Ashes are now just $4.99 in their digital forms.

Check out chapter one and chapter two for free, right here on the blog!

What Happened To Mid-April?

Other than the sample chapters I released yesterday in tandem with the book going on sale, I’ve been silent here ever since my last update about delays. My mid-April projection at that point obviously didn’t happen, for various reasons that—most recently—included Cody needing an appendectomy1. This has been a strange year so far…

Part of what’s taken so long in this final phase is ensuring maximum polish, in a variety of ways. The read-throughs, both mine and Cody’s, take a lot of time on their own. Reading aloud is slow and pausing to make corrections and revisions every paragraph or three makes that process even slower. Beyond that, I did a lot of low-level correcting for common style issues. While I don’t have the hatred for adverbs some authors exhibit, overuse of them is still lazy. More than that, though, distinctive words repeated too close together often sound awkward and there are a number of other gotchas to correct (warning: garish color scheme ahead) that aren’t show-stopping issues of the sort one hears as “bad” when doing a read-through, but can identify when searching through text with regular expressions.

On top of even that, though, I wanted to ensure that the digital release of Embers achieved a higher level of quality than did Ashes, when I was new to the world of digital publishing. Ashes‘ digital incarnations are readable, but they’re not slick2 and I wanted to do a better job for Embers. That included learning the ins and outs of ePub formatting—for which I ultimately stripped down and rebuilt the entire Embers manuscript in hand-edited HTML and then used that as a “clean” document from which to further format in LibreOffice to make Smashwords’ MeatGrinder happy3.

On a related note, I wish Smashwords would provide a confirmation step before your upload goes live, so you can look at it prior to the rest of the world. The only thing that keeps that from being inexcusable is how quickly you can iterate on an uploaded file. Now armed with the knowledge of producing a clean, formatted-to-my-specifications document in LibreOffice for MeatGrinder, it should be a little less iterative in future releases. Which reminds me, I should really document all the things I did this time so I’m not straining to remember next time…

Formatting for print also had its own hiccups. Like a fool, I reused the same cover template that I used for Ashes…which was around 30,000 words shorter than Embers. That resulted in alignment issues that needed fixing, to say nothing of the incessant fiddling I’m wont to do in any case with the internal formatting of the document. At least this time, there shouldn’t be a “limited first-printing edition” featuring all-even page numbers, the way there was with Ashes.

The Road Here




Month
What Happened


November 2012
Release of Ashes


December 2012

through

April 2014
Working on “Prime”


May 2014
Outlining Embers


June 2014


July 2014


August 2014


September 2014


October 2014


November 2014
Writing Embers‘ first draft


December 2014


January 2015
First Reader feedback


February 2015
Writing Embers’ second draft, pre-Scrivener


March 2015


April 2015


May 2015


June 2015
Moved workflow to Scrivener


July 2015
Struggling with retooling first three chapters


August 2015


September 2015
Revising outline


October 2015


November 2015
Writing Embers’ second draft in earnest


December 2015


January 2016
Beta Reader feedback


February 2016
Third draft planning, writing Embers’ third draft


March 2016
Third draft completed, final read-through begun, allergies


April 2016
Final read-through continues, numerous disruptions


May 2016


June 2016
Embers released

A dominant part of the three and a half year gap between Ashes’ release at the end of November 2012 and Embers’ release this weekend came from writing another book for the first chunk of that time. Embers didn’t get underway “for real” until May 2014 and even then, it wasn’t until November that I had what felt like a coherent plan. From there, it was only two months to the completion of the first draft in January 2015.

At the end of January, after my First Reader took her crack at it, I started the heavy revisions required of draft two, but it wasn’t until mid-June 2015 that I started working in Scrivener. Until that point, I had only managed to retool four chapters. After that, it took another two months to re-finalized the first two chapters and realize I didn’t even need the “old” third chapter that had stymied my progress, and then spent the next two months retooling my outline and revision plan again. The effort paid off, however, and before the end of the year, I had a robust second draft.

January was again a month of soliciting feedback, followed by about a month of planning how to incorporate all of that feedback. Barely a week into March, the third draft was done. Then allergies happened. Then other stuff happened.

The pattern I see emerging indicates that when I have a solid plan, it takes about two months to power through a complete draft and a more nebulous amount of time to outline and plan—in this case, some fifteen months, including the time spent struggling through redrafting chapters without a solid plan in place. Each draft is accompanied by about a month of feedback time, including the read-through Cody and I do at the end, which works out to nine months or so. If I can pare down the amount outlining and re-outlining necessary to three months instead of friggin’ fifteen, that places a book on a respectable one-year timeline.

Of course, that’s still no where near where I want to be. At the top of 2013, I set myself the goal of writing two books in one year—which rather hilariously did not happen. Cody pointed out, though, that I should also strive to not have to do such heavy redrafting each time. Though it was far better than with Ashes, Embers’ drafts still involved substantial-enough revision that they were each distinct books sharing remarkably similar plots and many identical scenes. There are efficiency gains to make.

The Road Forward

Alour-Tan III. There’s more story to be told and I’m not making the same mistake this time that I made last time by fooling myself into thinking I should give the characters a rest. I also benefit from knowing exactly how this story ends and have for a long time.

That said, another thing I’ve had to confront time and again as Embers developed is that I am terrible at estimating how long this stuff takes. As such, I’m not going to throw out target release dates, estimated completion times, and so on anymore. I’m more than happy to share status reports here, but trying to use those to project when I’ll hit a given milestone is an exercise in futility. It’s frustrating for me to make those estimates and then miss them, just as I’m sure it’s frustrating for you to hear me make them, get your hopes up, and then not have them come to fruition.

Alour-Tan III will get here as fast as I can make it happen without compromising my own standards for quality. That’s the most I can promise.

She’s fine! Everything went well, caught it before it got bad, and she’s recovering fast.For generous definitions of the word.The results from the first document I generated looked like total garbage.

Welcome to Embers of Alour-Tan release day! The second Release Day Tidbit is the full and complete text of Chapter Two!

The dirt clenched in Finton’s fist felt dry and depleted. For the last several months, he had ignored an ever-growing number of little signs, convincing himself they were all in his head. Nothing more than the faint echo of old instincts, he told himself, flashes of memories from life as a simple farmer in a tiny village shut away from the world. That line of thinking had worked until now. He loosened his grip and allowed the soil to flow between his fingers, noting the similarities between it and him: dry, withered, stretched beyond natural life. His continuous magical workings had done this.

With a sigh that swirled air through his long-dead lungs, Finton called forth a sense-image that he now knew all too well. Thaumaturgy, the working of magic, depended on the meticulous construction of a perfect mental experience for the desired effect. In his mind, sprouts shot up through the ground and matured into fruitful plants in seconds. The rich scents of cultivated land wafted through the air, replacing the crisper indigenous odors of the Āzamvult. He imagined hearing the plants’ growth as they groaned and creaked in protest against rapid expansion. While the phantom stimuli flit through his head, magic surged within him. Warming his entire torso, the power built and radiated out into his limbs, enmeshing with the beleaguered dirt beneath his knees. The sense-image binded with an intense emotional need to manifest it and he channeled the need into a whispered Albizar command, “Vuccz.“

The power shot into the soil with a resonant whump. From his core to his extremities, everything tingled with pleasant effervescence. No matter how accustomed Finton grew to the working of magic, the experience always left him giddy even as it threatened to wear on his body. Fortunately, physical strain made little difference to a dead man and the fatigue faded in seconds.

“It will only get worse from here.” The gravel-rough voice might have come from the world itself, rather than the squat, stocky body of a stony old twerg. Finton turned away from his study of the dirt beneath him to regard the white-maned Dehn. Though kneeling, Finton’s eye-line still hovered above that of the standing twerg. Thick, snowy hair concealed most of Dehn’s face and the few areas of exposed skin revealed wrinkles like cracked granite and hooded eyes that balanced timeless wisdom with wry mirth.

“I know,” Finton said. While his working took effect, Finton rose from his knees and brushed off the dirt clinging to his robes. All around them, miles and miles of the once-grassy, rolling hills surrounding the dragon city of Olkelban now boasted the most fruitful cropland the greater Āzamvult region had ever seen. Row upon row of cornstalks stood beside orchards of apples and peaches. Plots of carrots grew beside potatoes and cabbages. The sprawl of harvestable crops stretched from the Āzamvult’s dark border to the base of the towering Āzamkadda mountains that segregated western Ceteynia from the rest of the continent.

In the center of the teeming growth, Olkelban itself gleamed like a beacon. Massive walls concealed much of the city from view, but the bright white Citadel of Olkelban swept skyward, rising high above any other building in the city. The light reflecting off of the Citadel’s smooth surface rivaled the sun, but its beauty made it difficult to look away. No matter how near or far, the gleam always remained at the razor edge of painful and enthralling.

“I know,” Finton repeated. He pulled his gaze away from the brilliant spire and returned his attention to the ground beneath him. Sprouts peeked through the surrounding soil, just as he had envisioned. His working amplified their growth rates and crops that could take weeks, months, or years of natural cultivation now provided bountiful sustenance within hours or days. The working went even further, prompting continuous accelerated life cycles. Pick an apple one day, another grew in its place the next. “The soil’s depleting faster and faster. Two years of this, I’m surprised it didn’t happen a lot sooner. We’ve been growing everything, everywhere, non-stop and that’s just not going to work forever. But look at all of this.” He swept his arms out toward the cropland. Though taxing on the land, Finton couldn’t help but take pride in his work.

Dehn cast a scrutinizing eye across the fields. He grunted. “Many have benefited from it.”

“Olkelban’s populace has never been so well-provisioned. The chaos Deowyn wrought could never happen again.” Though he gave voice to the words, he knew as well as Dehn that they belonged to Examiner Jankin—the human-apparent persona of Jankinolkelizont, last of the Olkeli Dragon Lords, unquestioned ruler of Olkelban, and Finton’s master.

“So it is,” Dehn allowed. “Not altogether of your own volition, though.”

Finton crossed his arms and held them tight against his chest. He knew where the conversation headed. They had argued the matter time and again. “He saved my life, Dehn. I wasn’t going to say no.”

“You speak as though you had a choice,” Dehn said. “A choice between servitude and oblivion is no choice.”

“Seeing as how oblivion was my only recourse unless he interceded, I’m not all that inclined to complain.” Finton’s perfect memory, a byproduct of his second lease on life, often replayed the deadly battle between Deowyn and Jankinolkelizont with crystal clarity. Every detail of that day, including the injuries he endured and the pain they caused, remained as intense as when he first experienced them. “You weren’t there for that part. Nothing any of us threw at him mattered. Even the examiner couldn’t do anything more than keep him at bay.”

“I also remember the story of why you decided to blow yourself up.” The twerg’s eyes twinkled. “No one wishes to revisit the attack. But all of this? This is too much, Finton. What cost do we pay?”

Rather than responding, Finton started the return trip to the city’s walls.

Dehn fell into step beside him, bending over to scoop up a handful of depleted dirt as they walked. “What he tasks you to do is far beyond what ought to be done. No magus or dragon wields the unlimited power you do, nor could they accomplish what you have. All magic occurs in balance. The acc—”

“‘Acceleration of natural forces,'” Finton interrupted. “‘To make something hot, something else has to grow cold. To blow a gust of wind in one place, the wind elsewhere grows still.’ I never forgot any of what you taught me. I’ve tried to use the balance in my workings ever since.”

Without Dehn, the sole source of Finton’s continued magical training would have been Jankinolkelizont and the vast Hoard of treasures the dragon had accumulated across centuries. Dehn provided a vital counterpoint, his values stemming from different priorities than those held by the dragon. He sought balance, allowing the natural order to unfold and making only small perturbations where necessary. To the dragon, magic was a tool to be comprehended and mastered. Finton’s own timeless, magic-fueled nature predisposed him to fall into the draconic way of thinking, which made him that much more wary of it. He gave great weight to Dehn’s counsel.

“And all of this?” The twerg held up the dirt.

“Accelerating growth when you’re already dead turns out to be pretty easy to balance. What do I care if I slow my own life?” Finton left unsaid old doubts about whether or not he had any life processes to drive Olkelban’s crop growth. With a visceral working like the creation of fire, the counter-effect was intuitive and easy. With something more nebulous, where or how that manifested grew less certain. At least in the case of the crops, he felt his restorative powers counteracting the drain of each working. He knew they drew from him.

“This is not the product of a wise path,” Dehn continued after a beat. “The city, too, is changed. I have dwelt behind its walls most of my life. Olkelban of today is not the Olkelban I have known.”

“Everything destroyed by Deowyn had to be rebuilt. The walls were repaired. The Āzamlåda bolstered every aspect of the city’s defenses. Olkelban’s at its strongest since the other Olkeli dragons left. It’s safer.” Finton didn’t even sound convincing to himself.

“Is it?” Dehn arched a bushy, white eyebrow. “Perhaps. Or perhaps this is the calm before the next storm. And while Olkelban feasts, the Jabianites struggle to rebuild their armies, the Tulifô Barony struggles with an emptied treasury and yet more blight, and despite all their efforts to rebuild, Āzamhān’s road to reconstruction is blocked by the mad magus having rendered the Engine of Creation dormant.”

Excitement throbbed through the magic binding Finton together, much the way a jolt of adrenaline affected a living human. The Engine of Creation had become an obsession of Finton’s ever since he learned of it. The powerful piece of arcanitecture that rested in the heart of Āzamhān gave rise to the unique marriage of magic and engineering that defined albiz culture. Mere mention of it filled him with the giddy fascination of a child discovering puddles for the first time. To date, though, it remained for him nothing more than a research hobby. Jankinolkelizont kept him too busy for a journey south to see the now-dormant Engine in person. “I thought Āzamhān had finished most of its reconstruction, anyway.”

Dehn grunted an affirmative. “All the more impressive that they did it without the Engine. But soon, the time will come when they’ll fashion no more fantastic contraptions. They’ll make no more cannons. The clever mechanisms that allow the city to thrive will come to a halt and Āzamhān will suffocate.”

Finton stopped. “What do you mean?”

Dehn stopped a few paces beyond and turned back to Finton. “The way they work magic is unlike yours or mine, but it is magic all the same. The source of that magic has always been the Engine of Creation. Deowyn’s attack on their city took that away from them. They have been laboring with what little reserves remained and now those reserves are nearly gone. Beyond even the role it plays in their new construction, though, the Engine kept Āzamhān livable despite existing within the rocky walls of a mountain. I do not know the specifics, but I know that when their reserves are gone, they will have to abandon the city. When that happens, a piece of who they are goes with it. Without the Engine, they are albam that inhabit the Āzamvult. With it, they are the Āzamlåda.”

“How come I haven’t heard anything about this before?” Finton asked. “This seems like the kind of news that should be all over Olkelban.”

“In some places, it is,” Dehn said. “Your master has been most clever in tailoring just how much information you get about the goings on in the greater world.”

“Maybe, but why didn’t you say anything before?”

Dehn’s head tilted to one side. “Perhaps I tried. Perhaps there are consequences for doing so. Regardless,” he said with enough haste to suggest he didn’t want to dwell on the topic, “many harmed by Deowyn’s cruelty have struggled to rebuild. It is to them the dragon should send you. It is them you should aid. Olkelban does not need all of this, no matter the dragon’s insecurities. The problems of the Jabianites and the Barony are worldly. Leave such matters to worldly solutions. Only you can bring the Engine of Creation out of dormancy. That’s where you talents belong.”

The magnitude of the task muted some of Finton’s initial excitement. “Has anyone tried anything like this since the time of Alour-Tan?”

“No. Even before the cataclysm, when the island’s magi influenced every facet of life across Ceteynia, across all of Tryneya even, no single magus could have made the attempt.”

“But you think I can?”

Dehn crossed his arms and gazed up at Finton’s glowing red eyes with the stony resolve that only a twerg face could convey. “No single being should have the kind of power you do. I fear what you are capable of, Finton. I have never made that secret. Had you been more like your former master, who can say what horrors would have been unleashed on the world? But the Watchers were kind. You have never shown me any reason to doubt your heart, inert though it may be. If you are to possess such power, then use it to help in ways no one else can.”

Finton didn’t know what to say. Here in Olkelban’s unnatural cropland, Dehn had always felt like his chaperon. He knew the twerg mistrusted Jankinolkelizont and always assumed that extended to Finton, too. He realized now that Dehn had grown to trust him, even while doubtful of his master. “Thank you, Dehn,” he murmured.

Dehn grunted again, stretched his hands out in front of him, and clapped them together; the customary twerg-rhodi salute. He turned and resumed his march toward the city. Finton took a few large strides to catch up and fell into step beside him.

“How long do they have?” Finton asked.

“I do not think even they know for certain,” Dehn admitted. “Not more than a few weeks.”

The statement stunned Finton. “But it takes, what, seven or eight days to get to Āzamhān from here? Even if I left today, that’s most of a week gone already.”

Dehn grunted. “Then you had best not dally.”

As they walked back to the city, Finton reflected on everything he had ever studied about arcanitecture and the Engine itself. His perfect memory gave him a clear mental picture of every page he had ever read in precise detail. Throughout those texts, a single word recurred over and over again. “One thing could stop this in its infancy,” he said. “Powering arcanitecture largely resembles any sort of intense thaumaturgy, but with one critical difference. Have you ever heard of a confactor?”

“A confactor,” Dehn rumbled, his gaze going distant as he dredged up some ancient recollection. “A metal rod, about the length and girth of a wagon wheel spoke? Yes, I know of them. Such things have not been made for centuries.”

“Another casualty of Alour-Tan?”

The twerg nodded. “Once, Alour-Tan supplied them on request to any who needed them. Even at the height of its power, though, the magi guarded the techniques of confactor creation so closely that only those sworn to its College could know the secret.”

“That answers my next question, then,” Finton said, deflating. “No one knows how to make one. I haven’t found a single tome that made any mention of how to create them, which fits with what you said about it being a closely-guarded secret. And if it was that much of a secret, I don’t think trying to figure out how to make one without a schematic for doing so is going to be an option, either.”

Dehn lifted a bushy white eyebrow in answer.

“And I suppose it’s too much to hope that you might simply happen to have one,” Finton ventured.

The twerg shook his head.

Finton gazed skyward. “So much for things being easy.”

“It is critical that you have one?” Dehn asked.

Finton held his hands out to either side and shrugged. “Every tome that makes more than a passing mention of confactors stresses how important they are. Without a confactor, magi working arcanitecture tend to end up dead in all manner of gruesome ways, generally torn apart by the magic churning through the artifact. A confactor functions as part conduit, part insulation. Of course, it burns itself out in the process.”

“What would kill a human, a twerg, or even a dragon has thus far only caused you minor inconvenience,” Dehn said.

Finton waved a hand over the length of his torso. “I thought about that. Given how much magic is binding me together, I think things would only be that much worse for everyone if I tried to go without. In cases where a magus decided not to use a confactor, only their death stopped the magical transfer. But with me? With that much energy unchecked and death that much harder to come by? Instead of just destroying me, it could level Āzamhān outright.” He shook his head. “We need a confactor if I’m going to try do this.”

“And the vast Olkeli Hoard does not contain a confactor?” Dehn tried to make the question sound contemptuous, but Finton knew the twerg well enough to detect the surprise hidden underneath.

“If it does, I don’t know how to find it,” Finton said.

“Your master would,” Dehn rumbled.

“Yeah,” Finton agreed, looking away from him. “The Examiner would know exactly where it was, what it was situated next to, how long it had been there, and who put it there. Still unnerving every time I see him demonstrate that draconic instinct. If a dragon is nearby and anything enters or leaves their Hoard, they know.”

“A pity your master is not around to help you find what you seek.”

“That would certainly make things easi—” Finton realized too late what Dehn had coaxed out of him. “Stop that.”

Mischief twinkled in Dehn’s eyes. “The last Olkeli dragon takes undisclosed leave of his brood’s prized city and you expect me not to inquire after it?”

“I never said he left the city. He disappears to be alone all the time. I can almost never find him myself. I always have to wait for him to come find me. It’s not unusual.”

Dehn shook his head. “You and I both know that this absence feels different. He’s gone somewhere. I can imagine few things that would entice him to leave.”

Finton frowned, his frustration with his master’s absence warring with both his loyalty and his desire to avoid a dragon’s wrath. He had long since acclimated to Jankinolkelizont’s sporadic and unpredictable appearances, but never before had so much time passed between them. Wherever he had disappeared to, Finton grew certain that his master was no longer in Olkelban. “I checked some of his usual retreats, but either he wasn’t there or he was well-masked.”

Dehn took the news in with a slow nod. Finton wondered what other pieces of information and gossip the mystic might have been weaving together with what he’d just been told. To call the tension between Dehn and Jankinolkelizont a power struggle overstated it by several orders of magnitude, but it was the best description Finton had.

Spurred by a sudden desire to move on from the topic of his master, Finton said, “For now, let’s assume the Hoard doesn’t have one. Do you think they might have one in Āzamhān already, maybe without even realizing it?”

Creases appeared in Dehn’s forehead as he gave the matter consideration. “Doubtful. Albiz magi would have been well-suited to their creation and even those not trained in working magic would likely recognize a confactor’s importance, but there have been no albiz magi since Alour-Tan. Such magi would have been the ones to possess any confactor belonging to Āzamhān.”

“Where else can I look, then?”

“Something so prized and potent, even in the absence of a magus trained in its use, would not be possessed lightly,” Dehn rumbled. “Rulers may yet possess them, or perhaps a rare few among the mystics scattered around the world, but all will be loath to part with them.”

“I haven’t heard of anyone other than you and me in the area with the kind of knowledge or training to make use of one. Rulers, though…” It stood to reason that any ruler would want to keep close tabs on the magically-inclined within their territory, even calling upon their services the way Jankinolkelizont did with him. None boasted even a fraction of Finton’s power or he would have long since sought them out, but the lesser peers of practitioners like Dehn would be of great use to rulers. Rulers who, not so long ago, had rallied to Olkelban’s defense. “I wonder.”

The greatest of Olkelban’s neighbors lay to the southwest and north. The southwestern power, Jabian’s Kingdom, had devoted a sizable contingent of troops to Olkelban’s defense, only to see those troops massacred by crazed victs and an army of revenants. Finton knew little about the Jabianites, though prevailing sentiment indicated a proclivity for violent solutions over diplomacy. “If a man such as Jabian had a confactor, would he be able to resist putting it to use at the first opportunity?” Finton asked.

Dehn’s eyes twinkled with approving amusement at Finton’s question. “I doubt it,” Dehn said. “Many are the remnant artifacts of Alour-Tan’s existence, but few in number persist in their original function. King Jabian no doubt holds in his possession a handful of such prizes that he would put to use if given any opportunity.”

“Right,” Finton said, bobbing his head in agreement. That left Olkelban’s northern neighbor, the Tulifô Barony and its master Tulifô-Parn. Finton shuddered as a memory flashed through his mind. Deowyn’s vict wolf-riders converged on hapless refugee carriages from Olkelban as they tried in vain to flee north to the safety of the Barony or return to the besieged city. The memory ended with equal abruptness, but left him with an uneasy chill. “Someone like Parn might not leap right into using a confactor, though.”

“Tulifô-Parn forestalls use of his own lungs until a desirable scent presents itself,” Dehn rumbled.

“He might have one, then,” Finton said. “It’s not as though opportunities for powering arcanitecture present themselves all that often.”

“And do you care to speculate on what price its use might exact?” Dehn asked, narrowing one eye while opening the other wider. Frustration with Parn numbered among the few things the twerg mystic shared with the Olkeli Dragon Lord.

The attempted evacuation of Olkelban came as a result of long negotiations between Parn and Jankinolkelizont. Finton had been privy to the conclusion of those negotiations, and though his time with the baron had been brief, he knew the ogre hid deceptive cunning behind a bombastic exterior. He could, after all, hold his own in negotiations with a dragon. “If we go to Parn himself, he’s going to want something costly in return.”

“And with the power you command and the uses the dragon has already put you to, I have no desire to see what ill-conceived designs Parn might have for you. Do not travel that road.”

“I never intended to ask the baron directly.” A grin spread across Finton’s face. “Tulifô may be Olkelban’s neighbor, but it’s still too long a journey north and not one to be undertaken lightly. I’ve got someone else in mind, who I’ve never known to be unreasonable when it came to matters of cultural importance, historical interest, or academic curiosity. Best of all, he’s right here in the city.”

Dehn studied Finton with a sidelong glance for the space of several slow breaths. “He won’t have one.”

“Not himself, no,” Finton agreed. “But he’s got the ear of the baron. If there’s a confactor to be had among the Tulifô nobility, then he’ll know exactly who to talk to and what to say in order to get it into our hands—all without having to waste time on what could turn out to be a fruitless trip.”

After a moment, Dehn nodded in agreement. “You have your work cut out for you, Finton. Armed with only your research, you must travel south to the city of the Āzamlåda and work the magic of several magi in order to reactivate one of the most complex magical constructs ever devised. And you must do this before the last of its remnant power fades for good.”

Finton bobbed his head up and down in time with Dehn’s list, his dry, papery skin feeling tighter and tighter as the enormity of the task settled on him. If he had any hair to stand on end, it would have. He forced a deep, deliberate breath through his lifeless lungs. “Better get started.”

Welcome to Embers of Alour-Tan release day! The first Release Day Tidbit is the full and complete text of Chapter One!

At least it’s a nice day, Alexis mused, gazing up into the clear blue beyond the Āzamvult’s leafy canopy. The last time she made the journey to Olkelban, she had traveled in the company of several thousand of her comrades-in-arms. King Jabian’s footmen, warhorses, and battle wagons had all clattered and clamored around her. Banners and standards of noble houses had waved, overlapping martial chants had vied for dominance, and marching songs had carried along the length of the company. In a mere two weeks, the army had made the three hundred fifty mile journey to Olkelban. It arrived as a heroic relief force to save the beleaguered city. Then it died.

Compared to that cacophonous ensemble, Alexis and her warhorse Kiya made no sound at all. Though his hooves were as wide across as Alexis’s splayed hand, she registered their heavy, rhythmic clop-clop along the packed dirt road no more than she did her own heartbeat. She reached out and patted the horse’s neck and he leaned into her touch. She had spent most of this journey walking beside him rather than saddled on his back. The Buline warhorse would bear her the whole way without complaint or fatigue if she asked, but Kiya wasn’t her beast of burden; he was her partner. Though she yearned to claim the reward King Jabian had promised to her, she was in no hurry to carry out the baleful duty it required. She would reach Olkelban soon enough.

A splintering crack ripped through the forest’s amiable background chatter. Adrenaline jolted through Alexis, stiffening her limbs for an instant before they relaxed into loose combat readiness. Kiya gave a brief snort of protest and halted. A great tree crashed down out of the thick woods and slammed into the road a scant fifty feet in front of her, blocking their path. Her hand went to the pommel of the sword sheathed at her hip, but she didn’t draw. Not yet.

“Well, well,” a mocking male voice called out. She tried to localize it, but it echoed off of every tree trunk and reflected back from the canopy. “Look what we have here. Must be our lucky day, ha boys?”

Two men materialized from the forest as though spawned by the foliage itself, one on either side of the road near the fallen tree. She took stock of them while her surprise dissipated, ingrained training overriding fight-or-flight instinct. Hooded cloaks, far too warm for a day like today, concealed their faces. Each man wielded a short sword and wore a dagger belted at his waist. The weapons bore signs of age and hard use, but had sharpened edges and lethal-looking points. Based on the way the men moved, they wore no appreciable armor.

“We can go about this one of two ways,” the voice continued. It belonged to neither of the two men in front of her. “If you like, you can hand us over all the lovely things you’re carrying that are fit to make us richer men. If not, we can take all of those just the same and leave what’s left of you for the vultures.”

Common travelers might have been startled out of their wits by the falling tree and the sudden appearance of the bandits, or intimidated by the cocky certitude of the speaker’s voice. Alexis fought back a grin and managed to keep a stern face. “Do these two do everything for you?” she asked of the unrevealed speaker. “Intimidate women on the road, cut your food, maybe even help you piss?”

The speaker appeared, leaping down from a branch that had concealed him in its leafy cover, and landed with the lightness of an acrobat on the fallen tree. This bandit had a more rakish and theatrical air than his companions, and instead of a heavy cloak wore a pointed goatee and a ragged jacket that might once have been finery. Alexis noted a dagger at each hip, but he carried no short sword.

The bandit leader threw back his head and chortled. “Big words for someone out here all alone. You’re not making me think too kindly of letting you go the easy way.”

Alexis scoffed. “If you want to make a deal, here’s mine: slink back into the forest and I’ll pretend this conversation never happened. I’ll ignore that you slowed down my journey, got in the way of my business, and generally disrupted what was otherwise a pleasant day. Do all of this and you live to harass the next wanderer.”

The leader sized her up, taking long enough that the gaze became more leer than assessment. Alexis bristled and hardened her glare, but said nothing. Once his eyes reached her face, he threw back his head and chortled again in an exact echo of his earlier mirth. “You’ve got nerve, lass, I’ll give you that. But nerve and daddy’s sword won’t do you very much good out here.” The remark about her sword, presented by King Jabian himself when she became a Knight-Commander in his army, sent fire through her chest. She felt her upper lip curl unbidden. The leader didn’t notice—or didn’t care. He swept both arms in a grandiose arc to indicate the surrounding forest. “We aren’t even the worst of what lurks in the Āzamvult.”

“You’re right,” she said, her snarl turning into a sweet, deadly smile. “You’re nothing. You’re a scared little boy that wants to feel in control. Everything in this forest is more fearsome than you. Including me.”

The bandit chortled yet again, but this time he kept his eyes on her. Some of the cocksure swagger went out of him. “And who are you that I should be so afraid?”

A familiar wellspring of pride bubbled up from within, calling forth a mantra one part identity, one part declaration, and one part battle cry. “I am Alexis, daughter of Siobhan by—”

She stopped short. A pang of grief knifed through her and quashed the burgeoning pride. On countless prior occasions, she had invoked her title-by-birthright, though minor in its nobility, to inspire courage in friends and instill fear in foes. Now, against upstart bandits certain to cower before it, the title no longer belonged to her. As one of the few soldiers of King Jabian’s army to have survived the massacre at Olkelban and the most junior of the battlefield commanders, she had been his majesty’s obvious choice to bear the blame as a concession to public outrage over the loss. While political connections protected her superiors, she was but third in the line of succession for her father’s dukedom of Heragon. His majesty’s decision had been easy.

“Daughter of Siobhan, eh?” the bandit grinned, revealing several metallic teeth in varying shades. “Duchess Siobhan of Heragon herself, no less?”

“That’s right,” she said through clenched teeth.

“And here I thought her grace the good duchess was too honorable to ‘get a bastard,” the bandit drawled with glee. “Guess she’s not so much better than the rest of them nobility after all.”

Fire rose up in Alexis’s throat. The accusation of bastardy alone spurred her to demand satisfaction, but to insult her mother in the same breath was more than she could take. Her full title would have put to rest any doubts about her heritage and sent these miscreants scampering back into the woods, but that was gone. She would not allow shame to come to her family’s name because of it.

“Apologize,” she growled.

“Or what?” the bandit chortled, his concern waning. “You’ll draw that pig-sticker of yours and wave it about?” He eyed her sword and Kiya—who hadn’t yet given the bandits so much as a concerned glance—with newfound interest. “Did you steal the pony and the iron from mommy, perchance?”

The sword flashed out of Alexis’s scabbard with a whisper, gleaming in the bright sunlight and sending coruscating reflections out across the ground and foliage. As she drew, Kiya’s attention snapped forward and the warhorse shifted his stance to prepare for action. “You go too far.”

“I could say the same of you, girl,” he said, the laughter gone from his voice and replaced by a lethal edge. “Do her, boys. Keep the horse if you can.”

The other two bandits brought their swords up and closed in on her with caution. Despite the shadows of their hoods, she could see their searching eyes flit between her steel and Kiya’s imposing bulk. Alexis took a measured step toward them, keeping her grip on the sword loose and easy. The pair hesitated. They had orchestrated this theatrical approach to intimidate the travelers they beset. Their quarry wasn’t supposed to respond by engaging them.

The three men, Alexis, and Kiya held their places for a long beat, each waiting for the others to make the first move. Alexis ran through any number of general strategies she might employ, knowing that her muscle memory would see to the specifics when the time came.

The bandit on her left moved first. He strode forward and made no effort to feint, intent instead on stabbing her without flourish. His counterpart followed a half-step later, swinging his sword at the side she would have to expose to parry the first’s attack.

Neither expected her speed. She lunged toward the bandit on the right, ducking the first attacker’s stab. With a twist of her wrist, her blade clacked against the swing meant to exploit a weakness she never exposed and the momentum and weight of her larger, heavier sword swatted away the smaller one.

With Alexis clear, Kiya’s rear hooves slammed into the first man’s head, launching him into the fallen tree trunk with a bone-cracking crunch. The man’s sword clattered out of his hands and he slumped to the ground. The cloak wrapped around his head grew damp.

The leader of the bandits paled, but he hopped down from the fallen tree and drew both of his daggers as he hit the ground. Alexis kept him in her peripheral vision as she righted her grip. The remaining sword-wielder had recovered from the ringing parry and now held his blade in defensive readiness.

“You bi—” the leader sputtered.

Alexis passed her sword from one hand to the other and came at his neck with a slash meant to separate head from body. The man brought up both daggers and caught her blade where they crossed. He shoved it away, leaving her exposed. Seeing his opportunity, the other bandit lunged—in vain. She reversed her sword, taking hold of its long blade, and smashed the heavy pommel into the man’s face before his attack could land. He collapsed to the ground with agonized cries, dropping his weapon as his hands went to the ruins of his nose.

During the chaos, Kiya moved behind the remaining bandit, trapping him between Alexis’s blade and a wall of warhorse that towered over him.

“Should have listened to me when you had the chance,” she taunted.

He said nothing in response this time. Instead, he attacked with both daggers carving quick, deadly patterns into the air. Two weapons gave him more unpredictable avenues for attack, but split his focus and his strength. Also, Alexis’s sword was much bigger.

She swung the pommel toward him like a mace. He realized too late that it wasn’t the blade of a sword he had to parry, but rather a solid chunk of steel. The daggers wouldn’t help him if he couldn’t catch the attack. He tried and failed to dance back out of the way before it hit him. The pommel slammed into his hands and sent one of his daggers flying. He yelped in pain.

She flipped the sword around with practiced ease, catching the bloodied pommel and ignoring the stinging of her own hands from the blade’s edges. The bandit’s face showed a mix of fury, pain, bewilderment, and fear. He had thought her an easy mark, a mere girl walking her horse down the road all alone. Nothing had prepared him to deal with the trained, battle-hardened proficiency of a Jabianite Knight-Commander.

“Big mistake,” she chided. She went at him, each clash of their mismatched weapons sapping more of his strength. He made good account of himself, she had to admit, and for a time parried everything she threw at him. At last, his arms betrayed him and the dagger ripped free of his weakening grasp, sailing into the foliage.

She leveled the sword at him and rested its tip against the hollow of his throat. “Apologize,” she repeated.

His eyes flicked past her and Kiya screamed an alarm. “Now!” he cried, his voice raw with terror and exultation.

Alexis spun away from him, bringing her sword up to meet whatever attack she faced. The man whose nose she’d pulverized had regained his senses enough to recover his weapon. Her blade intercepted his, but he had already closed in. She pushed his blade aside, trying to drive it into a glancing blow across her plate armor—

Plate armor that she no longer owned or wore.

Pain exploded like fire across her ribcage as the short sword slid through her tunic and ripped her flesh, but she had deflected it enough that it didn’t penetrate her ribs and gouge the organs beneath.

She internalized the pain and used it to fuel her retaliation. Holding the man’s blade aside with her sword, she brought her free hand around to punch the pulpy remains of his nose. The blow elicited a howl of agony and he staggered back again. Alexis stalked toward him, her blade held low and her side burning. She felt warm wetness dripping down her flank, but dismissed it. She would deal with it later.

The noseless man cried something unintelligible, though definitely insulting. Her expression cold and hard, Alexis brought the sword up for the killing blow, her side screaming in protest. The man looked up at her, eyes wide as he realized what was about to happen. The sword came down. His body collapsed in a heap and his head rolled away from it.

Alexis spun toward the leader, but Kiya had already dealt with him. The man lay flat on his belly, an arm stretched toward a dagger resting beyond his grasp. Kiya had a hoof fixed square on the man’s back, pinning him to the ground and keeping him immobile. If the warhorse shifted his weight, the man’s spine would crack. His face showed he knew as much, bewildered though he was that Kiya hadn’t already crushed him.

“Apologize,” Alexis repeated, making her way over to the man and kicking his dagger even further out of his reach.

“I’m—” he coughed under Kiya’s weight, “—I’m—sorry!” he managed.

“Good,” she said with a nod. “Then you meet the Watchers with appropriate remorse. May they show as much mercy to you as I have.”

His eyes widened and he started to scream. Her sword slammed down through his skull, pinning his head to the ground. She gave it a hard wrench, then withdrew it. Kiya snorted in distaste, withdrawing his hoof as though he had stepped in something unsanitary.

Alexis cleaned her blade off on the man’s vest and re-sheathed it. She gave a brief thought to collecting the bandit weapons, but contented herself with the coins they had on them and one of the leader’s daggers. She didn’t need to add superfluous weight to her burden or Kiya’s and the meager price the bandit weapons might fetch didn’t justify the effort.

Acute awareness of the pain in her side rose to the forefront of her thoughts as her adrenaline subsided. Keeping her wounded side as still as she could, she reached across to probe the gash. Battle wounds were nothing new, but this one carried a little extra shame with it. She had grown so used to fighting with armor, encased in nigh-invulnerable steel plates, that instincts had overridden her situational awareness. An armored knight would have been right and wise to deflect stabbing blows into glancing slashes that the armor could laugh off. Relying on the tactic when she had nothing but cloth and leather to protect her could have gotten her killed.

She moved to Kiya’s side and rummaged through his saddlebags with her good arm, searching for the needle and gut she kept for emergencies. Once she extracted her supplies, she addressed the horse. “Clear the road while I take care of this, will you?” Even without the rigorous training regimen of a Jabianite warhorse, Bulines like Kiya had mental faculties nearing those of humans. Kiya couldn’t speak her language, but he understood every word she said. After a moment studying her with a mixture of concern and equine aloofness, he shook his head and nickered in agreement.

While Kiya leaned down to grab the dead bandit leader by the fabric of his jacket, Alexis stepped off the main road and into the foliage. Modesty wasn’t high on her list of priorities, but the attack made her cautious. Once she’d moved a few paces into the wood, she set down the medical supplies and peeled off her tunic. Every move elicited a stab of pain and she paused to take steadying breaths after each new twinge. Once free of the garment, she tossed it down beside her spool of gut with a mixture of frustration and triumph.

Her entire left flank glistened red, but the size of the wound and her post-battle sweat made it more dramatic-looking than it was. A shallow gash over her ribs spanned half a hand-width from one end to the other. Every little movement tugged at the tissue, making it hurt more than it had any right to. She’d had worse. Much, much worse.

A memory of fire wrapping around her played out while she threaded her needle and set to work. She focused on the memory, using it to distract her from the pricks of pain caused by the stitching. The duel in Olkelban’s main plaza had resembled no type of warfare she knew, but she had waded in all the same and set her sights on slaying the mad magus Deowyn. Her king had sent her to protect the city and she had intended to carry out that mission to her dying breath—a breath she had come close to drawing.

Deowyn noticed her as the dragon reared back to strike. Before she could react, her feet left the ground and she flew into the path of the dragon’s fiery breath, shielding the magus. The dragonfire would have vaporized her but for her albiz-made armor, which spread and deflected the heat to stave off obliteration. Instead, the armor fused together in the inferno, locking her inside to roast in a metal oven as she crashed to the ground.

The red-haired elf-girl—Buccandralla Āzamlåda—appeared beside her, firing her cannon into the magical duel. None of her attacks reached Deowyn, deflected aside by magic to smash into the ground and surrounding buildings, but she continued to try. The elf knelt down beside Alexis and did something to her armor. The deadly heat dissipated in an instant, as though the metal had been through a forest stream rather than a fury of flame. Alexis still couldn’t move and would later have to be cut out of her ruined armor, but albiz metal-working kept her from roasting alive.

She finished stitching up her side and wiped away as much of the blood as she could. The thought of a cool forest stream sounded exquisite just now. She would make a point to keep her eyes, ears, and nose open for one as she continued up the road. Satisfied with her field sutures, she pulled her bloodied tunic back on, tuning out the pain but taking care not to stretch the new stitches.

Once dressed, she stepped back onto the road. Kiya had disposed of the bodies and stood waiting for her with a bored, expectant gaze. His jaws worked at some bit of foliage he had found to his liking. The only signs of struggle were splashes of blood and paths in the dirt from Kiya dragging the bodies away. Both would fade into obscurity before long, but Alexis didn’t want to take any chances. She covered over the tracks and blood with more dirt, using her feet as makeshift tillers. When she had finished, the collapsed tree alone justified the disturbed path well enough to fool anyone who encountered it.

She frowned at the fallen tree, as thick across as she was tall. “Can you jump that?” she asked the horse.

Kiya stared at her and continued chewing.

“Fine,” she said, holding up a hand in concession. “I’ll meet you on the other side, then.”

She ducked back into the woods and made her way around the tree. Kiya could have made the same trip, but maneuvering in the thick underbrush was easier for her than for him. He preferred the direct route. She emerged from the foliage onto the path, where Kiya stood waiting for her. She hadn’t heard him take a galloping start or make the leap.

“Show off,” she said with a grin.

She stowed the needle and remaining gut back in her saddlebags. Holding her left arm close to her side to keep the stitches from tearing, she swung herself high onto Kiya’s saddle with practiced ease. So much for sparing him the burden of carrying her. He made no protest, nor would he. Once she had settled herself, he resumed their prior pace along the road.

The memory of Olkelban brought her task back to the fore. She had tried not to think about it; doing so left her stomach churning. These three bandits had been little more than a taste of what lay before her, but their taunting and her slip of the tongue had reminded her all too well why she had to carry out the task her king had given her. If she wanted to once again be recognized as a noble of Jabian’s Kingdom, a member of House Heragon, and a true-born daughter of her mother and father, she had no alternative.

To reclaim her identity, she had to kill the hero of Olkelban. She had to kill Finton.

The short answer: almost done, but not quite.

As mentioned earlier, I was on-track to be done by the end of the month. Everything had started to align. Cody and I started churning through the polish pass; cleaning up wording, tossing unnecessary sentences, refining entire paragraphs to improve clarity and impact. After (once again) stressing over what I would do for the book’s cover, having a preconceived notion of what I wanted that cover to be, I stumbled across a stock photo1 that — though it didn’t fit the preconception — declared itself the perfect cover for this story, so I even had that part all set.

Then two things happened.

First, it turned out that the last week in March was the best time for Cody to visit her family, who she had not visited for something like a year and a half2. If we were to get our editing pass done for a March 31 release date, we’d have to compress it into the two weeks since my last post. Ambitious, but doable.

Until, of course, I got waylaid by allergies. I’ve talked about it here before; twice a year, every year, I get two sinus-based allergy attacks. Has happened my entire life; once in the spring, once in the fall. For a long time, doctors diagnosed it as the latest seasonal cold, until I’d built up enough history for them to look at the timing of each and say “…huh.” If I’m proactive and start taking allergy meds (previously Claritin, now Zyrtec) early enough, coupled with Sudafed3 to relieve the worst of the symptoms, it’s not much of an issue.

This year, though, I didn’t get the usual early warning signs. Instead, it started with a weird, shallow, occasional cough. At first, I chalked the cough up to being an idiot and not wearing a respirator while using a hot glue gun to assemble my Stormtrooper helmet paper template. My allergies start with sinus congestion, with itchy eyes, or a sore throat–not a cough. It didn’t occur to me that this cough was anything other than a temporary reaction to me being dumb about fume ventilation.

Bereft of my usual Zyrtec armor, my allergies came on in full force the weekend before Cody’s now-planned family visit. We had made it through about a third of the book4 and now I was all but bed-ridden and unable to sleep without interruption thanks to difficulty breathing. I ended up taking that Monday off of work and slept on-and-off for something like thirteen hours. I kept myself on a steady drip of hot water flavored with lemon. That was about all I was up to. I had no voice on Tuesday or Wednesday, though I managed to work on both days. My voice started creeping back on Thursday and more-or-less returned by Friday. Then Cody was gone.

Suffice it to say, that didn’t make for a productive week of editing.

I’ve continued to edit the book solo, but I consider Cody’s input at this stage essential. She hears problems in my phrasing that I miss. She sees errors in my word choice that are in my blindspots. I can go through the whole book front-to-back and improve on those things, but it’s never going to be as good as when we do so together. I considered — for a fraction of a second — pushing forward and just releasing it with only my copy editing pass on the remaining chapters until I realized that for the colossal mistake it would be. It is far, far more important to me that I deliver my readers a worthy sequel to Ashes than it is to hit any particular release date.

Cody returns today and we’ll pick up right where we left off. I’m guessing mid-to-late April is the most likely release timing at this point.

Then it’s on to Alour-Tan III…

Ashes‘ cover is also a modified stock photoThat’s not to say she didn’t see them; they came to visit us and we also rendezvoused with them at the family cabin in New HampshireReal damn Sudafed, pseudoephedrine HCl, not that placebo Sudafed-PE garbage.The early going was much slower due to the light editing I had done thus far on the first chapter, so we spent extra time there that the other chapters didn’t need.

This post is part of a meta-series. Click here for a list of all posts in this series.

Been quiet on the stormtrooper front of late, but it’s still coming along!

Still all done with tape, with a few exceptions where I resorted to superglue (and nearly stuck my fingers together several times). I’m thinking about trying hot glue as an alternative. Still sets quickly, but is a little more forgiving. Messy, though…

I don’t know what happened yesterday, but I got up, went down to make coffee, started working on the book…and didn’t stop until I reached the end of the book.

The third draft is done!

What does that mean? The third draft is the final story- and character-revision pass. The next pass, generating the final draft, comes from an aloud read-through with Cody for phrasing, grammar gaffes, and general technical consistency. This will fill a few evenings and will also be Cody’s first actual exposure to the full text of the story, as opposed to just hearing me talk about it. Meanwhile, I’ll also be doing peripheral work: figuring out the cover, deciding what appendices to add, etc.

Most importantly, though, it means that the book is coming. Soon. Very soon.

As with Ashes, I’ll be releasing a few sample chapters here on the blog once they’re finalized. That could even be imminent, so stay tuned!

The third draft is now one third complete.

Once I finish my revisions for this draft, all that’s left is the final read-through and wording/grammar cleanup.

Still aiming for and on track to hit a by-end-of-March release date.

Can’t wait for you to read it!

Once again, I must thank you for your patience during the long update droughts this blog so often experiences. It’s not for lack of interest on my part, nor for lack of things to say, but rather due to feeling perpetually “behind” with everything and “Oh, hey, I should write a post about that” ideas succumbing to the maelstrom that manifests from being pulled in a million directions at once.

That said, I at least come bearing good news! The second draft of Ashes of Alour-Tan’s sequel is DONE, clocking in at just under 103,000 words. In point of fact, it’s been done for almost four weeks. The discerning and critical eyes of my Beta readers now prowl through it, assessing just how much work I’m in for when it comes time to hammer the second draft into the third (and final) draft. I’ve asked them to submit their feedback by the end of the month. My current goal is to publish the book by the end of Q1 2016 (i.e. sometime in March), a goal I very much aim to hit. Alour-Tan II has been with me for far too long; it needs to be out there with all of you.

In similar news, while Alour-Tan II is under review, I’ve started heavily preparing for Alour-Tan III‘s first draft. I’ve no desire to repeat the mistakes I seem to continue making by failing to properly and thoroughly outline before diving in. Every single time, thus far, starting the first any draft too early has ensnared me in some kind of mid-book plot conundrum that takes demoralizing quantities of writing time and work to resolve. I want to see those coming and fix them before they amass an umpty-thousand word juggernaut behind them. It’s also my hope and goal that this will streamline the writing process itself and, to that end, I’m presently aiming to outline, write, revise, and publish Alour-Tan III by the end of this year as well. We’ll see whether or not that actually happens.

As with the first draft, I thought it might be of interest to do something of a retrospective on the process of writing this one.

Hopefully, I didn’t make any embarrassing math mistakes.

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Date
Milestone
+Words
iWPD2
pWPD3




2015-01-*
My First Reader reads Alour-Tan II’s first draft
–
–
–



When I had all feedback in hand, I spent a few days organizing it, deciding what I wanted to do, and so on.
–
–
–


2015-02-06
Officially started the second draft.
–
–
–


Feb-Jun
Made very slow progress, only managing to redraft six of the books 30ish chapters.
19,818
152
152


2015-06-16
Imported the whole book into Scrivener.
–
–
152


2015-06-*
Spent most of the rest of June trying to re-map the story (the aforementioned plot snarl). Without revealing anything, there was effectively an entire second story taking place that I knew about, but that the reader never really understands, and I needed to bring that more to the fore.
–
–
(reset)


2015-07-02
Decided I was happy with my retooling of chapter one.
3509
501
501


2015-07-24
Finished redrafting chapter two.
3988
181
258


2015-08-17
Finally “finished” the troublesome “chapter three.” Looking at my version control notes gives you a good sense of this:

Working through chapter three. …
Still working through chapter three.
More chapter three editing.
Argh chapter three come on.
Still chapter three. Will be so happy to leave this chapter behind.
Almost done with ch3 I think. Still around 300 words shy of where I’d like it, but it feels alright now. Still need to figure out how to end it.
Read-through of Ch3 with Cody. Realized I don’t even need this damn chapter.


0 (2762)
120
141


2015-08-20
Finished what was chapter four, now the new chapter three. Notably, this chapter took three days, not almost a month!
5228
1743
231


2015-08-28
Chapter four done.
4283
535
270


2015-09-*
Started rearranging chapters more, which began to reveal more cracks in my outlining, despite the retool that happened earlier.
–
–
177


2015-10-07
Took a step back and returned to my outline to ensure I was going where I wanted to go and how I got there really made sense.
–
–
165


2015-10-19
My version control commit message: “New outline for draft two. Plan in place. Ready to rock. Let’s do this.”
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–
(reset 2)


2015-10-22
Completed another retooling of chapter two (chapter one, notably, has changed very little through the various drafts).
3774
1258
1258


2015-10-23
Completed another retooling of chapter three.
4153
4153
1982


2015-11-02
Finished chapter four. Note how quickly these are coming now, with the new, more-robust outline in place. That said, Halloween slowed this one down a bit.
4114
411
1204


2015-11-08
Finished chapter five, which mostly took a while because I continued to waffle about where to put it in the narrative.
4114
596
1010


2015-11-11
Finished chapter six.
4238
1413
1073


2015-11-18
Finished chapter seven.
3129
447
905


2015-11-20
Finished chapter eight.
4221
2110
991


2015-11-29
Finished through chapter 12.
16354
1817
1192


2015-12-06
Second draft halfway done.
4773
682
1111


2015-12-07
Finished chapter 14.
3349
3349
1160


2015-12-10
Finished through chapter 17.
11177
3726
1321


2015-12-13
Finished chapter 18.
3052
1017
1303


2015-12-14
Finished through chapter 20.
7170
7170
1416


2015-12-15
Finished chapter 21.
3196
3196
1449


2015-12-18
Finished chapter 22.
3593
1198
1436


2015-12-23
Finished the second draft.
18940
3788
1629

The big takeaway for me is the enormous disparity in day-to-day progress before and after the second retooling. It’s crystal clear that I was struggling through story problems that I subconsciously knew had to be fixed. Once I got rolling, my time-averaged words-edited-per-day rate barely dipped below 1000, which is excellent considering October through December are rife with holiday distractions.

This table and these numbers are also not entirely representative. For most of November and all of December, I made the decision to devote all of my “unallocated” time (i.e. time not spent sleeping, working, spending time with Cody, or watching hockey games) writing. No gaming, no modeling, no Stormtrooper work — just writing. By the end, I was tired as hell. It wasn’t sustainable. That’s reflected in the right-most column for December entries: I was trending toward 2000 WPD project average with how much I was working, despite long stretches of making no progress at all. 2000 WPD is an excellent daily goal, but being able to almost hit it when you’ve got days with zeroes in them indicates a furious bout.

Regardless of where the actual daily word count number rests, though, this was major proof to me that I have got to invest time in my outlining and plotting up front. It won’t figure itself out mid-draft. Maybe that works for other writers, but not for me. I’ll get bogged down in it, it’ll sap my desire to write, and I’ll end up spending eight months spinning my wheels.

February to mid-October, largely wasted. That’s not to say I didn’t save things from the work done during that time, but when all is said and done I retread those early chapters several times. Effectively, the second draft only really took about two months to do. That’s not bad at all.

I don’t know if it’s smart or foolish to continue avoiding using the book’s actual name. Do I run any risks if I announce the name before the book’s up for sale? I don’t know. I also don’t know whether or not those risks are greater for a self-published author than they would be for a trad-pub author.Words per day for this intervalWords per day for the project