Steven J. Pemberton's Blog
September 30, 2025
September's Writing Progress
One of the beta readers for The Last Dragonrider has come back with comments - nothing that breaks the plot, fortunately. I'm waiting for the others. I think I'm done with the cover. I suppose I need to think about a blurb.
I started a fantasy short story, set in the same world as the Dragonrider books, but in a different country and a different period of history. I keep telling myself this one won't turn into another novel - I know who the villain is, and I know how it's going to end - but I'm 4,000 words in, and my protagonist is about to get his first real clue about what's going on. Some editing will be needed :-)
Today, we went to Liverpool to see Galeón Andalucía, a replica of a Spanish galleon that's touring the UK. It's a lot roomier than the replica of the Golden Hind that we saw in London some years ago - I could stand up straight on the gun deck. We took lots of photos, some details from which might find their way into future stories.
I started a fantasy short story, set in the same world as the Dragonrider books, but in a different country and a different period of history. I keep telling myself this one won't turn into another novel - I know who the villain is, and I know how it's going to end - but I'm 4,000 words in, and my protagonist is about to get his first real clue about what's going on. Some editing will be needed :-)
Today, we went to Liverpool to see Galeón Andalucía, a replica of a Spanish galleon that's touring the UK. It's a lot roomier than the replica of the Golden Hind that we saw in London some years ago - I could stand up straight on the gun deck. We took lots of photos, some details from which might find their way into future stories.
September 2, 2025
August's Writing Progress
I finally sent The Last Dragonrider off to my beta readers. While I'm waiting for their comments, I started on the cover design. I'd like to think it's mostly there. It's much simpler than previous ones, which leads me to think I'm missing something important, because I haven't spent nearly as long on it.
The nearby town of St Annes had their festival over the bank holiday weekend, and I was one of the many acts who appeared. Here's a video of my performance. I did three old favourites - the first half of chapter 1 of The Accidental Dragonrider, Blame the Cat (from Racing the Storm and Other Stories ) and The Last Story.
The nearby town of St Annes had their festival over the bank holiday weekend, and I was one of the many acts who appeared. Here's a video of my performance. I did three old favourites - the first half of chapter 1 of The Accidental Dragonrider, Blame the Cat (from Racing the Storm and Other Stories ) and The Last Story.
July 31, 2025
July's Writing Progress
Editing continues on The Last Dragonrider. I took out about 1,500 words this month, so I'm down to about 128,000. That's still longer than any of my previous books...
At the start of the month, we took a holiday to Hertfordshire, where we used to live, to visit friends and family and do the usual tourist-y things. I got a few ideas for fun details that ended up in the book, and another idea for a short story.
While I was there, I wrote a short story from a prompt that I got last year. (This is quite quick for me.) When I gave a talk at Urban Arts, I said I'd demonstrate my outlining process, and asked the audience to give me a character, a setting, and a prop. These were a gravedigger, a forest in British Columbia, and a stuffed toy tiger. During the interval, I tried to come up with a plot that featured those three things. I got about halfway on the night, which was further than I expected to get, but it's taken me until now to figure out the ending. I can say without fear of spoiling any surprises that I decided to make the tiger a real one.
I should probably start sounding out beta readers for the novel.
At the start of the month, we took a holiday to Hertfordshire, where we used to live, to visit friends and family and do the usual tourist-y things. I got a few ideas for fun details that ended up in the book, and another idea for a short story.
While I was there, I wrote a short story from a prompt that I got last year. (This is quite quick for me.) When I gave a talk at Urban Arts, I said I'd demonstrate my outlining process, and asked the audience to give me a character, a setting, and a prop. These were a gravedigger, a forest in British Columbia, and a stuffed toy tiger. During the interval, I tried to come up with a plot that featured those three things. I got about halfway on the night, which was further than I expected to get, but it's taken me until now to figure out the ending. I can say without fear of spoiling any surprises that I decided to make the tiger a real one.
I should probably start sounding out beta readers for the novel.
June 30, 2025
June's Writing Progress
This month was a good one for new writing. I wrote four pieces, totalling nearly 8,000 words. It won't be long before I have enough for another short story collection. I suppose I should start sending some of them to my mailing list subscribers...
I carried on editing The Last Dragonrider. I'm supposed to be cutting, and I have taken out a few things, but I added another 1,000 words (net), so it's now 129,500 words. At least I'm down to 17 comments that I have to implement or ignore.
I carried on editing The Last Dragonrider. I'm supposed to be cutting, and I have taken out a few things, but I added another 1,000 words (net), so it's now 129,500 words. At least I'm down to 17 comments that I have to implement or ignore.
May 31, 2025
May's Writing Progress
Tinkering continues with The Last Dragonrider. I've added about 2,000 words this month, so it now stands at 128,500 words. I'm down to 34 comments for things that I still need to fix.
I wrote a short piece for the next themed night at Urban Arts in St Annes. The theme is "Heaven and Hell." I picked an entry that I'd had in my ideas file for a few years. It felt as though it could've been a longer story, but I found a way to crowbar it into the five minutes that we're usually allowed for performances.
The last of my books that was exclusive to Amazon is now available from other retailers too. This is Racing the Storm and Other Stories, a collection of short science fiction stories. Click the link to get your copy of the ebook!
I wrote a short piece for the next themed night at Urban Arts in St Annes. The theme is "Heaven and Hell." I picked an entry that I'd had in my ideas file for a few years. It felt as though it could've been a longer story, but I found a way to crowbar it into the five minutes that we're usually allowed for performances.
The last of my books that was exclusive to Amazon is now available from other retailers too. This is Racing the Storm and Other Stories, a collection of short science fiction stories. Click the link to get your copy of the ebook!
April 30, 2025
April's Writing Progress
I cut about 3,000 words from The Last Dragonrider in April, so that's about 18,500 removed since I started editing. Most of what I cut in March was stuff I'd already tagged as redundant, but left in because I didn't want to distort the figures. The book is about 126,500 words now. I have 84 comments that I still need to implement or ignore, down from about 240 last month. There are still a few extra scenes to write, to make the plot hang together a bit better.
Continuing the liberation of my back catalogue, The Reluctant Dragonrider and Escape Velocity are now available in ebook form at retailers other than Amazon. Click the links to buy your copies.
The last one that's still exclusive to Amazon, Racing the Storm and Other Stories, should be available elsewhere in the next week or so. Its term of exclusivity actually ends on Star Wars Day, fittingly enough.
Continuing the liberation of my back catalogue, The Reluctant Dragonrider and Escape Velocity are now available in ebook form at retailers other than Amazon. Click the links to buy your copies.
The last one that's still exclusive to Amazon, Racing the Storm and Other Stories, should be available elsewhere in the next week or so. Its term of exclusivity actually ends on Star Wars Day, fittingly enough.
March 31, 2025
March's Writing Progress
The first half of this month was taken up with re-reading the Dragonrider books and making notes to make sure I don't introduce any plot holes or continuity errors into The Last Dragonrider. The second half was spent editing the book.
I've cut about 15,500 words since February, so the book is now about 129,000 words. I don't have any particular word count in mind, but my previous novels are around 105,000 to 120,000, so I'll probably cut some more.
I also track editing progress by the number of comments I've left for myself throughout the book. A comment could be anything from "find a better word for this sentence" to "write a new chapter to cover this gap", but it averages out. When I started editing, I had 410 comments, and I now have 240.
I found the time to write another short piece about AI, with a working title of Tick the Box. It's not quite a short story, but I might include it in a collection of them.
I've decided to "go wide" with all my books. Most of them are already available at all ebook retailers, but a few were exclusive to Amazon, including the Dragonrider books. The first one, The Accidental Dragonrider, is available from your favourite non-Amazon retailer at https://books2read.com/u/bz90Q9 The other previously-exclusive books should become available in the next few weeks. Watch this space :-)
I've cut about 15,500 words since February, so the book is now about 129,000 words. I don't have any particular word count in mind, but my previous novels are around 105,000 to 120,000, so I'll probably cut some more.
I also track editing progress by the number of comments I've left for myself throughout the book. A comment could be anything from "find a better word for this sentence" to "write a new chapter to cover this gap", but it averages out. When I started editing, I had 410 comments, and I now have 240.
I found the time to write another short piece about AI, with a working title of Tick the Box. It's not quite a short story, but I might include it in a collection of them.
I've decided to "go wide" with all my books. Most of them are already available at all ebook retailers, but a few were exclusive to Amazon, including the Dragonrider books. The first one, The Accidental Dragonrider, is available from your favourite non-Amazon retailer at https://books2read.com/u/bz90Q9 The other previously-exclusive books should become available in the next few weeks. Watch this space :-)
February 28, 2025
February's Writing Progress
Last weekend, I finally typed "The End" at the bottom of the 1.5th draft* of The Last Dragonrider. It came in at 145k words, so there's some trimming to do.
The next job is to re-read the other two books ( The Accidental Dragonrider and The Reluctant Dragonrider ) to make sure I'm not contradicting any of the established lore and history. This book takes place a long time before the others, so it's tempting to write off any apparent continuity errors as Iko, Drubath and Tiwan reading different sources from what the characters in The Last Dragonrider lived. But my dragons live a lot longer than humans, so I'd better make sure they at least agree with themselves.
As well as that, I wrote a couple more short stories in response to writing prompts, just over a thousand words each. I'm not sure they're worth polishing into something to include in the next collection, but we'll see.
* Technically it's the first draft, but I've done a lot of rewriting and moving scenes around. That doesn't usually happen until the second draft, so the book's current state is halfway between those two stages.
The next job is to re-read the other two books ( The Accidental Dragonrider and The Reluctant Dragonrider ) to make sure I'm not contradicting any of the established lore and history. This book takes place a long time before the others, so it's tempting to write off any apparent continuity errors as Iko, Drubath and Tiwan reading different sources from what the characters in The Last Dragonrider lived. But my dragons live a lot longer than humans, so I'd better make sure they at least agree with themselves.
As well as that, I wrote a couple more short stories in response to writing prompts, just over a thousand words each. I'm not sure they're worth polishing into something to include in the next collection, but we'll see.
* Technically it's the first draft, but I've done a lot of rewriting and moving scenes around. That doesn't usually happen until the second draft, so the book's current state is halfway between those two stages.
January 31, 2025
January's Writing Progress
The year's off to a good start. The day job has calmed down, though it remains to be seen how long that will last.
I wrote 11,000 words of The Last Dragonrider, so it now stands at 139,000 words. I also wrote two short stories, totalling another 2,500 words, with the working titles of The Artisan Dreamer and Enshittification. I'm sure you can guess what kind of subject the latter one is about...
Come back next month to see whether my bosses let me keep up the momentum!
I wrote 11,000 words of The Last Dragonrider, so it now stands at 139,000 words. I also wrote two short stories, totalling another 2,500 words, with the working titles of The Artisan Dreamer and Enshittification. I'm sure you can guess what kind of subject the latter one is about...
Come back next month to see whether my bosses let me keep up the momentum!
December 31, 2024
2024 Retrospective and Goals for 2025
I had one definite goal for this year (finish The Last Dragonrider) and one "stretch" goal (publish another audiobook). I didn't achieve either of them, though The Last Dragonrider is getting there. I wrote 61,000 words of it this year, so it now stands at 128,000 words. I'm going to blame the day job for this. I spent several months working long hours on work required by company policies that I don't think benefits our customers or users. There were many days (or nights) when I closed the work laptop and was just too exhausted to spend any time with my characters.
So I'm scaling back my plans for next year, in the hope of beating the targets for once. The goals are: publish (not finish) The Last Dragonrider and publish another audiobook.
I achieved a few things that weren't on the list:
- I published a video of my 2023 talk at Urban Arts. I spoke about my writing process and career as an author, and read from some of my stories.
- In August, I did another talk at Urban Arts, similar to the 2023 one but with different readings. There's video of this one too, but I haven't got around to editing it.
- In November, Readers' Magnet published an article that I wrote about The Accidental Dragonrider.
- I wrote another five short stories, totalling about 9,000 words. None of them are published yet (I'm saving them up until I have enough to justify releasing another book), but sometimes I post readings to my Facebook author page or my YouTube channel.
So I'm scaling back my plans for next year, in the hope of beating the targets for once. The goals are: publish (not finish) The Last Dragonrider and publish another audiobook.
I achieved a few things that weren't on the list:
- I published a video of my 2023 talk at Urban Arts. I spoke about my writing process and career as an author, and read from some of my stories.
- In August, I did another talk at Urban Arts, similar to the 2023 one but with different readings. There's video of this one too, but I haven't got around to editing it.
- In November, Readers' Magnet published an article that I wrote about The Accidental Dragonrider.
- I wrote another five short stories, totalling about 9,000 words. None of them are published yet (I'm saving them up until I have enough to justify releasing another book), but sometimes I post readings to my Facebook author page or my YouTube channel.
