Volume IV: 3.1

…And I’m back! This will be short, so let’s dive right in.

Well, it’s time for the first update to Vol. IV. I’ve been able to make decent headway on the revisions so far, and almost on a daily basis. When I wrote this book, I overwrote, thinking bigger is better, and cutting down is proving a lot harder than I initially thought. I have lopped off large swaths between draft one and two, but between the second and the third is slower and less hacking.

As it stands, I’ve tackled sixteen of the fifty-seven chapters, so that’s sitting at around twenty-eight percent. For the epilogues, I’ve managed two out of nine, and that accounts for about twenty-two percent. Overall, the word count has been reduced from 319,000 to about 309,000. It’s not as much as I would like, but any bit helps. At this rate, if twenty-eight percent gives me a deduction of 10k, I hope to end up around the 280,000 mark. If more is cut, it’s a win in my book—no pun intended.

So, what does this mean? Will I make the 2027 deadline? I believe so, and there’s always the possibility that it could come early. With volumes IV and V already written, that means I need to shift focus and write VI, VII, VIII, and IX. Since vol. IV is the turning point in the series. The subsequent books might be shorter as storylines come to a close, one way or another. I may take the extra time to jump to six and start chopping away at the story. Who knows?

There’s also other works to consider, like the Maro Prakk collection, Warmaster, and anything else I might wedge in there. If I stopped all editing and just focused on writing, jumping from one project to the next, I could have a vast majority done within twelve months to a year and a half. But I would also suffer burnout and probably go on hiatus, and I don’t want to do that. We’ll see how it goes.

In other news, I piddled with the website and tinkered with the Facebook page, uploading new photos of the covers. I know both don’t get as much traction as I’d like, but I hope that will change soon. I am planning a giveaway for the first book in the series, so stay tuned for that.

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