Artifice of Power Update # 8
Well, this is a good week that was a little disappointing. I only barely made my word count this week (7,100 total for the week) because I had family in town for the entire week. And as I’m going to the Renaissance Faire tomorrow, I’m going to start off next week a bit short also. The good news, however, is that I did make my word count and I’m now 15,000 words into Act 2. And, frustratingly, about 1,500 words from finishing filling in the gap that I made by getting stuck on Niamsha last week. That means another week starting with the hard character to write pretty early.
Still, progress is moving steadily on track, if not accelerating quite as much as I’d hoped. Current estimate is that this draft will be “done” by September 28, which will give me a good month to make minor edits before I hand it out for early feedback in November. I don’t expect to get that feedback returned until 2025, so in November I’ll begin drafting another project. That may be the novel I mentioned in my update last week, but right now is more likely to be a re-draft of the Laisian Empire short story collection that fell off the map last year. It has some strong ideas and some poor execution that I’m hoping a re-draft with the proper direction will clean up, making more content in my main series to release when my drafting flurry is done.
Notable events in writing this week:
We have passed the 40% mark on intended word count! Current length of content included in the draft is 64,550 words. That means I’ll probably hit the halfway mark in two to three weeks, which is super exciting!I actually had to scrap my early work on Niamsha for act 2 because I was bored, which was a bad sign for how well it would translate to a reader. However, after a reboot of the scene, Niamsha is taking real steps to accomplish things her way, which is building a good miasma for Arkaen and Kilasha to walk intoThe new PoV character is starting to take on a life of his own, which is great. Character’s without their own life are always boring to write and to read.Sayli has a new ally that I really thought was just a one-off guy in his first scene, but is not letting himself be ignored. That’s going to be an interesting dynamicArkaen got to do something other than flirt and be annoyed at politics, so he’s happy. He’s not sure this is a good development, but at least he’s allowed to hit his problems with a sword this time. He’s trying not to stab those problems. Dead people tend to make even more problems.In Other News…I had a great Fourth of July lighting small fireworks with my daughter (the only ones legal in my state) and my dragon-riding Glade Lord in Warhammer: Old World didn’t insta-die! I definitely thought he was going to get murdered first thing. Hoping to have some fun stories to tell about my time at Ren Fest next week.
Hope everyone had a great week. Until next time.
