Update: Mostly SEKARAN

Black Dog Series Sale Recent Reading: Short, Easy novels

Update: Mostly SEKARAN

Okay, I made the mistake — this is the third time at least — of thinking that when some early reader says, “It’s great! Just a few minor comments!” that the minor comments will be trivial and the time necessary to deal with them likewise trivial. This is never actually the case! Instead, the minor comments are less time-consuming to deal with than huge rewrites, but not trivial.

And thus I am still knee-deep in revisions for SEKARAN. Last week, I unexpectedly added another chapter. And who knows, that might happen again. A few more scenes will get tucked into existing chapters for sure.

However, I would be startled if I’m not through with that and handing this book on to the next round of readers by NEXT week, with or possibly still without a complete epilogue. But I doubt I’ll get there until next week. That will be the middle of September! Where does the time go?

AND

I will be putting SEKARAN up for preorder at Amazon as soon as I have some sort of halfway reasonable description prepared. This is, of course, something of a challenge.

Prince Sekaran is nine years old when he meets his cousin Aras for the first time.

Twenty when Aras is given a scepter.

Thirty-five when he becomes heir and discovers the truth about his cousin …

SEKARAN presents a series of long vignettes that follow Sekaran through his life, and through his complicated relationships with Aras and with his broader family, as he grows into the man he is meant to be and the king the summer country needs.

***

I need to get “This book is a series of vignettes” into the description. I think that’s crucial. Rather less obvious is what else to do. What do you think of the extremely simple presentation above? I don’t like that last sentence much, but how about this basic idea for the description?

How about adding “novel-length” to the description? That’s obvious if anybody scrolls down to look at the number of pages. I mean, I don’t know how long this book will actually turn out to be, but it’s at 125,000 words and if anything, it’ll go up, not down. But maybe I better put “novel length” in the description as well so readers understand that when I say Book 11, I mean it’s book-length even if it’s not exactly a novel. Should I specify that it’s 18 vignettes? It sort of is. Or at least, it’s 18 chapters, though the chapters are sometimes — usually — broken up into scenes, so depending on how you define the term, it might be more like 50 vignettes.

Comments welcome, and regardless, I’ll figure out something reasonable and put the preorder up sometime this week.

MEANWHILE

I’m actually sort of trying to take it easy this month, so I’m also reading Hemlock and Silver

Which so far I like very much, but WHAT IS UP WITH SNOW? Don’t tell me! I don’t actually want spoilers! I’m just baffled. I sort of expect the queen is not dead? Or something? But that’s largely because of the plot of the ordinary fairy tale of Snow White; I’m predisposed to feel like the queen is not dead, that she is evil and behind everything. On the other hand, no dwarves so far, among many other things that are not tracking the original fairy tale, so who knows. But the queen’s actions need to be explained somehow.

Anyway, I’ll finish this book in the next day or two and then I’ll write a review.

MEANWHILE

If you’ve left a review for Eight Doors, THANK YOU because I would like to run a promo in a month in order to bounce its visibility, and a handful of reviews are CRUCIAL.