Nov 18, 2018

Hello everyone!

I realize it’s been a long time since my last update, and I have reasons ranging from a back injury that’s been plaguing me for months (that seems to finally be resolved) and of course, just putting my head down and trying to move The Tide of Madness closer to completion.

I won’t lie, the finish line is still a way off. The first draft had more problems with it than I had hoped. But with so many different points of view, continuity issues are to be expected. The majority of the characters in The Bones of the Past were separate enough that I didn’t have to worry so much about a day here or there. But Tide will see a lot more interaction between the various characters, so I have to be a lot more careful. I’m writing shorter chapters (splitting up each point of view) and tightening up the timeline as much as possible. Still, I’ve been hard at work and I’ve finalized the order for the 57 chapters and made the tough decision to cut a side story out of the book (hopefully just moved to book three but that’s a problem for another day).

The three notebooks in the picture hold – among elements for the following book – the last sections of the Tide of Madness that I need to integrate into the version on my computer. The majority of my creative writing still happens with pen and paper and is one of the ways I make the commute for my day job part of my writing day. This guarantees that I have at least 45 minutes once or twice a day set aside to dig further into my world and fill in the insane puzzle I created for myself.

Most recently, I’ve been getting into the backstory of some of the side characters. Min’s story is about done and was rather refreshing to write – just one point of view and a nice simple story arc. I may or may not put it out there for people to read as a novella in the future, though my focus remains on The Tide of Madness and the as-yet-unnamed book 3 for now. If there are any minor characters you’re curious about, let me know! I’ll be looking for a new side project in a month or so for those days when I’m not able to spend enough time at my computer to make significant headway on the rewrite.

Thank you all yet again for your patience and support!