For those of you just tuning in, Devil’s Call began its life as a novella, meaning it clocked in at fewer than 40,000 words and the ending was ambiguous and the antagonist, George Dalton, barely appeared in the story at all.

After some behind the scenes occurrences which I’m not at liberty to discuss yet, I decided to expand the story, flesh out the Dalton character, and make it a full-length novel, meaning its word count would double and I would have to, you know, actually do work.

The good news is, after a month or so of bitching and gnashing my teeth and Adam Gomolin yelling at me to not quit on him, I have finished a scene outline and a synopsis of what the completed novel will look like, so it has a proper ending and character arcs and themes and so on and so forth.

The regular news is, I now have to rewrite the hundred-something pages I’d already decided were the entirety of the original novella, and then actually write the rest of the draft, which won’t be as difficult as I’m making it sound. I made my bed today. I can do anything.

Within the next few weeks, y’all can expect a rewritten first chapter, which I’m about 90% sure will be about 30% different from the one that’s up now, and if I really throttle my keyboard I will have a completed draft by the end of September.

(And I shall throttle my keyboard. One thing this process has solidified for me is the fact that I produce pages, pardon my French, like a fucking maniac.)

That’s it. That’s the news. Expect the new Chapter 1 by the end of this upcoming week.

Smoke ’em if you got ’em,
J.

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