almost done

Book 12 of the Forgotten Worlds series has proven to be a challenge to write, but I have persisted. I enjoy this series and am eager to write certain parts of it, which distracts me from what I am currently writing. There will always be challenges in writing. Focusing on the same characters over such a long haul is one of the hardest, except that as my life changes, they ware also changing throughout their adventures.

The story is currently at 33K words or 3/4 to my end goal word count, the minimum to be categorized as a novel (40,000 words according to SFWA standards). I want to keep these in the short novel size. This hasn't been my best progress since I last checked in almost a month ago, but I'm making progress. Every book has its difficulties. I knew that when I started, this story would be tricky. It had a purpose assigned before the story came. I'd rather write a story and let the purpose find itself. Writing within a tight frame is a challenge for me. I've also had to deal with some other things that made it hard to focus at times, but I keep going.

Part of what has made this difficult is being anxious for the next two books. Actually, there are a number of books I dearly look forward to writing in this series, but there are some expected events that are particularly distracting. I can't wait to reveal things to you readers, but it wouldn't be any fun to ruin the surprises. I have only revealed what I can without giving those "Aha!" moments away. Many seeds for what's to come were planted early in the series. Secrets will be revealed and your patience will be rewarded.

For now, you can rest assured that I almost have the first draft of book 12 done.

ps--This book will require a lot of editing after the first draft, but at least I will have a first draft. You can't edit nothing. Before editing this, however, I will be working on the final edits of DRAGON AND FURY (book 10) to publish in September. Some big changes are coming in book 10!