Weekly Progress Update:

Weekly Progress Update:

Hi, hi, hello!

Time is quickly counting down, there is only two weeks left for beta readers to return their feedback – or whatever they were able to complete in the short time frame – so I can begin the second round of edits for Madness.

I’ve been beating myself up pretty hard regarding not starting Book Three. Though, now that I realize just how soon the next round of editing is for Madness, it might not turn out to be so bad. Once the time for editing comes again (July 1st), I’ll be taking my standard writing sessions and replacing them with editing sessions to try to get all the edits done in time. So, I would’ve had to have postponed writing Book Three between July 1st and August 31st anyway. I suppose it’s not the end of the world to start Book Three after that, right?

I managed to get another draft of my Book Three map created. It was quite a complex task – much worse than originally expected. I’ll need to finish it before I can tell if it’ll be suitable or not, but I can already tell that my original outline will need to drastically change to fit the map. That brings me to my next point, which I’ve touched on briefly in the past.

Normally, my process involves building the events first and the map is filled around those events. However, Book Three is much more restrictive and requires a predetermined map in order to effectively accomplish the plot I’m aiming for. This means I need to flip my standard practices and create the map first, then build the outline based on the map’s layout. I can’t say why, you’ll just have to see (sometime in 2020, I would hope).

Due to this severe restriction, many of the concepts I’ve had in the numerous drafts of the map have failed for one reason or another. I needed this to be adjacent to that, but underneath the other, but not near the fourth – which needed to be adjacent to the second. Blah, blah, blah. Just a logistical nightmare. I’m hoping that my most recent draft that I’ve worked on today should suffice. It’s about 90% complete, then comes the time to theorycraft, contemplate, and – unfortunately – revise my outline to suit. It’s a pain in the ass overall, but had I went with my original draft/outline, there would have been so many plot holes that I would’ve smashed my face with a rock. Too many.

There are still quite a bit of plot holes I need to plan for and handle, even with a logistical map, that are created from the plot itself. I have to be extremely careful to not write myself into a corner that ends in a rewrite of half (or all) of the entire story. That’s a quick way to walk away for good.

We’ll see how it all goes. I have two other stories in the series I’d love to get to (and then some), but Book Three stands in the path. I can’t just rush out Book Three and fill it with crap to progress, I want it to be the best it can be. It’s still a plot I think will be thrilling, with high stakes and all the loss I’m hopefully becoming known for. As always, no characters are safe, and the party will be in for one hell of a ride.