Cranking

I have a submission opportunity coming up with a publisher. It's a public, open-submissions thing, and I don't know what will come of it--if anything--but I don't want to miss a chance to put the novel in front of professional editors. So, I'm working hard (cranking) to get the whole text of the book in good shape. That means revising, editing, filling in gaps, etc.

I'll still be posting PDF chapters on the weekly schedule. But, since the MP3 audiobook chapters take a bit of time to record and edit, I'm going to be a little behind on those for a week or so.

As to the possibility of being accepted for publication, I'll certainly blog about it if it happens, but don't hold your breath. These things take many months. It's likely that I'll have put out the whole book before I hear back from the publisher. Which is cool, because I'm having a great time doing it in this "independent" manner as it is.

Thanks for reading, and listening, and I hope you're enjoying it, too!

Prologue Audio is Up

Someday soon I'll do a little editing and splice the prologue audio onto the existing Chapter One audio, and take out the little end section with Copper and Vallan (which is now mostly redundant). Then it will match the PDF.

For now, here is the audio for the prologue in MP3 format. Find it on the Novel page.

And the audio for the exciting "Marshals & Madmen" (chapter five) is coming soon!

Chapter Five PDF is Up!

Presenting chapter five, entitled "Marshals & Madmen." We pick up the story of Dal, Sven, and Lars; hoping to learn what happened on the road that day...

The PDF is available now on the Novel page, and the MP3 audio will be out October 1st.

Also, I'll have the audio of the Prologue available later tonight.

Happy reading and listening! And thanks to everyone for their support and feedback.

Future is Prologue

I've been getting some valuable feedback from readers, and it's prompted me to fix something that's been bothering me about the first two chapters. The change is that I've added a brief prologue that sets the scene and the timeframe for the novel. And with that done (and done better), I can move the Vallan-Copper interactions out of those chapters and insert them, re-worked, in a later chapter.

The plot is the same, the story continues, and nothing that you've already read is invalidated -- but my hope is that new readers who are still coming to the book will have a smoother introduction.

The updated chapters are now on the Novel page. And thanks so much to everyone who has shared their thoughts on this project with me. It's been great to learn how you think and feel about what I've written.

If you're interested in my reasoning, you can read on below.

What wasn't working? I have a significant time jump in chapter one, from Copper's past to Copper's present. Readers got that, but it was disorienting because of how abruptly I did it and how few clues I provided as to what was going on.

Why did I do it? It was the episodic thing, essentially. Since I was putting the book out in weekly installments, I wanted to give some sense of both a "present" timeline and an "events in the past" timeline right away. But splicing it like that never felt right.

The solution is the prologue. It sets expectations with the reader: "here we are in the present, and now we're going to talk a bit about the past". And how long ago it was.

It's a minor course-correction, just a re-shuffling of a few details in the first two chapters. I want it to flow in the best way that it can.