This is a totally worthless blog post since if you were actually concerned about when you might see my next story you would be sending me emails asking where to send donations to the "Get off your ass and entertain me" fund. But I have been writing and that means that I want to tell someone, so here it is.
The second draft of Ring-Sword Origin (not the final title, which will be something very cool, like a video game title -- maybe 'Megablade' or 'Donkey Tron') is about done. It is the prequel to Wilhan Dragonslayer. I ended up totally rewriting it using the first draft as an outline. It was about nine chapters long, now it is around eighteen and over 70,000 words. Not bad for something that started out as a too long prologue history chapter for 'Dragonslayer.'
I still have to go back and liven up the dry historical writing style with dialog, so it will be a while until the story goes out to editors and proof readers.
It's not a fun story to work on. It had holes and weak spots in it (several wars) that were tedious to write, but those holes had to be filled since you all seemed to like the big war in Wilhan. Then more characters got put in, which meant more names to remember and screw up. Deathbringer/Fluffers makes a cameo in it, sort of like seeing Hitchcock walk past in each of his movies. I suspect that he may have gotten accidentally possessed during this time, a lot of that is going on in the story.
I'm not 'living' through any of the charcters so I get burned out after putting time into the story. The good news is that I've gone back and looked at some of my favorite stories, which I put down to get Wilhan and 'Swords' finished/posted hoping that I would be a better writer afterwards, and I still like them a lot and am excited about getting back to them (whereas I just want to get the Swords story finished). Hopefully those stories will be in the catagory of "this is almost good enough to publish" after I finish with them.
It looks like today is going to be warm and I have to get garlic and potatoes planted outside, and get early tomatoes started inside. Some dickhead had his chainsaw out cutting trees at dawn and that inspired me to do some manly gardening.
Take care and be well.
jj76