Douglas Fox: Blog

I finished the first draft of the book last week. I sent the final three chapters off to my editor. He reviewed them and returned them promptly. I am working through his edits, incorporating his suggestions into my final draft.

I will post Chapter 1 of Coming Home - Book 3 on Tuesday, January 2, 2024. I will post chapters on Tuesdays and Fridays until I have all twenty-two chapters posted. I will post the complete ebook on Bookapy late in January when I get it prepared.

I thank everyone for your patience with me. I hope you enjoy this story.

Doug Fox

Today is a red letter day. I have completed the first draft of Book 3. My editor has four more chapters to review. Once he is done, I will incorporate his recommendations into the final draft of the story.

I doubt I will be ready to post until after New Year's. I plan to post two chapters a week (Tuesday and Fridays, probably) until all twenty-two chapters are posted. The work runs 215,000 words and 493 pages in MS Word.

I will post my full Book 3 as an ebook on Bookapy after I have it ready. I am guessing I will have six to eight chapters posted on SOL by that time.

Anyway, thank you all for your patience. Book 3 will be out soon.

Doug Fox

I so enjoyed my stay up in Vermont. Sadly I had to come home after Labor Day. I am as swamped with work as ever right now. That is the bad news. The good news if that there is a light at the end of this busy, dark tunnel I am in. Retirement is eight weeks away.

My editor has been doing yeoman work. He has the first seventeen chapters of Book 3 done for me. All I need to do is find/make time to finish the last two or three chapters remaining and have him go over them.

I hope to get that accomplished in January. I will begin posting as soon as I am finished with the initial draft of those final chapters.

Doug Fox

Laugh for the day:

Only in Lancaster County...
There was an accident down the block from my house this evening. A farmer on his tractor wasn't paying attention when he pulled out from a side street. He ran into a combine! How do you not see a piece of farm machinery as large as a combine and run into the side of it?

I got swamped with work starting around the middle of June. I did not write one word for Book 3 for two months. Thankfully, the big project I was working on went out the door two weeks ago. The next day I headed north for a two and a half week vacation at a cabin in Vermont overlooking Lake Champlain.

What a setting! Better it is peaceful and quiet and a perfect place to write. I filled in a lot of holes in the story. I have roughly seventeen chapters of the first draft complete. My editor has started his work too. I expect the final story to run around 500 pages in MS Word and 22 or 23 chapters.

My aim now is to begin posting Book 3 sometime in October or early November, assuming I can keep up my productivity.

Doug Fox

I did not realize it has been this long since I posted on the blog. Sorry about that, everyone.

I continue to plug away at Coming Home, Book 3, through much more slowly than I would like.

Now, as to that title of this blog. I have been training my assistant for the past five years with the intent that he would take over for me this year and I could drop back to working part time for my real life job. Sadly, my assistant gave his two weeks notice last December. Instead of cutting my time at work down, I am now trying to do the work of two people. Sigh.

When I finished posting Book 1 of Coming Home, I had about 80% of Book 2 written. I was able to post Book 2 so quickly after Book 1 because I was nearly done. When I finished posting Book 2, I had an outline for parts of Book 3 and little more than a couple scenes that will open the book.

I have been writing stories for over seventeen years and I still do not fully understand my creative process. Sometimes I will go weeks when I am barely able to write a paragraph. Other times my muse is whispering so much in my ear that I can't type it out as fast as she tells me where the story will go. Good news for those of you waiting impatiently. My muse is screaming at me right now. I think I wrote a good twenty-five pages just today. i have been on a writing kick for the last week and a half.

I will try to be more diligent about posting to this blog to let everyone know what I am up to. Thanks to everyone who inquired about my health. I am fine.

Doug Fox