Book 1? Check (Antithesis/Kabrakan Day 475)

One Down. Five to go.

And hot damn does it feel good to say that.

I must apologize for my delinquency–I utterly failed in my journalistic duty to document the progress of this book over the last month, when I have actually been writing every day. I found myself over-scheduled, and couldn’t muster up the energy to do my bloggerly duty. I will endeavor to be more regular going forward.

So where have I been the last month?

Buried! Mostly in good stuff. I finished recording two client audiobooks, and I’m just about to finish up a third. I have another five contracted, and have to finish recording those in the next six weeks or so (as well as finish and deliver two of them). In between times I’ve been working on that landscaping project, hiding from the heat (OMGWTFBBQ 90 degrees, really??? Mediterranean climate my ass!) and reading (always important), hiking myself back into shape (this city life is killing my fitness), and writing, writing, writing.

But I’ll fill you in on that stuff in the next post. Let’s get to the good stuff.

The Big News

Last night, at about 5AM, I wrote the words The End on The Briggs Defection. Today, my first reader finished the book and pronounced it a roaring success, so it’s off to the proofreaders. There’ll be more about that in the coming days. Meantime, I get to take a couple days off and concentrate on client work exclusively, as I’ve been falling behind.

How much writing?
Well, in the month since I’ve updated this blog, I added 75,463 words to The Briggs Defection, before realizing that I’d written ~24,000 words past the end, so I chopped that bit off, re-set it as the beginning of book 2 (The Orinthal Deception), and re-tooled the breaking point so that it worked as a proper ending.

That means that I’ve got a starting wordcount on book two of 24,423, and as this blog series progresses, that’s what I’ll be updating.

What This Means Going Forward

For those of you who love the podcast, don’t fret. As I’m recording all these audiobooks, I’m also recording ahead on the podcast–it’s just that paying the rent is getting in the way of post-production. Once I finish up the next two client books, though, I have a couple weeks window to pound out the post production on a bunch of episodes, and your ears will once more be graced with luscious audio goodness, all the way through to the end of Free Will. No promises of dates–I’ve learned my lesson on that score–just a commitment that it is happening.

For those of you interested in this book series (whether you’re a podcast devotee or not), you can expect The Briggs Defection to hit the market on September 1. Patrons will be getting their copies ten days before the general release.

How You Can Help

This is the big one for me. I’ve been working twenty-five years to grow into the writer who could tell this story in all its breadth and scope. Now, over the next six months, the whole story will finally be told–the characters you’ve grown to know and love will get their full dues, find their destinies, triumph greatly, die nobly, and pay dearly, and their world will be forever changed because of it.
I want to make a splash with these. I need your help to do it. While Patrons will be getting their copies early (and many thanks if you are a Patron–more still if you choose to read and review the book within the first week of its release!) I also need street-team reviewers.
If you’ve been:

1. Following this blog
2. Want to read this story
3. Are willing to review it within the first week of release and
4. Would like to read it before release day, for free

Email publisher at artisticwhispers dot com (Forgive the non-clickability. The internet is inhabited by annoying robots who love clickable email links). The first fifty of you who are willing to participate in this push will get a free copy of the book, and those of you who fulfill your part of the bargain to post a review in the time window will get to do so for the next book as well, and so on.
Note: Please be honest in your review. If you love it, say so! If you don’t, say that too! In either case, please say why. Honest reviews are the best way to help readers find me who will enjoy my books.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a progress update on some other projects, and a couple new book reveiws 🙂

Damage Report

The Briggs Defection — 100%

 

117,273 / 117,273 words
And, in case you’re wondering what happened on a day-by-day basis, here’s the log for all the writing days since the last blog post:
April 18: 2902
April 20: 2077
April 11: 1064
April 22: 2361
April 23: 3715
April 24: 245
April 25: 1774
April 26: 606
April 28: 1603
April 29: 2525
April 30: 1914
May 1: 4396
May 3: 4751
May 4: 1386
May 5: 3148
May 6: 316
May 7: 1600
May 8: 5026
May 10: 2108
May 13: 2959
May 14: 2477
May 15: 3697
May 16: 1177
May 17: 339
May 18: 2602
May 19: 3012
May 20: -24,423 (carried forward to next volume).