I recently went on a trip to Italy for some invited talks and posters, and while I was there, I did a lot of writing. I’m happy to say that Shadows of Our Fathers is through the first draft at just under 100,000 words. The number of words are more likely to go up than down, so this concluding chapter of the first Primal Patterns trilogy should be the longest book, and probably by ~10k words over The Goblin Rebellion when it’s finished.
Anyway, there is a pretty funny story about how this book was finished. There was a seven hour flight from Frankfurt to Newark, and I had decided to push through the final three chapters. Nearly 10,000 words were written on this flight (that’s a lot for me in a single stretch). The 10,000 words were effortless, in that I knew what I was going to say. I’ve known exactly what was supposed to happen in these final chapters since before I finished the first draft of Lucifer’s Odyssey, nearly 6 years ago. So, there was no writer’s block. However, that doesn’t mean the drafting was continuous. There were frequent breaks.
What for, you might ask?
Crying like a little girl.
So, imagine a middle-aged white man, sitting in the exit row, next to the bathrooms where basically every person on the flight ends up at some point during this long flight. You’re waiting in line to relieve yourself, and you’re probably irritable. You’re cursing under your breath at the people in front of you, just because they’re there and you’d like to pee. Beside you, in the exit row, there’s this guy with a laptop. He keeps wiping at his eyes, staring into space for a while, and blowing his nose.
I’m frequently laughing because I realize how ridiculous this looks and is. The guy next to me, we never said a word to each other. I didn’t even want to know what he thought about what was going on. I have no idea if he was ever looking at my bright laptop screen and reading along. I’m sure he would have appreciated his flight more though if the guy next to him wasn’t tearing up and crying for at least 2.5 hours of the 7 hour flight.
Anyway, I still have to find a cover artist for all three books (Lucifer’s Odyssey, The Goblin Rebellion, and Shadows of Our Fathers) since mine completely flaked out. I also have to reread this book along with all of the others to check for any continuity problems. Then the book will be shipped to an editor. So, I’m still sticking to my original estimate of October for this to be released.