Its been exactly one month since my last Corrosive Knights update.

First off, in that previous update I was guilty of being overly optimistic when I stated that I was about one draft away from finishing the fifth book in the Corrosive Knights saga.

Sometimes, writing a novel is like preparing a meal.  Every time you go over your work, its like a taste test.  Continuing on that metaphor, in my eyes I could feel the book’s second and climactic half was missing an ingredient.

The frustrating thing was that I wasn’t sure what that ingredient was.

I finished the 8 1/2 draft -really draft #9- and went into draft 10.  I finished that up just before going on a trip to England.  I left on my trip annoyed (you could even say pissed) that the book wasn’t finished, but that frustration about flying off for eight days turned out to be Godsend.

In brief, with my mind no longer focused nearly 24/7 on the book and able to relax and unwind, a few days passed before, out of left field, I had a brainstorm.  I discovered the novel’s “missing ingredient” and, in my head, the book’s climax finally came together in totto.

When I returned home, I quickly got to work and in short order produced drafts 11a, 11b, and 11c.  These drafts involved chapters 52 through 60 of the novel (the book runs 64 chapters followed by two epilogues), which constitutes much of the novel’s reveals/explanations.

Having finished draft 11c just a few minutes ago, I am very, very optimistic about the novel now being just about done.  So much so that I intend to print the whole thing out later today and give it one more complete read through.  If all looks good, draft 12 will be the novel’s last draft.

Estimated time to get it done?  Another week to a week and a half.

Keep your fingers crossed.  You know I will!

Continuing the saga of the soon to be released fifth book in the Corrosive Knights saga!

My last update was on May the 23rd.  Since then:

On May 29th I finished the eight draft of the book.  I realized that the concluding chapters still needed work so on May 30 I began what I’ll call the 8 and 1/2 draft.  Because the first approximately 2/3rds of the book required so little work, I decided to exclusively devote myself on the concluding chapters.  As of last week I read through them and by tomorrow should have that draft done.  Unfortunately, I have to leave the book for a bit (just a few days, really) to focus on other stuff but when I get back to it, I expect the next draft will indeed be the last.

Yesterday, I finally “updated” the book covers.  While I like the covers to the books, I wanted them to be more indicative that they were part of a series rather than four “individual” books.

These were the old covers:

And here are the “new” covers:

Ok, ok, not a HUGE difference.  The images themselves remain roughly the same but, as mentioned, I wanted to have a more consistent “look” to the books.  What I mean by that is that I wanted readers to be clear the books were part of a series and, even more, to know which part of the series they are.

Now, some final notes:

Chameleon, the third book in the Corrosive Knights series, will be available for free to download from Amazon.com starting this Friday, June 13 (Friday the 13th!!!!) and going on through Tuesday.  Take advantage of this by going to this link:

http://www.amazon.com/Chameleon-Corrosive-Knights-Book-3-ebook/dp/B0063LNB8S/ref=la_B006061H50_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402404901&sr=1-1

As for the cover to the fifth book in the series…I’ve begun it.  I hope to have it done shortly before finishing the next (last?!) draft of the book.

Keeping my fingers crossed!

Seventeen days ago, on 5/6/14, I had my latest Corrosive Knights update (you can read the whole thing here) and figured it was time to offer another update.

To begin, in the last update I noted a couple of things which, sadly, will not come to be.  I was hopeful I could finally give out the book’s title in this update, but given some of which follows, I’m going to hold back on that.  There are, however, at least two of you out there who already know the novel’s title.

Secondly, I was hopeful that I could wrap the novel up in roughly a month or so and release it in early June.  That looks increasingly like it won’t happen, at least not then.

Why?  Because shortly after writing my 5/6 update I caught what I thought was a cold but which turned out to be more serious.  Soon, I was seeing a Doctor and was on anti-biotics and damn near bed ridden.  The time I would have had to fix the novel obviously took a hit and, after I was feeling better, I lost a little more time dealing with my daughter’s graduation.  That I wouldn’t have that any other way! 😉 .

In spite of the time crunching obstacles, there is some good news:  As of only minutes ago I finished the eighth draft read through and am happy to say the novel is really close to being done.

In my last update, I hoped the eight draft would be the final one.  In part, it is.  I couldn’t be happier with the first three quarters of the book and don’t feel they need to be reviewed after this.  The final roughly 1/4ths of the novel, including its climax, still needs a little work and I plan to give that part -and not the entire piece- one more go around before releasing it.  This, obviously, reviewing only a quarter of the book will take far less time than going over the entire work.

Unfortunately, looming in the very near future are some pressing things I need to do which will once again delay the time I have to work on this book.  There is no way around this.

It would therefore appear this novel, the fifth in the Corrosive Knights series and the one that finally brings the series all together, will be ready no earlier than late June or early July.  If I can satisfy myself and get it ready earlier, I will do so.  But until then, this is my best guesstimate.

Thanks for your patience and thanks to everyone taking advantage of the free Kindle download (expires on 5/25!) of the second book in the series, The Last Flight of the Argus.  To all those new readers, I hope you like what you see and give the rest of the books in the series a shot.

The next one will be out soon!

A little over a month ago, on 4/3, I gave my latest update on my latest Corrosive Knights book. At the time, I was done with the book’s sixth draft and felt there was a little more work to be done, particularly in the book’s climax (you can read the brief post here).

Well, as of today I’m done with the seventh draft of the book and plan to jump right into draft #8 tomorrow.

I feel this will be the final draft.

The problems I found in the book’s climax were for the most part dealt with, while the relatively minor grammatical problems in the first 3/4ths of the book were also resolved.

The seventh draft’s final count?  97,871 words, 193 pages at 10 point, single spaced.

In the last post, I guesstimated another two months before the book was done.  While I may not hit the exact deadline, my opinion hasn’t changed all that much: A little over a month has passed since that prediction and I feel there’s about another month of work left before the book is ready to be released.

Hopefully, the next update will include not only include the novel’s title, but the cover art as well.

Won’t be long now! 😉

I’m getting closer and closer to being done.

When I woke up today, I was in a really good mood as I was down to the last few pages of my latest -fifth- book in the Corrosive Knights saga to revise.  As of this moment, I’m done with the book’s 6th draft and this evening will print her out and begin the 7th draft.

In my opinion, the book “reads” far better than ever before.  The word count, which was somewhere north of 105,000 words, has been tightened to a leaner 99,700.  In general, the word count of my in progress novels tends to go up as I’m figuring out plot points and adding things that need to be put in.  When I reach the point where the word count starts to go down, it means that the book’s story/plot is pretty much locked down and my focus turns to making the book as razor sharp as I can get her.  A second factor indicating my book is nearly ready is that it takes far less time between drafts.

Between the fifth draft and this one, it took me a little less than two months to read and fix her up.  Between the fourth and fifth draft, the time it took to revise it was four months, nearly double the time.

The bottom line is that the book is getting real near completion. I think another two drafts should do it.

Looking forward to getting it done!