No, I haven’t lifted the proverbial finger (yet) on Draft #11 of Book #7 in the Corrosive Knights series.  However, there is something I wanted to present which I’m beyond thrilled about:

New covers to Chameleon (Book #3) and Nox (Book #4) in the series!

And here they are (covers were created by the folks at ebooklaunch.com):

So, from now on when I present the full Corrosive Knights series covers (at least of the books done until now), the graphic becomes…

I’m planning to redo all the covers… though there may be one I will keep… hopefully in time for the release of Book #7 in the series.

Guide yourselves accordingly! 😉

Wow.

I’m… impressed with myself.

So I began reading the latest draft (#10) of Book #7 in the Corrosive Knights series…

…on October 17th and finished the reading and adding pen & ink notations on the 22nd, ie Monday.  That evening, I started transferring the notes I made into the computer, a process that can sometimes take a while.

It took me until today, the 25th of October.  In three days the notations were put into the computer and Draft #10 of Book #7 is complete.

…and I’m SUPER proud and quite a bit exhausted!  Pleasantly exhausted, I should hastily add.

The fact that it took me a grand total of EIGHT (!!!!!) days to finish off the entire 10th Draft of this book fills me with all kinds of happy emotions.

This book is really, really close to being done.  Tomorrow morning I plan to print it out and then…

…then I’m putting the sucker away and taking a looonnnngggg restful weekend to recharge before starting up Draft #11 on Monday.

This is where it gets really interesting: When I do the read through this time around, will I feel the book is good enough to finally release, or will I find there are still a few sections that could use at least one more Draft?

We’ll see next week.

Regardless, this book is super close to being completed and I can’t wait to release it!

I know, I know… I haven’t been posting as regularly as before.  The reason?  I’m neck deep into Draft #10 of my latest Corrosive Knights book, #7…

I finished Draft #9 on 10/11/18 but was out of town and then wasn’t able to get to Draft #10 until 10/17/18.

I hit that sucker hard and now, in a matter of 6 days, I’ve completed the latest read through/pen & ink revisions of the book.

And let me tell you, it’s looking damn good.

The things that need revision this time around aren’t terribly big.  I believe I only found one little bit I wanted to add to the story and the rest of the things which need fixing amount to grammatical and/or storytelling clarity issues.

So tonight I begin the process of transferring the pen & ink revisions into the computer.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I get that part done by the end of this week, following which its off to Draft #11!

Will we need a Draft #12?

I’ll tell you soon!

Yeah I know, I did an update yesterday.

But I figured I’d let you know, as of five minutes ago, Draft #9 of Book #7 in the Corrosive Knights series is done.

I’m very pleased with the pace with which I was able to get this done.  As I mentioned before, I figured it would take me maybe two weeks to finish transferring the pen & ink revisions to the computer but, instead, it took me six days.

Incredible!

Anyway, its off to print the sucker out and then another read-through.  This time, I’m confident enough of much of the material that I’ll likely do something of a “mini” read through which focuses on the parts I feel need the most work.  When I get them fixed to my satisfaction, I’ll give the entire book one or two more overall read-throughs and that should be it.

Stay tuned!

Short and to the point:  The latest revisions of Draft Nine of Book #7 in the Corrosive Knights series are going along great.

When last I wrote about what was happening with this book, I noted I was done with the read-through and pen & ink revisions and was about to start transferring those revisions into my Word file.  I estimated it might take two weeks to do those revisions.

Well, it looks like a little less than one week will be enough.  I’m not quite done with it now, but I should be finished with the computer transfers of those revisions by later this week, perhaps Thursday evening or Friday morning.

This is a scorching pace but, even more importantly, it shows how close the novel is to being done.

There remains a couple of sections which required more work this time around, but there were also several sections that wound up needing very little work and which are, for all intents and purposes, ready to go.

So I’m damn excited about what’s going on.  So excited it took me a while to get to sleep last night… After all this time, the light at the end of this particular tunnel is starting to shine very bright!

As I mentioned in my last posting, I’ve been silent ’round these parts because I’ve been hard at work reading and pen/ink revising the latest draft, #9, of my latest Corrosive Knights novel…

As of today, I have finished the read-through and pen/ink revisions of this draft and, hopefully, by tomorrow or later today, being putting those revisions into my computer.

When I do, Draft #9 of Book #7 in this series will be completed and its off to Draft #10.

So, how does the book “read”?

Quite good.

There was very little I needed to add to the story.  What I did add amounted to some lines of dialogue and clarification to some descriptions but, otherwise, the plot is pretty well locked down.

The best thing of all was that it took me from last week Tuesday, the 25th of September, to today, October 4th, to read through the novel and write up my revisions.  That’s one week and two days worth of work, a very short amount of time given that in earlier drafts it would take me up to several months of time to get to a similar point!

The revisions that are to be made should, I believe, take me no more than two weeks to do.  They are for the most part small though there are two segments of the book that require more in depth work, and these will certainly require a little more time to do.

The big question again looms: How long before I feel the whole thing is done?

Well, the book will require a 10th draft, there is no doubt about that.  It will likely also require an 11th draft.  The question is will it require much more than that?  Will I once again go through 12 drafts before I feel the work is properly done?

Unfortunately, at this point I cannot answer that question, though I’ll likely have a better feel for how much more work the book needs once I start the read through of that 10th draft.

Regardless of all that, the work proceeds quickly now and the book is one more step closer to being done.

As I’ve said before and I’ll repeat here: Hang in there.  We’re almost at the finish line!

Sorry I haven’t been posting much in the past few days, but I’ve been very focused -and busy!- on draft #9 of my latest novel in the Corrosive Knights series.

This update will be short and sweet:  On Tuesday I began the reading and pen/ink revision of the draft and, in a matter of three days (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) I’ve made my way through half the book.

This is very encouraging.

The book, until this point, reads quite well and the revisions I’ve had to make on paper aren’t “major”.  Most involve clipping lines or words here and there and adding only minor elements to the pages.

As I said in my last update (you can read it here), as my novels near completion, I find that the revisions that need be made become smaller and smaller and that certainly seems to be the case… at least with the first half of the book.

Today I will be into the second half.  If this part of the book “reads” as well as the first half, then we’re getting really close to the end… and the release of the book!

Keeping my fingers crossed!

Meant to post this yesterday but wound up not having the time, but here’s the latest update: I have finished putting all the corrections/additions/subtractions into the computer and Draft #8 of the latest Corrosive Knights Book, #7 in the series, is done…

It took 3 weeks to read the book and put in the pen and ink revisions and 2 weeks to put all those revisions into the computer, for a total time spent on this draft of one month and one week.

It may seem like a long time, but that’s incredibly quick.  Some early drafts of the book took up to five months to get through!

What that indicates is that the book is becoming closer and closer to being finished.  This is logical: Each new draft I finish up should, in theory, make the book that much better/closer to being complete.

What’s next?

Welp, I print the sucker out and get right back to re-reading it and doing the pen/ink revisions.  I feel a good chunk of the book is very close to being complete in all ways while there are a few sections here and there that could use more polish.

Draft #8 found the novel’s story pretty much all there.  I did add a few bits of dialogue here and there to add a little spice to the story and found one full chapter needed to be moved to farther into the book -and, it turned out, pared down considerably- but otherwise things are getting that much closer to the end.

So it’s on to Draft #9 for me.  I’m most curious to see how the book “reads” now and how much I’ll find needs revision.  That, more than anything else, will give me an idea as to how close to the final draft I am.

Hang in there, folks!

Wow, been a while since my last update (from 8/2/18, a little over a month ago!  You can read it here) of the latest book in the Corrosive Knights series, Book #7…

At that time, I finished up all revisions of Draft #7 of the book and today I’m here to tell you I’ve finished the read through and pen/ink revision of Draft #8 and, starting very soon (either tomorrow, Sunday, or Monday) I’ll start putting all those revisions into the computer.  I expect this will take at least two weeks and then, you guessed it, it’s on to Draft #9.

Now that I’ve finished up this first stage of Draft #8 of the book, things are coming more and more into focus.  The book has pretty much all the elements it needs inside it.  Things “make sense” and all bits and pieces introduced are dealt with/concluded appropriately.

The book and the story I’ve presented, to my mind, absolutely rocks.

But… its not quite done yet.

There is still at least one section in particular which needs work, but otherwise some 80-90% of it now requires I make sure all the grammer/spelling is correct and the way these parts are presented is as crisp and propulsive -and poetic!- as I can make it.

Which brings us the next question: What’s the ETA of the release of this book?

For a very long while I was hoping to get the book released by November and, if that’s still possible, I very much would like it to happen.

But the reality is as follows: It’s September the 7th and for at least two more weeks, possibly a little more, I’ll be finishing off Draft #8 on the computer.  That will take us to close to the end of September.

I start reading the book again and doing the revisions on Draft #9 and, at best, that’ll take another two weeks followed by another two or so weeks to transfer the pen/ink revisions to my computer.  So, we’re looking at getting Draft #9 done near the end of October and, what comes after October?

Yeah.

I believe I’ll need to do a Draft #10 and, its quite possible, a Draft #11.  Maybe even a Draft #12.  My previous books took that many drafts but I believe this one is farther along and may not require quite that many.  That, however, is nothing more than an educated guess and until I get through the next two Drafts, I just won’t know for sure.

Regardless, even going by the most ambitious/hopeful prognostication, it looks tough to believe I’ll be done with this book by November.  Even if we’re talking very, very late November.

So… possibly a Christmas release?  If not that, a New Year’s release?

We’ll see.

Regardless, it won’t be much longer!