State of the Novel

Hail friends!

Today is the first in what I plan to have as a weekly post. A major goal of mine is to do a lot more with my website. With the ever shifting landscape of social media I want to have a place as a rock in the center. I have no idea if anyone will come to read this, but at least it will be here.

What I’ll do here is talk about what I’m reading, playing, or watching this week. I’ll also talk about the status of Shadows of the Argent Tower (SotAT) and anything else I’m working on. All that and anything else I feel like talking about.

To start with, a friend of mine got my Diablo 4 for my birthday. I’ve been enjoying the hell out of it, pun intended. The game is a lot of fun, especially playing with friends, and I’m really enjoying the atmosphere. I’m currently playing through as a rogue who I made vaguely based on this beauty:

Next, I just finished Jordan Allen’s Hollow Kingdom. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting going into the story, but I ended up really liking it. Typically I go for epic fantasy stories with deep world building, but the short, simple nature of the story worked really well. Prince Gresten was likeable and noble, so he was easy to root for as he traversed the demon infested kingdom that was once his home. It’s chock full of action and interesting characters. It almost feels like an old school Arthurian myth with a slight tinge of Dark Souls. It’s well worth the read if any of this sounds interesting.

Now for SotAT progress. When I originally started editing it was a slog and I was going nowhere fast. At first I wasn’t sure where to turn, then I realized I should go back to Chris Fox whose sprinting technique I’ve been using for writing for awhile now.

So far it’s going well. I’m doing a read through and taking notes on what I need to change in each chapter. When I finish I will go back and enact those changes. I’m doing it this way so I can see plot hole as I go and add notes to fix earlier chapters to solve those issues. At this point I’m about a third of the way through the read through. There’s definitely a lot of work to be done, but I see what needs to be done to get the novel I want to show you.

In the end it’s been a good week. I haven’t done as much as I want, but I have done quite a bit so I’m happy. Building habits takes time and I’m in it for the long haul.