Book 1 update: publication has been pushed back by a few months, into 2019. While I’m gnawing at the thought of getting it out sooner, I’m going to bow to the wisdom of publishers. And this does mean I get to have a launch party at Warpcon, all going well.
The editing process was very much like processing playtest feedback, only without lengthy anecdotes and no spreadsheets of dice probabilities.
Book 2 is proving to be a very different beast. The draft is currently at around 70,000 words, or a little short of halfway through, but it’ll require a lot more rewriting than the first book did. In Book 1, the characters all revealed themselves to me pretty clearly early on; the cast of Book 2 are being more evasive, which I suppose makes sense as they’re mostly spies or spy-adjacent. I’m discovering that what seemed to be throwaway incidents in the first draft are actually clues or foreshadowing for where the book should go, which is a disconcerting feeling – it’s like writing with a partner who only communicates through cryptic messages and hints, but has a better idea of where the story’s going than you do.
Also on the to-do list – a proper map of the city of Guerdon, of the world around the city, and write-ups of all the gods and monsters I mention in passing.
Gareth Hanrahan 