We have a name! (at least tentatively)

Two important things tonight:

1. Halfway done with my edit. I still have to go back and incorporate some stuff that Anita found that I missed for a few chapters, but still nice to be halfway done page-wise with my heavier editing. The majority of what's behind me now was written years ago, during some difficult times, so it's been rougher around the edges than I remembered.
2. I finally have a "working" name for the book and the series. The series is now tentatively called "The Liberators Chronicles", with the first book tentatively titled "The Ember of Change". It's exciting to see the name of the book instead of just "Book1" staring at me in Google Docs, even if it does get changed later.

I hope to be reaching out to some people by this time next week for deep feedback. I have several people that have offered to read it already and you're all on my list, but if you've got time to give a first draft a read-through and provide feedback (on everything from characters, plot points, pacing, to over-arching story) on a fantasy novel, please leave a comment below or find me on Messenger. It's currently nearly 88000 words (give or take another 1000-2000 by the time the edit is done) in length - so roughly in line with the first two books in the Harry Potter series, the Percy Jackson books, etc.

As a short synopsis so you know what you'll be getting yourself into, it's a fantasy novel that follows a small group of individuals fighting back against the tyranny of a powerful wizard known as Overlord Vald. They end up rescuing a young fire wizard while they are trying to steal a cache of magic weapons, which sets off a series of events that will pit them against magical beasts, powerful wizards, and treachery within their own organization.

Editing, editing, and more editing.

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Muscle Shoals, AL editing chapter 8 right now. I've turned the first 7 chapters over to my lovely editor-in-wife for her to bleed all over with her red pen. From what I've seen so far, I still seem to be passing her writing course!

I start a new job on April 12th and I have that as a hard date to finish this first round of editing and have the book in the hands of a few people to give me some deep feedback. So far I am on track to easily hit that deadline, and I am not going to let anything jeopardize that.

In the meantime, I am letting the plot points for the rest of the series stew around in my head. It's quite a primordial mess up there.

Can it be?

I'm pretty sure I just wrote the last sentence for Book 1.

That doesn't mean it's done by any stretch, since there's still tons of editing to do and I left a few sections with notes to myself to go back and flesh out descriptions later, but overall... this feels really good.

Word count right now is around 83500. That'll grow by another couple thousand with editing and some more descriptions here and there.

I always intended this book to be an introduction to the series - it's very action packed, throws you right into the middle of the action with the main protagonists, and doesn't slow down. In fact, the entire book takes place over just roughly 21 days. The next book, which is already completely fleshed out in my head, covers a much longer period of time and will probably be significantly longer. I planted so many seeds in the first book that need to germinate and grow in subsequent books.

But for tonight, celebration!

Milestone!

Hit a fun milestone tonight. Finished up the big climatic battle and broke the 80k word barrier. Several loose ends to finish up, a little setup for the next book, then tons of editing ahead of me.

A special thanks to my wife, Anita Powell, for letting me bounce all the action writing off of her, even if I did upset her with some of my decisions. It is my hope that I can get others to make such strong connections with these characters that I know and love.