After a full eight months of laboring, I have finally finished the rewrite of "The Mark of Flight". Huzzah! Rather than rewriting 50% percent of the story, I rewrote 90%. The scary part? It's 148,000 words.
148,000 words, in eight months, and most of that whilst keeping a full-time job. In terms of writing in general, I'm quite pleased. It may not be as impressive as some authors I know, but I feel like it's been a very fruitful experience for me.
As far as the novel itself, however, this is not so much "Huzzah!" as it is "Holy word-count, Batman!" I'm going to have to do some major cutting if I want to sell this puppy to anyone, especially if I'm going to try marketing it as YA. So, now it's time for the hardest part of the process--shoving the manuscript in a drawer for a few months to marinate. Then I can take a red pen to it and start cutting out some of its mammoth mass until it's a bit more market-friendly.
In the meantime, I'm going to work on a new project. It's not Book II (which is already half-way finished), because I feel like I need a break from the world of "The Markmasters Trilogy" for a while before I can dive back into it. The new project is a stand-alone fantasy novel, co-written with my best friend, Adryn! The plot is simple, and the story is already mostly worked out in our heads. I'm very excited, because I'm starting off with a much more definite plan this time, and I know for a fact that I can finish a book in less than a year. Because I'll be living with Adryn for most of the summer, I'm going to see how much of this I can write. Hopefully, it will be at least half-way finished before I head back to the states.
Curious about the next novel? Welcome to Valon, a kingdom of silk, spice, and commerce...
KING'S KEEPER
"When soldiers burned down her village six years before, Nassara swore to take revenge on the man who ordered the deaths of her family--the Sun King, young Lorien of Valon. But Nassara's suicidal assassination attempt goes horribly wrong when an upside-down map leads her to break into the palace's harem rather than the King’s menagerie, and she is mistaken for an (admittedly unconventional) concubine hopeful.
Seizing what she thinks is a perfect opportunity to get close to the king, Nassara is annoyed to find that the young king never visits the harem, much to the dismay of the flock of beautiful and frustrated virgins within. She is even more shocked to learn that the subjects of the kingdom don't hate the Machiavellian King Lorien as she does. In fact, no one in the castle will hear a word against the anti-social tyrant, despite his terrifying menagerie of large and deadly cats.
But when an accident at the harem leaves the Keeper of the Cats dead, Nassara's friend disfigured, and Nassara herself fending off a feline with a candelabrum, the King himself offers Nassara a position--as the new Keeper of Cats. In this frightening role, she sees the coldness of the young man who killed her family, but also witnesses the brutal fairness of a King who holds his power with an equal weight of justice. With no heirs, and a war on the distant horizon, Nassara must make a choice: to kill the man who murdered her family, or to reject everything she believes in and become the Keeper of the isolated, distant King she hates. "
I hope you guys are looking forward to reading it as much as we're looking forward to writing it!