October 2022 – I did a quick read over of Darkness Gathering and Darkness Falling and aside from a few minor tweaks I’m feeling pretty good about the continuity and flow. They are still with the editor so we’ll see how much needs fixing by way of spelling and grammar. I have one final beta reader lined up to review books 1 & 2, I’m just waiting for the printed proof copies to arrive so he can start on them.
Darkness Rising and Darkness ..? are getting closer to completion each day. I went through each arc and compiled a list of scenes that still need to be written. I wound up with three pages of bullet point notes (Approximately 90 scenes). If I average 3 full scenes per week, it will take me approximately 30 weeks to complete books 3 & 4 (end of May, 2023 – If I push to 4 scenes per week I can do it in 22 weeks and be done by my birthday!)
Darkness Breaking is shaping up nicely. I took some time to flesh out the outline and managed to sort a few sticky points in the plot. My main concern is the sheer amount of travel required for book 5. I’ll be looking at ways to shorten that so I don’t end up with another 2-year long book. (Okay, books 3&4 are barely a year and a half between them, but still)
August 2022 – I have started compiling what I have of the different story arcs for Darkness Rising into one manuscript. The timeline spans 14 months, I’ve finished 3 months of content and am at 60K. So, the projected wordcount is now 250K? Splitting into two parts is looking more and more likely. I’m now brainstorming an extra title (Darkness Crumbling? Darkness Warring? Darkness …?). I’m still waiting on word back from the final editor, but I’m guessing book 3 won’t be complete until the end of the year and it has to go through the Beta, and a round of self-edits before going to the final editor (probably 3-6 months after the first draft is complete) so he’s got 8-12 months before I need the edits on 1 & 2 back.
July 2022 – Between the pandemic and a new job I didn’t have time to keep the blog up-to-date but I was still writing. Darkness Gathering is complete. It’s with the final editor now getting a final comb-through for typos and consistency errors. It’s sitting at roughly 98K. Darkness Falling is nearly complete. The final editor will also be going over book 2 but I’m expecting it will need more edits/polishing than book 1. It’s sitting at roughly 130K. Darkness Rising is sitting at 40K. I dismantled the first draft and divided it into individual arcs. The plan is to nail down the timeline, write each arc chronologically, then knit it back together into one book. Projected word count is somewhere in the 150-180K mark and it will likely be the longest of the books, If I don’t follow through with splitting it into two parts. Darkness Breaking is loosely outlined. I can’t even start it until I complete a draft of book 3.
January 2020 – Darkness Rising hit 130k back in October/November and I wasn’t happy with it so I put it on hold. Turns out I need to split it into 2 books which makes Darkness Breaking book 5 and book 4 will need a new title. In addition, I need to add one, possibly two, new story arcs to Darkness Gathering and Darkness Falling so I can include a crucial piece of world building in Darkness Breaking which will set up part of Massarian Mysteries. Time to roll out the big sheets of paper and get a full timeline going.
Book 2 expected back from the Beta reader late-October/mid-November.
October 1 2019 – Quenella “Queenie” Arbutus’ name is changed to Qiana Arbutus to avoid confusion between her nickname and the official title of queen held by other characters.
September 30, 2019 – Titles are changed. Original titles: Whispers in the Dark, Darkness Rising, The Dark of War, Darkness Falling. NEW TITLES: Darkness Gathering, Darkness Falling, Darkness Rising, Darkness Breaking. Website is updated to reflect these changes.
September 14, 2019 – Darkness Rising (book 2) is finished and sent to the beta reader.
August, 2019 – Whispers in the Dark comes back from beta reader. Edits are started but put on hold so the first draft of books 2 and 3 can be finished.
May 30, 2019 – First draft of Whispers in the Dark (book 1) completed and sent to beta reader
Tales From Thelara 