Charters

It’s time to release the cover for Book 3 in the In All Jest series, Spire Of Fools.

Unlike the first two books this cover only came together recently. It took the amazing skills of my designers in my web agency to help produce the background image, which is an illustration of Midderbuilt, from within the series world. That illustration sets the scene for this amazing cover.

Here’s a small version of the illustration.

And here’s the cover. Note Spire of Fool’s is now available for pre-order, you can find the links on the main book page.

I’d love to hear what you think about the new designs

In my view, there’s no worse time than the period between sending off a manuscript to your editor and when you receive it back.

Due to the deadline and human’s being good at always needing every last minute to complete such a thing, you are invariably very busy up to the end.

Then it just stops dead.

You are left holding all the regrets of things you didn’t do, or living with the ideas bubbling up from the space your brain now has.

And there’s nothing you can do.

That’s how I’ve felt over these last weeks since my manuscript ran away from home.

So what do I do?

I use the time inbetween to update my world wiki. What’s that you ask? Great question. Writing a fantasy series requires a lot of world building, and information that develops as the series unfolds.

As much as I’d like to think the computer in my head can remember everything, it can’t.

My wiki contains everything about each realm (country) within me worlds, incuding their history, type of government/ruler, economy, people, cities, towns, geography etc.

Then there’s all of the characters and their profiles, which includes eye colour, which hand they prefer, skin color, hair colour, preferences, quirks, you name it. If it’s part of their character profile, I store all of the detail in the wiki.

Then there’s plot threads, other pieces of information and detailed descriptions of locations that appear within the books.

All of this helps me, especially when you are deep in a chapter or scene and you can’t recall a feature of a place, or mannerism of a person.

Maintaining the wiki it is quite a task. I didn’t update it after the release of Fool Me Twice, which meant having to go back to the book instead of the wiki to confirm key things while drafting Spire Of Fools.

Thus, I am ensuring that I get it up to date now. Once Spire Of Fools is published the first task before Book 4 in the series is begun will be to repeat this exercise.

I use a piece of web software called Roam Research, which is a bidirectional wiki – meaning it links in both directions automatically. I.e. if I link from Content A -> Content B, it will auto link back from B -> A.

This is incredibly helpful and means the linkages build a graph of knowledge about the series that would take a person too long to do.

So that’s what I have been doing of late.

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Oops this is almost like a 6 month update.

At the begining of this week the manuscript for Book 3 of the In All Jest series, now named Spire Of Fools, was sent off to my editor. It came in around 260,000 words, which no doubt will get a little trimming, but was pretty on the mark for the size I felt it was coming out to be.

We’ve scheduled it for a November release, the exact date I’ll publish later.

The process this time around felt improved and as a whole I feel like introducing an outline early on for the shell of the story was a good move.

Key work of late: 

• Completed writing second half of the manuscript
• Edited entire manuscript
• Sent to editor
• Briefed and got designed the first in-world illustration of the book, set around Midderbuilt, and the Spire of Sand. Part of this illustration will be seen on the cover of Spire Of Fools
• Had the cover of Spire of Fools designed, approved, and even had my mini cavnas version printed, it’s now hanging next to the other ones in the series on my office wall
• Preparing a marketing strategy for the whole series and the launch of book 3

This year I am very happy with the speed of the updates to the manuscript. While you can’t be sure how long it will take with each review and new chapter written, you have a good sense if it’s flowing or not.

Currently, I’m in the second half of the manuscript and on all new content. My previous review of the first half is complete and the adjustments made have made me very happy with where the book is heading.

I’ve been able to improve the lot of several characters that weren’t going to get much time on show. I am looking forward to the next batch of chapters as I need to start bringing the climax of this book into focus.

Key work of late: 

• finshed review of first half
• writing second half of the manuscript

Progress on Book 3 is going steadily albeit slower than I would like. Not slower because of any issues in the story but the change in the writing process, then the interruption of momentum while we went on holiday and then moved set me back on my timeline.
I’ve revisited the first half of the manuscript and am working through a partial edit of it now so that I’m fully back in the story and the world after that hiatus.
I’m happy with how things are working, just not the pace of it. I’ve been asked alot of questions from readers of Fool Me Twice now that they can see the story unfolding and the world more exposed, but of course, there’s no spoilers to be had.

Key Work of Late:

• Writing Book 3

It’s been a while since I wrote one of these, but Book 3 is progressing nicely.

The launch of Fool Me Twice on April 1 went well, and as expected it also encouraged sales of A Fool’s Errand as well. The interactive map was missing a few end chapters, not quite sure what happened to that so we re-entered the data, and that’s working better now. Have you seen the interactive map?

I’ll have the same ready for A Fool’s Errand in the coming month.
It’s also time to tidy up this site, there’s some navigation fixes I want to make and some ways to make it easier to find things, including the world information.

Book 3 is a completely different approach for me, with me still having not decided on a name for it or having a book cover yet. Usually I have those two things set early and use them as motivation, not that I need any this time around. I have a solid idea of what the cover will look like but the name is still not locked in. I’m not liking the working name I am using so need to spend some more time on it.

Having changed to using a plot model for the overall structure I’m very happy with how that’s worked out. It took some effort to pull it together, being the first time I’d used this method, but now it’s much easier to write chapters, as I don’t need to spend any time lining up plot sequences etc.

Key Work of Late:

• Writing Book 3
• Signing and selling personalised copies

The rewrites and final edit work has essentially all been done. Later this week it will go back for a final read by my editor before we send it to the proof reader.

At that point it’s purely a race to get to the end. I’m unsure if we have enough time to meet my intended release date but until I know better I’ll keep it at that.

In the next week I will be revelaing the cover to my newsletter list, before getting things ready for putting the book up for pre-order.

I’ve set the publication date to be April Fool’s Day, 2022 (April 1). I’ve always wanted to release this Jester (Fool) series on that date and process willing it will be the day each year I will release each book moving forward.

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Key Work of Late:

• Editing
• Editing
• Editing
• Remembering to sleep.

This weekend I get the manuscript back from my editor, ready for me to attack it with gusto.

The break from writing has gone on to long for my creative brain, and I’m excited to be getting back to working on the fixes and adaptations based on the meeting we had this week.

Like any story there’s always things that don’t quite work, and the reason for investing in a quality editor who understands the genre has once again been demonstrated with his feedback.

Hopefully we’ll be able to cut some of the word count out while polishing the story. It’s a nerve wracking time waiting for the feedback and notes, but now that I can start back on the story, it is just a matter of going through the steps.

I have a spreadsheeting process I use to document all of the feedback, mark up possible ideas and then ruminate on the final solution. I do all the work there, before commiting it to paper.

I’ve set the publication date to be April Fool’s Day, 2022 (April 1). I’ve always wanted to release this Jester (Fool) series on that date and process willing it will be the day each year I will release each book moving forward.

Make sure to sign up to my newsletter for insider information, special announcements and what’s happening in other parts of my world.

Key Work of Late:

• Had a break from writing.
• Planning the guide for the books for this website.
• Working on the new map for this book.
• Trying to get the interactive map finished for book 1.

I have been very negligent in writing these posts over the last few months. I could use the excuse head down arse up but that’s an excuse. I’ve not put it in my calendar and a busy year has meant I’ve simply forgotten.

So I make amends with this update.

The first draft is well and truly finished, the first edit has been completed, and I am over half way through the second edit.

The additional size in this manuscript has really caught me out timewise. E.g. there’s an additional 70 or so chapters. If it takes 30 mins per chapter to work on it (just an example) that’s 35 hours. I get around 7-10 hours per week to work on my writing so just these additional chapters is another 3-4 weeks work for each stage.

I have a deadline with my editor for the end of this month (September) and based on his timeline, the work I’ll do after that, my proof reader’s timeline and then final pre-publication work it’s going to be 2022 when we publish Fool Me Twice. I’ll be announcing the date shortly.

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Key Work of Late:

• Finished the first draft of Fool Me Twice
• Onto 2nd edit of the manuscript.
• Put the podcast on hold – I simply don’t have capacity for it based on some other projects in my business life
• Planning the word guide for the books.

I am very close to completing the first draft of Fool Me Twice, Book 2 in the In All Jest series. Currently I have done 94% of it, with plenty of ups and downs trying to get to the finish line.

I didn’t make it in time for my idealy deadline of Feb 28, but it is almost there and I’ll just keep plugging along.

The new map is comign along nicely for book 2, which will have more detail on it for Dharatan as well as showing all of Enderk. We also have an exciting new map development underway which I will share in my newsletter first.

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Key Work of Late:

• Working on the first draft of Fool Me Twice
• Narrating more chapters from A Fool’s Errand in the podcast
• Completing the expanded map for Fool Me Twice
• Planning the word guide for the books.

I’ve had a busy month working on the manuscript for Fool Me Twice.

I have completed 72% of it so far and averaging around 3,000 words a day. The goal is to complete it by the end of this month, February. It will take a significant effort to get there, but I am still hopeful. 

It has certainly developed in ways I wasn’t anticipating when I started, and I enjoy this stage of the writing process where completely new ideas spring to life. 

Even having an outline (of sorts) there is still so much that appears on the page as you write the scenes, it still amazes me to see it happen.

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Key Work of Late:

• Working on the first draft of Fool Me Twice
• Narrating more chapters from A Fool’s Errand in the podcast
• Working on the expanded map for Fool Me Twice
• Planning the word guide for the books.