And here I am, back with my biannual blog post. To be fair,  it’s not been as long as I thought it had. My last blog post was in September and I thought for sure it had been over a year ago.

At long last I can christen Eisengrau (previously titled Penumbra)–FINISHED! The last year working weekends at the hotel have helped give me dedicated time to work on it and I’m at the point where the novel is pretty much done.

I say pretty much, because I have a couple of minor adjustments I need to add, primarily a few lines that need to be translated into Japanese and a few grammar mistakes my lovely wife found while reading through it. Once that is all complete I’m ready to start sending it out. It’s all pretty exciting, but also the most nerve wracking part of the entire process. Especially as I find myself thinking about the manuscript I can think of a half dozen things I want to tweak at any given moment, but there comes a point in time where I just have to hang it up and let what I’ve done speak for itself. Art is never complete, but I’m content with stating this is as done as it’s going to be based on my own ideas. If I can get a publisher interested I plan on being super receptive toward a professional editor’s feedback, but aside from there it’s done.

So what from here?

That’s the hard question. I have ideas for other books I want to write, but in the end I decided the best place to focus my energy was on book 2, titled Penumbra… but this time it’ll stick ;). I already had a good solid quarter of the novel written from stuff I pulled out of my longer, initial drafts of Eisengrau and being able to say I have most, if not all of a rough draft of book 2 finished is something that I have to believe would make me more attractive to prospective publishers. So that’s what I’m working on. Writing a second book has presented some interesting challenges, some I was expecting, some I wasn’t, but I’ll save that for another post. I always say thing, but I’m going to shoot for putting these up more regularly considering where I’m at with things. I should have been doing that more before, but to be fair, there’s only so many times I can say, “Still doing my read aloud edit” before it gets monotonous. Working my way through a new first draft is something that I can give more engaging insight and direction into, plus the process of seeking publication.

In any case, my wife is expecting me home and I can leave work now, so I’ll do just that.