For your reading pleasure, I have posted the current version of the first 12 chapters of Curse of a Dark God below. (And there was much rejoicing, yea.)

Read and enjoy!

CURSE OF A DARK GOD draft 3 chapters 1-12 reader 

Note: these are draft chapters and may change in the final version.

If you would like to be part of a test audience, please open the document and begin reading just as you would any book that you picked up because it looked interesting. Stop where you normally would. Then email me by clicking on the Contact John link under my photo up on the left. I’ll send you a couple of questions. Please make sure you don’t ask for the questions before you’ve given the bit above a go (I don’t want the questions to affect your reading). Also, don’t put any critique hat on. Just read as you normally would. The deadline for test audience responses is January 15th.

I’ll make this short. I have a deadline for my next revision of CURSE OF A DARK GOD. It’s November 20th. But the book is kicking me around like a tin can. I sat down Saturday to work on my current revisions and as I unpicked the chapter I was working on the whole story unraveled in my hands. I worked for 8 hours trying to put it back together, but it resisted all efforts.

I’m not one to take this lying down. I’m going to San Diego this week, but will fly back early to work on the book, which means I will not be visiting Los Angeles. Alas. This wild beast will come under control. And that should please all those who have read SERVANT and are waiting for the next installment.

Rejoice! Sing! The draft is done!

Hallelujah.

Based on my records I spent:

• 48.5 hours on the pre-draft for this book
• 503.5 hours to finish draft 1
• 130 hours to finish draft 2
• A total of 682 hours of work to this point

If I’d been working full time on this that would be roughly 17 weeks. That’s about 4 months. I don’t think that’s so bad, considering this book clocks in at 230,000 words. Not bad at all. But no wonder just finishing a novel is the thing that filters most would-be writers out. That’s a freaking huge amount of time. I hope as things progress I get faster.

Here’s what I focused on in this draft.

• Sugar’s story. It was a mess and the biggest problem with draft 1. I had to rewrite or massively revise about a dozen of her chapters. In fact, I ended up added three chapters to her story: White Tower, Withers, and Loyalties. I’m very please, however, with the result. I think it works very well.
• The Gnolum. I had purposely left the seeding chapters for these giants out (seeding as in I can’t just have them show up at the end without laying some groundwork). I had to add 2 chapters for them to this draft.
• Early Argoth chapters. The first two chapter of Argoth’s story needed to be totally rewritten. The second needed major revising.
• Chapter titles. For titles in draft 1 I used the name of the main pov character in the chapter and a short summary of what was happening. It helps keep things clear. So those are now out and the chapter titles in.
• Rough stuff. In many of the early chapters I was still feeling my way into the story. Yes, I had an outline, but I just can’t get the whole story until I begin to write. So there were many chapters with notes to myself or blanks to fill in. Some things no longer worked because of later chapters. All this I had to fix.
• Reordering chapters in the last half of the book. About halfway through the book Talen’s story breaks off from Sugar’s and Argoth’s. So when I was originally writing them, I found it easier to just write all of Talen’s story and then all of Sugars and Argoth’s until the three met up again. Well, this created some time gaps. I fixed those. I also had long stretches of one pov. For example, I had Talen’s story running for 14  chapters without any break to the other viewpoints. All this had to be fixed.

So I’m very pleased with this draft. Here are the first three chapters for your enjoyment: CODG draft 2 beginning for readers. Remember: feedback from my wife, agent, editors, and other early readers will change it. You’re welcome to contact me with any comments you might have about it.

Holy schmoly, has this been a ride. I projected the CURSE OF A DARK GOD to be 140,000 words. When I blew by that, I projected it would be 170,000. Today I just typed the last word of the first draft. It’s 230,000 words. For reference SERVANT OF A DARK GOD is 170,000 words.

The bad news is that while I’m really happy with this draft, it IS a first draft and needs some editing. I’m also behind schedule. I hit 140k words just a few weeks after my original deadline (in March), so I pride myself on knowing how fast I can write, but at that point I had, unknowingly, about a normal novel’s worth of material left to write. Obviously, I haven’t quite figured out yet how to estimate the size of these bigger works. The problem is that instead of getting a month or even two to revise, I’ve got two days. Then I have to turn it in to my editors.

The good news is that my editors haven’t canned me, yet. And that they have great insight into story. And that I should have plenty of time to fix and polish this thing to make it shine. I just don’t like turning in first drafts. My goal with book three is to get back on schedule.

Having told you my scheduling woes, I am very excited about the characters and storylines and expect readers to enjoy this as much or more than the first in the series. However, I do wish I could get this process down so that I was 99% of the way there in one draft. There are some authors who can do that. Perhaps that will come with more experience. Until then, I get to enjoy revision.

Here are my stats:

• 550 hours to write, from pre-draft to the end, not including thinking thinking on walks and drives and discussion time with my wife who saved me thrice.
• The bulk of the writing was done in a 24 week period. I averaged 17 hours per week during that time. This is on top of my day job.

 For those who don’t know, an average young adult book as from 40,000 to 80,000 words. An average adult novel is from 70,000 – 120,000 words. I’m very pleased I was able to finish this monster. I might not be the fastest writer, but what this tells me is that I should be able to finish two big novels a year if I should ever be so lucky as to go full time.

Bow to the dark god, ye minions. Here’s some of what’s coming in book 2:

• The dogmen of Toth and their maulers
• The Ungar and the one they call Ruin
• The tanglewoods of the woodikin
• Firesteeds
• Gloryweaves
• Nashrud the hunter
• And last, but not least, the Orange-eyed priest of Mungo

The end is in sight on the first draft of book 2 in the Dark God series, and because this one has been a roller coaster, I had to post some of the coolness before I have to go back into frantic mode. My word count estimates for this book have been so consistently off it hasn’t been funny. Literally. It’s made me panic and stress. It should clock in around 220k. And then it’s going to be cut, cut, cut.

In the meantime…dogmen of Toth (give it the James Earl Jones).

Oh, baby.

Well, I’m less than 300 words from my original estimate of 140,000 words. The problem is that estimates are notoriously unreliable. Especially when most of the invention comes during the draft phase. It appears I have 20-30k more words. So I’m back down in the 80% finished range. But here’s my goal for completing. I hope to deliver it at somewhere around 170,000 words, maximum.

• April 20 -24: finish pre-climax story lines
• April 27 – 1: finish pre-climax story lines
• May 4 – 8: climax, finish
• May 11 – 15: revise
• May 18 – 22: revise
• May 25: deliver

BTW, let me tell you this story is exciting me–the giant dogmen of Toth that breed monstrous dogs called maulers, a tall insect like creature called ungar that are stealing souls for their magic, wurm fields, battles, mysteries, traitors, our first meeting of the woodikin and Harnock (the one bred by Lumen to be a superior warrior), a wonderful sleth called Eresh who was completely unplanned and completely delightful, plus some incredibly delicious character situations.

Oh, baby. This one is shaping up with all sorts of delights. Of course, if I don’t execute, readers will just see it as a mess. So it’s back to work.

You’ll note the word count on CODG is steadily rising. Today, I experienced a delightful AND maddening turn.

I find outlines to be immensely useful tools for story development. Of course, there are many more tools in the box–outlines can’t do everything. For example, there are times when you’re drafting a story that you write something and it suddenly generates new options for the story that you in no way could have imagined without getting to that point in the draft. You can get a lot of ideas with an outline, but drafts generate still more. Sometimes the options that present themselves while you’re drafting are so right they give you goosebumps. I got one of those today. Of course, part of why it was so good was not only that it put the character in a perfect dilemma and the reader in a perfect chapter cliffhanger, but also because it was completely unexpected yet logical. 

This all sounds so good, right? Well, the story turn was so unexpected, it startled me. It’s thrown my outline off. Which means I’m going to have to now revise the working outline. I was tempted to make the story fit. After all, I DO have a deadline. But this story turn is so freaking juicy that I cannot justify the hackery. Besides, working outlines are made for revision.

I’m riding by the seat of my pants today folks, and it’s exciting. I think readers are going to love this turn.

BTW, I talked to Stacy Hague-Hill today and got the release and due dates.

Book 1
Revisions due May 15th, 2008
Final due July 1, 2008
Hardcover release Sept 2009
Paperback release Aug 2010

She said because it’s my first novel and because it’s a trilogy they want to make sure they properly lay the groundwork, getting cover quotes, working up excitement, etc. And that’s why there’s such a space between the contract, final delivery date, and HC release. Although the schedule repeats for every book. On the one hand, I wish they were coming out on a 9 month schedule. On the other hand, I think my focus should be making these three books the very best they can be. And this gives me the time. Besides, there will be a HC release and then a paperback and so each book will get two pulses each year. Although the paperback is released usually right before the second book comes out.

Book 2
Draft due Feb 2009
Final due July 1, 2009
Hardcover release Sept 2010
Paperback release Aug 2011

Book 3
Draft due Feb 2010
Final due July 1, 2010
Hardcover release Sep 2011
Paperback release Aug 2012? Not sure.

That’s a ways out there. Holy cow.

2011?

I haven’t planned anything out that far into the future since college and that wasn’t really planning but a lifestyle (grin).

On Feb 1, 2008 my wonderful agent, Caitlin Blasdell of Liza Dawson Associates, informed me that the details are all finalized and I can shout it to the world.

Tor books (an imprint of St. Martins) has given me a very nice deal (as categorized on Publisher’s Marketplace) for a 3-book, traditional epic fantasy series. Each book is to be from 120-140k words. David Hartwell will be my editor (so stoked about that!). The three were sold based on my completed novel, SERVANT OF A DARK GOD, and the synopsis of the following two, CURSE OF A DARK GOD, and DARK GOD’S GLORY. The first should be out in the summer of 2009.