It’s been a couple of quiet weeks as far as posts here go. That was mostly due to being ill. Picked up a nasty little bacteria that took up residence in my sinuses and chest. It was a lot like a mild flu mixed with a head cold. Got the fever, cough, congestion, and sore throat combo going so that was a lot of fun. Probably could have cut my sick time in half with a little antibiotic love but that requires expensive doctor visits and medicine so no joy there. Future illnesses like this shouldn’t be a problem if the VA comes through though so here’s hoping on that front.

As far as writing goes I didn’t let a little thing like being sick stop me from writing. I certainly slowed down but I’m very happy to report that book 2 was finished early today. I was working on Chapter 21 when I realized I was just dragging out the story and could easily cut it at the end of Chapter 20 plus a short epilogue. So that’s what I did. My second novel ever clocks in at just over 92k words and took an unfortunate 5 months to write. Book 1 was 4k words longer and took 3 months all while I was working 40 hours a week. Funny how it’s been harder to write when I have so much more free time. Of course moving threw a big monkey wrench into my writing time/energy so there’s a good month lost to that. The real problem was making the time and space for it. For the first book I was in a lull as far as my gaming went so it was no big deal to devote an hour a night to getting some writing done. Still, done is done.

This second book was much harder to write for me. I think part of it was just the amount of world-building that went into this one. For the first book I could get away with vague references and hints until the big reveal at the end. Book two though is all about getting down and dirty with this new world. It’s a first for the protagonist, the reader, and me. 🙂  Fun fact: I used a short story that I wrote to build a lot of the details in book two. The short story takes place in the same world and focuses on a day in the life of a secret agency office worker. I ended up going through the short story again to jot down all of the details and filled an entire legal pad with notes. I will definitely be writing more of these kinds of stories to help flesh out my world. I think it takes the huge task of world-building and breaks it down into smaller, more manageable chunks. I’m actually itching to get going on another short story. It’s nice to know that I can start a project and get it done in a week or less. Finishing a novel feels great but the slog getting there can be rough.