A Year Already

It's hard to believe it was exactly a year ago today that I started writing my first book, back then titled Kingdom of the Falling Star, but changed later on to Kallodhan.  Things were a little different back then as my ambition seemed to be very limited and I didn't think I had enough story to go around.  Here is my first post, not exactly anything of note, but it's fun to look back and see how far I've come.

I have just finished the prologue to my first Book called Kingdom of the Falling Star.  I have started the second chapter and I am aiming to finish it by Friday.  I have set a deadline for the book, it should be around 30,000 words and be finished by the end of April 2011.

Just reading that post makes me cringe as the flow and grammar are poor as well as the construction of the sentences.  I really hope I've improved since then. 

So I obviously missed my initial deadline, but I think the expansion from 30,000 words to over 150,000 was well worth it.  To be honest, back then, I wasn't sure if I'd even make it to 30,000.  I had never written anything that lengthy (seems small now), but I guess I proved myself wrong.

I remember when I had about 10 chapters completed, I read them back to back and realized that I had condensed an epic story down to 20,000 words.  I was disheartened and disappointed with myself for rushing through the story and not properly developing the world or characters.  I honestly thought about giving up, but I'm glad I didn't.

It was when I decided to split the character of Eryk into three brothers that I really felt the story taking off.  Had I not done that, the character was too ambitious and I knew I couldn't have him in multiple places at once.

From that point, the story seemed to flow, even though I did technically write 3 different prologues.  The first was drastically changed and became the first Myra chapter while the second is still sort of a prologue as it sets up the events that take place on the continent of Kallodhan.  But it was the third one that I felt really connected the main story lines and does the best job of setting the narrative tone for the book.  I recently edited the Prologue and now believe I have my first polished piece of work.

I severely underestimated the time it would take to edit a book and as a result, have been reduced to doing almost nothing since December when I finished the first draft.  I edited about 10 chapters, but I don't think I can consider them finalized.  Starting this month, I am going to go back and re-edit all chapters and finally finish this monster.  I have set a deadline of July 2012, but if you've been reading this blog, you know that my deadlines are constantly changing and I apologize for that.

I feel the drive to write returning after my break and I hope that I can deliver.