It's been a month, and I'd like to keep my readers informed on the status of Silvergate: Navigator

It's both good and disappointing news. As you can guess from the title, I wrote a paltry 21k words. About 700 words a day. And while it could sustain a 1-chapter a week schedule, it's well under my target. I had expected to be closer to 45-50k. But I was catching up on reading (I'm still under my Goodreads Reading Challenge average), work has been particularly hectic (it's... complicated), and I got hit by cold bouts twice this month. Bleh.

My goal is to have almost all of book 2 in draft 1 form before I start the publication, and have a 3+ chapter a week schedule this time.

So, how is book 2 shaping up after all?

I have the entire structure, including key moments: I know what they're going to do, where they will be, mostly with whom.

I also have written all of the side-stories: the shorter chapters that don't feature our heroes. There only five this time. Six if you include the epilogue which, unlike book 1, doesn't feature our trio.

I've also written a bunch of scenes all over the book, but except for the first 3 chapters, it's all in disparate bits. There's a nearly complete chapter or two toward the middle, but it's far from finished. But all those scenes give me a better idea of who/what/where/how, etc.

There's a couple of things that still need defining. Who the aliens are, notably. After all, we know nothing about them except their general shape (and the fact that Deva like chain whips with razor blades). Well, I do know a bit more about them of course, but there's much to be found out (including by me). Judging people by their appearance might be misleading, but how do you envision them? I'm curious to see how they'll match up to your expectations.

Spoiler: Book 2 warning

You'll see some in book 2 but not all four of them.

I've collected several useful criticisms and suggestions for book 1, some of which is going to go into a small rewrite at one point (once I've started pushing book 2 on RR, not before). While some suggestions involved a complete rewrite, there's a couple of useful ideas, plus style cleansing. Don't worry: the story is not going to change significantly (there's possibly a few shuffling of events and reordering of early chapters, and some additional background info). I had to decide quickly because some of those impacted book 2.

The one you're probably going to notice is that the Skill Scroll mechanic (featured in book 1 and the preview) will be gone. It's an artifact of an early draft of book 1, it's not used anywhere, and people commented on the artificial tension this was going to generate between Vantegaard and Armangest. There's already plenty of natural tension, and he'll get enough demands on him (since he IS the only one who can peek into leyline interference for now) that it's not necessary. So out it goes.

Another is a slight addition (a few paragraphs here and there) to book 1 will be the concept of "dead Silvergates". It is known that when a Gater dies, his Silvergate is broken and no longer useable. It won't activate, and it won't activate back on Earth either. Of course, once those Aliengates are found, people will quickly figure out why a broken Silvergate no longer works (it's spelled out early in book 2).

November is something called NaNoWriMo, from the States, and featured on Royal Road. I'm not going to be involved since I'm not currently posting here, of course, but writing at least 50k words sounds a good objective since I need to catch up. I doubt I can write 50k words on Silvergates AND The Infinite Labyrinth during the month, LOL.

Speaking of which, it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to start pushing book 2 to RR before the end of the year, but I'll try my best to up that word count per day, and start the year with a bang!

There will be a December update in a month to let you know where I am at that point. I hope to announce 71k words (21+50) at least. The update after that one should be to announce the starting date of book 2 on RR.

Hopefully.