Writing Update - January 2016

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you already know the good news. The first draft of The Strength of a Heart, the second book in The Stolen Wings series, is done. I just finished it last night. I know, go, me! :)

The first 15k words were written in January 2012, right after I finished the first draft of The Weight of a Wing, the first book in the series. Then I went back to polish the TWOW draft until I got sick of it and moved to something else. The next 10k were written last summer after TWOW was published and readers began asking for more. But the real writing was done between October and January, and it would have been finished sooner if I hadn't taken a two-week break for Christmas, but that's all right.

I had one big problem with this story. I kept feeling I was missing a piece of the action, like I should have squeezed in one more adventure as I feared I wouldn't make the word count I had in mind. It's the main reason I kept putting off writing it this long. As I started working on it, however, all pieces lined up nicely together, and it turned out I wasn't missing anything. The initial goal was to get it to 75k, but I would have been secretly happy with 70k. I've got 74k, and that's only the first draft. At least 2k will be added during rewrites if not more, plenty enough for my editor to cut from as she usually does, and rightfully so. 

The next step is to get it to the final draft, which I plan to do in February. Depending on how quickly my editor can get it done, the release will take place either in March or April. In February, I also need to write three short stories before I start working on another novel in March, so it will be a busy month. Plenty of time for you to read The Weight of a Wing if you haven't yet. It's my best-selling title, so it must be good. :) Fair warning, it's getting more romantic than initially planned. Ha! Until then, check back on Monday for a cover reveal. I've been sitting on it since TWOW came out, and I can't wait to share it with you. :D

One more thing, I've been also working on putting together a manuscript for a new Romanian short story collection. I only have to finalize the table of contents and then it's off to my publisher. So I guess all of my readers will have something new to read this spring.