...Gang aft agley (But it's really good news. I promise.)

Remember on May 5th when I said that Cauldron was 81% drafted and I laid out my writing/publishing plans for the coming months. Well, there comes a time in almost every writing project longer than a short story that a writer starts to question EVERYTHING about the project. Is this the best way to tell the story? Is that action true to the character? What is this character's motivation? Why did he say that? Where did this character come from? Have I really written THAT many words on this project? How much more of this story is there to tell? What the hell am I doing? Who's going to read this crap? Why am I here? Why are any of us here?

You get the picture. 

As I watched the word count on this project mount, I realized something. I wasn't writing the second book in the Once and Future Series. I was writing Book 2 AND Book 3. I had already moved part of my plot outline to the next book after NaNoWriMo produced a lot more than I expected. So, it wasn't too shocking to realize that there was a whole book in here that I didn't see before. 

Now, I'm not a writer who likes to tell my readers everything. In fact I usually subscribe to the Elmore Leonard school of leaving out "the parts readers skip". But I got to a point where I realized that readers weren't going to understand some of the things these characters were doing without seeing some more back story first.  If you've read The River Maiden, then you know that I'm not averse to the odd flashback or skipping around in time, but some stories should be told in there entirety. 

With that said, we now have two books where I thought there was only one. I tend to think of some components of the story several books ahead. So there are actually more than three, but we'll get to those others all in good time. 

This is all to say that the bulk of Book 2, which I am still calling Cauldron for the time being, is written. I am going to be adding some to it as I revise the story, and I'm currently plotting that out in Post-its all over the loft wall. 

The other good news is that Book 3, which has the working title of Thrice Again. is about halfway drafted. Of course this means that the wait between Book 2 and Book 3 will be considerably shorter. YAY!  

So, it's going to be an interesting summer of researching, revising, rearranging and rewriting. But the news is good. Cauldron is even closer to being done than I originally thought. Now, I'd better get back to work.