Here’s a quick update on the status of my upcoming book, tentatively titled The End of the Beginning: Book One, Part I of the Sanctum of the Archmage Saga. Although some (fortunately temporary) craziness at work has once again managed to derail my writing focus, I’m nevertheless making good progress toward a planned release sometime early next year.

1. Scope and chapter re-structuring. I’ve done a lot of work recently in revising the scope of the first Sanctum novel, and the structure of its chapters and events. My original plan to write a novella-length work with six chapters and a prologue proved to be much too limited. I’ve restructured and firmed up the outline to sixteen shorter chapters, plus a prologue and an appendix.
2. Progress. As of now I’ve completed the first nine chapters, plus the prologue and the appendix. I’m currently writing chapter 10, the first scene of which is also complete. As of yesterday all of them have been given a thorough editing pass with some re-writing. As a result, none of what I’ve written is any longer in “first draft” status.
3. Projected Length. As of today’s word count, the book comes in at exactly 65,000 words, or about 185 “paperback equivalent pages.” (My writing software actually estimates this for me, and it agrees nicely with my own ad-hoc calculations as well.) Based on my current and revised outline, this puts it at about 64% complete — with a final projected length of about 100,000 words and just shy of 300 pages.
4. Title. As I hinted in a previous post, I’m giving serious consideration to publishing the first book under the name Dawn of Chaos. I think this is a stronger title than The End of the Beginning, and I’m regretting having used it for the prologue that I already published on Amazon. If decide to I go that route, I’d probably just re-publish the existing Kindle with the new, full content of the first book. I’d be very interested in feedback from anyone with thoughts or recommendations about the title.
5. Alpha/Beta Readers. A colleague who e-publishes fantasy fiction recommended that I consider seeking out “alpha readers.” Like alpha (and beta) testers for software, these are people who read books (or parts of books) that are in the process of being written, to provide feedback to the author. I do have a couple of these now (including my wife and my illustrator), and have had play-testers for the Sanctum game modules in the past. I’m considering his suggestion, so if anyone might be interested being an alpha reader for my book, feel free to let me know. 🙂