Back to Work

Good afternoon! I hope you all had a lovely weekend. The facebook chat party went surprisingly well... considering that's the first time I've done one of those by myself, I was very happy with the turnout and the excitement throughout the evening. A huge thank you to everyone who came to the party!If you missed the event, but are interested in what we did, I'm leaving the event page open so you can peruse at your leisure. A ton of great questions were asked, and I shared some of my "Dream Cast" imaginings for how I picture certain main characters. I always run into trouble when it comes to Oraeyn, though. If anyone sees a perfect Oraeyn wandering around, send me a picture!The fun of launch week isn't quite over, though, as the huge giveaway is still open through the end of this week. If you missed it, GO CHECK IT OUT! I'm giving away a TRAINING SWORD, a DRAGON NECKLACE, and SIGNED COPIES OF THE MINSTREL'S SONG "Trilogy."One question that was asked on Friday evening was how many books I have planned for the Minstrel's Song.Four.Yep, there is just one book left in this series. For those of you waiting anxiously to find out the "end" of the story, despair not! The fourth book is written and is already back from the content editor!However, I am going to be taking a short break from the Minstrel's Song series.Not a long break, just through the end of January. Editing is fun, but it drains me. I need something new and creative, and I have a lovely project waiting in the wings... and my task throughout the rest of January is going to be outlining as much of that project as I can - because once I'm done with the edits on Minstrel's Call I will send it off and then have nothing to do for a while... so I'd like to have my waiting project all lined up and ready for drafting!So don't worry! February 1st I plan to dive straight into the edits on Minstrel's Call so that I can get the manuscript into the hands of my line editor and beta readers. I'm not sure how long it will take me, however, because Minstrel's Call is MASSIVE. I mean, seriously, huge. For some quick comparisons:King's Warrior weighs in at 141,000 words (which is big for a YA book, though it's about normal for a fantasy... maybe a bit on the longish side, but not ginormous)Second Son clocks in at 150,000 wordsYorien's Hand is a paltry 117,000 wordsMinstrel's Call, however, currently surpasses them all at a whopping 214,000 words! So... I've got my work cut out for me.Now, my rough drafts do tend to be longer than my final drafts... but not by tons... so we'll see what happens.Anyway, I have lots of blog post ideas spinning around (a lot of reviews and things to write up...) so the blog shouldn't get too quiet (nothing like December!) See you around!Oh, I almost forgot, also through the end of January I'm having 2 GoodReads giveaways for paperback copies of King's Warrior and Second Son: