Well it’s been an exciting journey since I commenced the planning stages for my novel about a year ago. The first of a fantasy trilogy, it introduces the Sentinels: a magical race of winged beings tasked to protect the Landfolk that dwell on the earth below them.
I put pen to paper and began actually writing the novel in August 2011 and thanks to a NaNoWriMo boost in November, I had a finished first draft of book one by the end of January 2012. It was a long but rewarding process and with no real static periods and I thoroughly enjoyed getting the Sentinels story out of my head and onto paper. Well, the beginning of their story at least.
February I stepped back from the draft and gave myself a few weeks gap before I contemplated kicking off the editing stages. Now, mid March I am 20 chapters into my second draft following a hard copy re-read and copious amounts of note-making and scribbles on the original manuscript. That was both enlightening and depressing – to relish in the parts of the story that I felt had real merit and to chide myself about sloppy sentencing and continuity errors. Well, I suppose that is what a first draft is for so I can’t be too hard on myself.
The re-write is going well so far and despite dreading this stage of the project I am in fact really enjoying re-visiting my work and improving upon it. My next plan is to get the finished draft two out to test readers – a terrifying yet necessary prospect – and then onto another re-write once I have the all-telling feedback.
So that is where I am at the moment as well as letting the story brew in my mind for book two which I will start writing later this year – no rest for the writer in me it seems. With any luck I will be able to provide more information about the trilogy as it develops and I am definitely looking forward to getting a finished book under my belt and hopefully onto the shelves.
Elloise Hopkins.
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