Queen of Ice is up to a bit over 82,500 words. Depending on how things go, I could finish the rough draft this week or next week. I could also be completely wrong and have it go longer than that, so I’m not sure.

Something I think I’ve said before is that I generally have a start and end point to a book mapped out ahead of time, but most of the events in the middle of the story are what come naturally for me. This often means that I’m not sure at what point I’ll get to different scenes until I actually write them out. It can lead to surprises for me, and some things I deliberately leave unplanned to see what comes out during the writing. Ruethwyn’s relationship in Through the Fire is one of these things, for instance, as was Sistina’s. Lilith’s was somewhat planned in Born a Queen, but after that I’ve relaxed things on my front. I don’t like planning out relationships and personalities in too much detail, because then I sometimes find myself forcing characters to take actions which don’t feel natural for the character.

That’s why I’m quite willing to throw out even some of my planned scenes if necessary for the story as a whole. I believe I’ve mentioned it before, but in Ancient Dreams I had a villain who I intended to have a major role throughout the trilogy, but when things got moving, it no longer made sense to keep the character around. Another character was simply too ruthless. So I went ahead and killed the villain before they had a chance to continue their story.

Now, does this have much to do with Through the Fire? I’m not sure, to be honest. If I feel it’ll make the story better, I’ll do whatever is necessary, whether foreshadowed or not. I’ve had my wife and friends convince me not to kill major characters before.

…Huh, that was a long explanation that I started on a whim. Anyway, now for an important bit of news.

I believe I mentioned a side project I was working on some time ago. Last week, my anxiety where it’s concerned spiked to the point where I needed to get feedback from my alpha readers, to see whether I needed to drop it entirely or if it was worth continuing onward with. It took some time to get feedback, but I got it.

The project I was working on is named Heaven’s Fallen. It’s… an odd story, which is part of the problem, because compared to every other book I have, it’s slow. The closest I can think of is Marin’s Codex. I’ve got 45,000 words, and the primary conflict to the story is barely starting to ramp up. I’m going to continue to work on the story on the side, and see how it goes. I’m not guaranteeing that it’ll come out, but it’s highly likely. Technically it’s in the same universe as Through the Fire, but it may as well not be, as far as the individual characters are concerned.

Anyway, that’s all for today!