After a year that included long hours and yet another job switch (back to the previous company in May), I finally got busy again editing Shadows of the Knight. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the editing forum! As I ran through my list of checks and edits for book #1 of the Vampire Chess saga, the story for book #2 was running wildly through my head. As foreshadowed in my last blog post, the temptation proved to be too powerful to resist. I just finished writing the first draft of Order & Chaos!
Once I started writing, I just couldn't stop. The first draft of book #2 weighs in about five thousand words heavier than the previous book was at first draft. While Shadows of the Knight is currently sitting at over 254k words and Order & Chaos is over 227k words, I expect the second book to surpass its predecessor by the time I finish the first full edit. They will combine to tally over a half million words when my editing is finally done!
I am extremely happy with the way the plots and subplots came alive in Order & Chaos! To use a volleyball analogy, Shadows of the Knight is the set while Order & Chaos is the spike. I look forward to the challenge of maintaining the same fast pace through the remaining three books of the saga. For now though, my focus needs to return to finishing my edits on the first book (although the way the plot lines flow through the two books, I'll probably be editing both simultaneously). If nothing else, at least there won't be a long wait for a sequel when readers get their hands on my first book!
