Category Archives: Questioner’s Shadow

Fragments, Questioner's Shadow, Writing

Questioner’s Shadow Draft Finished!

With 4200 words today, I tagged the end on to Questioner’s Shadow. It feels good to have it in the bag. For the past three weeks, I’ve wondered if I’d get there, and now, I’m there.

You’ll notice, if you were playing along at home, that it’s a little shorter than the length I’d estimated, but the target numbers on the progress bar are always a guess. I’m not writing to a length. I’m trying to guess the size of the story from some very fudgy data. The fact that I came within 1500 words is awesome to me.

What’s next?

It’ll sit alone in the StoryBox kettle for a couple weeks to cure, and then I’ll pull it out and start working it into shape, adding whatever I missed, and basically trying to sort out any really egregious errors. Then, I’ll send it to my readers, and a month later, they’ll return it with all my failings pointed out. I’ll fix the problems they show me, and then I’ll work on publishing it. If all goes well, a few months from now, you’ll be able to read it in its final form.

During that time, I’ll be working on the draft of Fragments – the second book of A Wizard’s Work. I’m excited to get to work on it.

Now, off to watch a movie or something and relax.

Questioner's Shadow, Shattered, Writing

Shattered Paperback Now at Amazon!

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Now you can get the Shattered paperback from Amazon.

I don’t have much else to say today because I have to go get some tires changed, but you can see that I’m making progress on Questioner’s Shadow. I started Act 3 yesterday. It’s all downhill from here, I hope.

What that means is that I get to start on Fragments, the sequel to Shattered, soon. Maybe early June.

Off to get the tires changed.

Questioner's Shadow, Writing

Questioner’s Shadow Soundtrack

Sometimes when I write, I listen to music. Other times, I turn it off. I’ve never really been a playlist creator, generally listening to whatever I feel like at the time.

However, on Questioner’s Shadow, I decided to make a playlist. It contains a couple unsigned bands (Whitcomb and Iron Thrones). The Whitcomb album can be found on Amazon (like the rest). I don’t know about the Iron Thrones albums, so I linked to them. Here’s the list (not in any particular order), band first, and then album(s).

Hurt – Goodbye To The Machine, The Re-Consumation, Vol. 1, Vol II
Opeth – Black Water Park, Damnation, Deliverance, Ghost Reveries, My Arms Your Hearse, Watershed
Iron Thrones – Visions of Light, The Wretched Sun
Dream Theater – Systematic Chaos
Katatonia – Viva Emptiness
Whitcomb – Crown Park
The Sword – Age of Winters, Gods of the Earth, Warp Riders
Mushroomhead – XIII, XX
Fair To Midland – Fables From A Mayfly
Mastadon – Crack The Skye

Questioner's Shadow, Writing

Questioner’s Shadow Progress

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I made some decent progress on Questioner’s Shadow today. It may not really look like much, but I cut a few hundred words before tacking on new ones.

I’ve had a couple issues with making progress on it. First, the workshop interrupted it. I’d hoped to have it done before the workshop, but couldn’t make that happen. Then, when I came back, I had Shattered to get out the door. I’m going to need to do some better planning around the publishing part. I really can’t seem to edit one book and write on another at the same time. Or maybe it was just hangover from the workshop. I have no idea.

Eventually, I realized I’d left it in a spot that would have been difficult to get through if I hadn’t interrupted the work on it. I feared being able to do the scene justice (I still do). But in the absence, that fear had grown debilitating. So last night, while lying in bed, I told myself, “Mark, you are going to write something on QS tomorrow, even if it’s crap.”

So I did. And I think it’s better than crap, which is a bonus.

Now, the current plan is to finish Questioner’s Shadow, and then immediately get to work on Fragments, the second book in A Wizard’s Work.

I am going to make the attempt to edit QS while writing Fragments, but if push comes to shove, the edits will wait until the first draft of Fragments is complete. I’m not going to interrupt a draft in the middle again, if I can help it.