The last two weeks have been a wild beehive of activity around here. Lots of news to report, so let’s get to it.
First, I’ve been let go from Accenture after months of internal job seeking. While they have more work than they have people to do it, my abilities we’re directly applicable to what they needed. Between my experience and specific talents and their requirements in technical writing, we couldn’t find a good match. I did get one job offer there, but it was not equivalent to what I have been doing for the last 10 years, and at a nearly 40% pay cut. It was, in essence, an entry level job, and as I had no desire to climb the ladder again, I passed.
Eventually it came to the final day interview and once I walked out of that I felt like a new man. All the anxiety, angst, conflicting emotions, and intellectual confusion just fell away and finally felt free for the first time in years. I took a weekend to revel in an endorphin high and then buckled down to work again on Monday. And by work I mean, focusing on my fiction writing and the revising and release of An Empire Forgotten.
First thing I did was print out the entire first draft of AEF and a compilation of all the comments I received from everyone king enough to review it. The comments alone came to 28 printed pages, a satisfying number to my mind. I spent the next couple of days alternating between reviewing my manuscript and reacquainting myself with the book. The biggest issue I needed to resolve was the weak plot of the first 8 chapters. Everyone enjoyed the story once Hieronymus and Archer entered the desert, but were meh about the first section. For months I wracked my brain for a solution with no success. While awaiting that epiphany I did some work on my short story, Storms on an Opal Sea in an attempt to bring it closer to completion.
Neal Adam's version of Conan
But Friday the epiphany arrived.
Friday morning I awoke with the solution to my plot problems. I spent all morning revising the initial chapter outline and all afternoon drafting an entirely new 5th or 6th version of the first chapter. Over the weekend I added chapters 2 and 3. A decent version of chapter 1 was reviewed by the local writers group on Monday night and given a provisional thumbs up. Copies of the first 3 chapters have now been sent to some selfless alpha readers for their new input. At this stage I can truthfully state I’m feeling really good about the comments and story as its now evolving.
Am currently working on chapter 4 with the next couple of chapters outlined and ready to go. I’m now at the point of the story where some of the original story elements can be merged into the new story. Some real work remains on merging the POVs and some story elements, but once past them the rest of the book should go smoothly.
My first two weeks as a full-time fiction writer have gone well. I’m excited and more determined than ever to whip this book into shape for release in the next few months.
