Mah book!

[Mantis]

Or just a different pseudonym entirely so that you can make use of that cool sounding name you always wished you had. I already know what mine will be if I ever produce anything worth publishing.

[Sly Boots]

Again, considered, but in the end I kind of just wanted my name on it so I could feel like I'd actually done something worthwhile

[Sly Boots]

Just finished the first draft of book 2!

14 months and 300,000 words later

[Rusty]

<facebook style like>

[Sly Boots]

[Jez]

Well done sly. I promise you I will read your first book. Probably when I go to south Sudan next year. Might have some hope of completing the back log by then and be ready for a load more.

[Sly Boots]

Sounds good, cheers matey!

[Snowy]

Just started test reading my mate Matthew Pritchard's new fantasy epic, but happy to test read yours too mate, (will still buy it obv...) as per PM, say when

[Sly Boots]

Man I hoped you'd be done with that as I took so damn long

Yep, sometime over the next couple of days I'll pull all the various separate chapter documents into a single file and wing it your way. Looking forward to your thoughts!

[Mantis]

300,000

Yikes.

How much are you planning to trim off that? Seems quite a lot bigger than the first one, or perhaps I just didn't notice how large it was because I flew through it.

[Sly Boots]

Yeah... first one came in at 243k on the final draft. I'm planning on two rounds of editing, and hoping I can shave around 50k from it so bring it down closer to the first one.

There were quite a few times where what was just a short scene in my head ended up requiring two fair-sized chapters to lay out properly -_-

But there are quite a few sections of more or less summing up what's been going on, as much to help me as anything, and a pacy reread will hopefully show that all that sort of stuff can go.

[Mantis]

Wow, it did not feel like 243k, that's about as long as Order of the Phoenix! Well if you want another opinion after Snowy's I'd be happy to help.

Saves me buying a copy. -_-

Jokes, I'll still buy one. <3

[Sly Boots]

Cheers for the offer

I should be ok, though... with Snowy and another mate of mine who's going to read through the first draft I'll have had about six different pairs of eyes on it, so hopefully that's enough.

[Jez]

Is your website offline now sly?

[Sly Boots]

Is your website offline now sly?

Ah, depending on when you downloaded it, it probably still has the .co.uk site listed. A couple of months later I set up a .com instead and let the old one expire a couple of months ago.

New one: http://www.alan-ratcliffe.com/