It’s been a few months since The Riven Crown debuted and I’ve been able to enjoy the satisfaction of having put a chunky fantasy novel out there for people to chew on.

But of course one can’t rest on one’s laurels for long, can one? I’m not finished yet. In fact I’m almost certain that The Wandering Knife will be a five book series. Two down, three to go.

After a month of clearing my head (read: drinking alcohol) and engaging in soul-searching meditation (read: sleeping off my hangovers) I cracked my knuckles and addressed the blank page once again.

Unfortunately, nothing happened.

Potential reasons why fantasy series lie unfinished

It’s no secret that there are some great authors out there with some famously unfinished fantasy series. Authors with huge fanbases eagerly waiting for the next one… and waiting… and waiting.

There’s probably a bunch of reasons for this, but the ones that I think might lie at the heart of the matter are as follows:

1. It takes ages to write a fantasy novel

2. Writing fantasy novels is hard

That’s pretty much it.

Now that I am at the midpoint of my series I have full sympathy for any writer anywhere who is struggling or has struggled to move towards The End.

My solution to the problem

Having successfully cracked my knuckles and stared at the metaphorical blank screen, I decided to try a different approach to writing this one.

My previous method to writing novels has been to come up with an outline and to write the first draft as quickly as possible, usually over a couple of months. And then to spend the next three years of my life redrafting the thing until my eyes start to bleed when I look at it.

Always on the lookout for efficient practices, I caught wind of an approach to writing that claimed to yielding faster results.

Write only one draft.

This idea had a great appeal to me. I decided to give it a go. I would come up with a thorough overview of Book Three, then progress scene-by-scene. Each scene would be worked on until it was polished and done. Then, I was assuming, in only a few short months I would have my finished novel.

As it turned out, in only a few short months I’d still not completed a single scene.

So that approach was something of a dead-end, and I’ve since gone back to my original modus operandi, complete with eye-bleeding redrafting schedule.

Oh well.

No really, how do you finish a fantasy series?

I must concede I came up with the title of this post before I’d thought of an answer. And it occurs to me that I can’t really claim to know, as I haven’t achieved it yet. But I will. Unless fate strikes me down in the meantime, I will finish this series.

And if I had to guess, I would say the answer is:

One word at a time.

This bit is the ‘call to action’ I’m supposed to include

I can’t help but notice that, although I’m getting some great read-through for the series, The Riven Crown is a bit light-on for reviews at the moment! I’m guessing that readers as so drained after the emotional rollercoaster that they’ve been on that they’re finding it too physically demanding to click on a link on Amazon and leave a review or rating. What else could it be?

Perhaps some light cajoling will help. Here goes.

If you’ve read The Riven Crown and can spare a few minutes to write an honest review, please do so by following this link! I’d really appreciate your feedback.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Time to add the next word or two to the series.

The journey of the Wandering Knife continues in The Riven Crown, which launches today.

For readers who enjoy high fantasy with a blood-spattering of grimdark, Book Two of the series broadens the world introduced in Red Harvest Moon. Magic, monsters, and peril await! Celebrate launch day with me by being among the first people in the world to crack open the pages of my new fantasy novel.

The book is available in both print and ebook at the following links:

US readers continue the adventure here!

UK readers sojourn to this site!

Australian readers prepare for the journey here!

THE WYRM HAS RISEN.

Ren Sheercrow is close to freedom. The corrupt forces of Urizan have ravaged the land, leaving nothing alive. In the southern reaches of Soren the former bandit has survived, and shepherded the villagers of Puttle to the edge of safety. Once done, his reward will be a return to exile.

But before the escape is made, a mysterious wayfarer tells the Black Feather the exit is cut off. The enemy have raised a new horror, a colossal wyrm, a Great One of ancient days. And the monster is driven on by a Zealot of the Urizan Sect, who harbours the ambition to destroy Soren utterly.

Pursued by Rammanu, the Black Feather must turn aside from the path to escape, and return to peril. To walk knowingly, willingly into the blackened heart of Soren, where death waits on all sides. Without Ren to stand in the way, Rammanu will seize the ultimate weapon of destruction. He will seize the Riven Crown.

About a week ago I received the advanced copy of The Riven Crown in the mail.

As a writer there’s no greater thrill than holding your own book in your hands. Seeing the cover off the computer screen and in the real world was the first joy. After that, the heft of a 447 page fantasy novel was an incredible feeling!

I also received a copy of Red Harvest Moon with the updated cover.

All of this is very exciting, but the best part is that:

THE RIVEN CROWN IS LAUNCHING ON OCTOBER 1ST.

So we are only three weeks away. For those of you who love a print edition, you’ll be able to order one then.

For those of you who prefer ebooks, the novel will be live on October 1st. If you would like to make sure you are among the first people on the planet to read it, you can follow the links below to preorder your copy.

American readers who want the ebook can preorder The Riven Crown here.

My fellow Aussies can preorder the ebook here.

UK readers can preorder the ebook here!

Receiving these print copies was deeply, deeply satisfying for me. But that’s nothing compared to the idea of the books being out there, read by others. I can’t wait for October 1 to arrive, and for Book Two of the Wandering Knife to begin its journey!

Ok, enough spruiking. I’m just going to put the books back on the shelf and admire them for a bit more.

Miles.

I shouldn’t have to point this out, but I feel I must. There it is, in the front matter of my forthcoming novel The Riven Crown. A disclaimer.

I did not use GenAI to write the novel. At all. Not to brainstorm ideas, not to research, not to solve the many frustrating problems I encountered along the way, not to make up a name for a new character, and certainly not to write prose.

I feel I must point it out. Just to go on the record.

I will go further, right here in the public forum of my newsletter/blog, for the audience of my readers (hello and thank you). I would like to solemnly swear that I will never, ever use GenAI to help me write. Ever, at all.

And there’s only one reason for this.

When GenAI broke into public consciousness back in late 2022, I must confess it caused me some angst. With a few keystrokes one could easily produce entire slabs of prose. Or receive outlines and ideas for short stories, novels, plays, anything you asked for.

Of course, the quality seemed pretty naff, but I still felt a type of dread watching these things work. What was the point? If a computer could whip up a short story in the style of Ernest Hemingway in a few seconds, what was left to writers?

I had the awful feeling that the craft I’d spent a lifetime developing was about to become meaningless.

It didn’t take me long to realise that this technology would lead to a tsunami of content. Kind of like the whole shrimp-Jesus phenomenon that’s threatening to sink Facebook, but on the digital bookshelves of the world. It’s hard enough to stand out in a field of thousands of fellow humans, let alone in a desert of AI bots churning out spam novels.

I don’t care if other people want to use AI to help them write. I don’t think you’re a bad person if you use GenAI in your writing. That’s your choice.

But in my view, the more material a writer gets from prompting, the less of the finished product they can call your own. It’s the same as throwing out an idea for an improv troupe and then claiming you wrote the sketch.

However, a disdain for folding spam writing into my own work isn’t what motivates me to swear off ever typing a prompt into ChatGPT.

The reason why I will never, ever use GenAI to help me write is because I don’t want any help.

I can write my own goddamn novels, thank you very much.

Writing, good writing is an act of human expression. It’s born of the human condition, and is a reflection of it. The best writing glows with humanity.

That’s why I don’t want help from a computer algorithm. I don’t need it, and I don’t want it. I want to express myself, my individuality, my worldview, my humanity. I know it’s hard to do this well, and that’s the whole point. It’s hard to be a human.

But it’s also awesome.

As is the feeling of having written, entirely on my own and without any software assistance, the second novel in a fantasy series. I loved writing The Riven Crown, and am proud of it. Why would I pass up that opportunity to express myself, just for the sake of a shortcut or two?

Enough said on that. The Riven Crown is launching in less than two months. The proof copy is in the mail, so hopefully I’ll have a sneak peek of that soon!

(This blog post was written without assistance from GenAI)

Anyone who has ever daydreamed about writing a novel might be interested to know how much time it takes to get the job done. No two writers are the same, and some books get written faster than others. Kerouac’s On the Road, for example, was done and dusted in about three weeks. That’s one end of the scale. At the other we have people like George RR Martin, who’s been working on the last book of A Song of Ice and Fire for roughly fourteen years. (No pressure, George.)

I just finished a novel, and I wound up somewhere on the lower end of that scale.

As per my recent cover reveal, Book Two in my fantasy series The Wandering Knife is all done and wrapped up. I began writing The Riven Crown on May 1, 2021 and finished it on March 30, 2024. Which means in real time it took me two years and eleven months to write.

The Riven Crown is, by a comfortable margin, the longest thing I’ve ever written. It’s a bona-fide chunky fantasy tome at more than 140,000 words. To get the job done took a commitment of time and effort. To be honest, I’m happy the book was finished in less than three years. There were some moments when I thought it would never be done!

But how long exactly did it take me to write my novel? How much time in the chair? How much time staring at that same word document?

34090 minutes is the answer.

Or to put it another way, 568 hours.

That’s almost 24 full days of my life, or 71 full work days.

That’s a very specific answer, and you might wonder how I know this. Whenever I sit down to write, I start a stopwatch. I have a spreadsheet in which I log how many minutes I spend writing. I do this to keep up momentum, and also to track what times of year I am able to get more work done.

I’m not sure if spreadsheets often elicit much emotion, but when I look over my spreadsheet of time spent writing, I feel a mixture of pride and dread. Pride because I’ve stuck to the task of writing over many (many) sessions, and have got the job done. Writing this novel was a huge investment of time. I could have learned a language or an instrument in that time. I could have learned important life skills like how to tile a bathroom. I could have spent more time with my family. Though I would probably use that time to talk about the fantasy novel I’d like to write one day.

And I feel dread because I need to do it all over again.

The fantasy series is not over. This is not a two-parter. It will be at least three books long, and probably more. The journey of the Wandering Knife will continue for some time yet.

I took a short break from writing after I finished up The Riven Crown, but I’m back at it. About a week ago I started Book Three of the series, and I’ve already logged about ten hours of writing. The little cells in my excel document are filling up again. Maybe I’ll get this novel done a little faster, and maybe I won’t. Something I learned from writing my last novel is that it’ll take as long as it takes. I’ll get there in the end. One minute at a time.

To paraphrase the saying, the spreadsheet goes ever on and on.

If you’ve ever wondered how long it takes to write a FULL-LENGTH FANTASY NOVEL then stick around for my next post. Yes, the header image is a screen capture of my tracking-minutes-spent-writing spreadsheet. I will be adding some stuff up and will probably also be using division. Hold on to your hats.

The Riven Crown continues the adventures of Ren Sheercrow, the Wandering Knife.

Olivia Rea, who created the artwork for Red Harvest Moon, has returned to provide the cover artwork for the second book in the series. To be honest, I’ve been sitting on this amazing artwork for a while now! It’s great to be able to put it out there.

You can take a look at the Amazon page here.

You can check out more of Olivia’s work here.

The Riven Crown will be published on October 1, 2024. After almost three years of work it’s an incredible feeling to have it finished and ready to go.

In the meantime it’s on to Book Three!

I had tried to keep things simple. A landing page with a free novella for anyone signing up. A short sequence of welcome emails. And the occasional newsletter. That’s it.

Like most writers, I’m more interested in writing fiction than automated emails. And I’m also not great with computers. But I know the importance of a good email newsletter. So after a lot of mucking around and confusion, I got it all set up. I thought I had everything I needed. A web presence that gave out my novella and got people interested in my writing. Set and forget.

So I forgot for a little while, and focused on writing Book Two. Occasionally I checked my subscriber stats and was pleased to see a steady trickle of new sign-ups. Great, I thought. The system works.

Only, as it turns out, no it doesn’t. For some reason too technical for me to understand, my delicate author platform had collapsed somewhere. My new subscribers weren’t receiving the novella they’d signed up for, let alone moving on from that to buy Book One.

Which platform was I using? Honestly, it doesn’t matter. I’m over trying to get this stuff to work.

Honestly, I just want to write. All of this author platform stuff is a headache. So rather than waste any more time trying to solve it all, I’ve pulled the plug on my existing setup. And I’m moving here, to Substack.

I’m not looking to monetise my newsletter. I just want to have a place on the internet where readers can grab my novella if they would like it, and can receive the occasional update on my writing. Book Two is coming out this year, and I want to be able to let my email list know about it.

Simple. And hopefully Substack will be simple too.