books

My second draft is finished. That's really good news. I hope to send the manuscript to an agent or a publisher in a couple of months. I'd like to finish one more draft to the work, and then I'll consider it ready. I finished the last 70-page section yesterday, and frankly, I had a good time reading my own writing. I know there are still some weak areas in the narrative, but I'd like to see what other people say about it before deciding for myself what to fix. But I really like my characters, and I enjoy the storyline.

Now that I have some time, while I wait for several people to get me some feedback on my book, I guess I need to get started on the sequel. I've already "started" it, but it's mostly intros for some other characters and some ideas I have for what needs to happen to them. I'm not going to turn it into another five billion character piece, where every single semi-significant person gets airtime in the story. I just want to focus on a couple of other people. So I'm shifting the focus to a little orphan girl, a priest, and a piece of history section about a queen. The latter will be like a flashback, a story from an ancient past that coincides with the current one. The good and noble knight from the first book will still be the/a central character. This is going to be a difficult story to pull together, I think, but I'm excited about hte characters. I'm looking forward to writing a spunky, intelligent, seven-year-old orphan girl. And I'm happy to delve into the disillusionment of a baffled priest. I needed to have several ideas in place, so I could set up for it in the first book. The first book could definitely stand on its own, but I think it will be a good idea to be ready with a sequel in case I actually get published and start selling books. Plus I enjoy the story, and I think I'll have a good time continuing it.

Anyway, I think I'm going to read some of Blue Like Jazz, because my girlfriend wants me to. Hehe. I'm not promising to finish it. I like it, and all, but those books never hold my interest for any extended period of time.