I’ve been neglecting this blog lately, but I thought I’d dust it off to give an update on the state of the next book and some other bits and pieces.

Next novel

I’m hard at work on the sequel to The Unbound Man, tentatively titled The Lordless City. Right now I’m about a third of the way through the first draft. What, only a third? Well, yes. Progress has been slower than I’d hoped, largely due to life stuff unrelated to writing. (Such a pesky thing, life — always getting in the way of what you really want to do.)

The good news is that beginnings are always the hardest part of a story for me. I hope and expect to pick up speed from this point on. In fact, it’s already started to happen. I’m pretty happy with the chapters I have so far, and I’m excited about where the book is headed. If you enjoyed The Unbound Man, I think you’ll like this one, too.

Short stories

I have several of these at various stages of completion & submission, but no news to report just yet. It’s possible that one of them might make its way onto Amazon in the not too distant future. Stay tuned.

The Great Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off

I entered The Unbound Man in Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO for short). It received a lovely review on Bookworm Blues (about halfway down the page) and was named winner of its sub-group, but unfortunately just missed out on the overall group win. Well, I say ‘just’, but in all honesty I have no idea where it might have been positioned among the other sub-group winners. Still, it’s nice to look at that review and imagine that The Unbound Man was this close to becoming a finalist, isn’t it? (Yes, it is.)

The SPFBO has really highlighted how much great self-published fantasy is out there these days. I’ve come across a number of books which I now want to read (and not just finalists, either). If you want to know more, D. Moonfire has put together a handy reference page with details of every book in the contest. Some of the data is still being added, but the page is well worth a look.