Rough Draft for Angst 2 is Finally Done!

I’m a little beside myself right now.  They told me the second book was the hardest, and they weren’t kidding.  (Of course, this means the third book is easy, right!?)  Whew, I feel like I just gave birth to a monster!  I wasn’t completely sure what to do after writing a novel, after a lot of pacing and consideration, I decided to write.  I figured writing blog post sharing details and the expected release date was long overdue.

The Buried in Angst rough draft is now complete.  The sequel to my fantasy novel, Angst, weighs in at about 130,000 words.  This is about 5,000 more than the first book.  Buried in Angst is 64 Chapters long, 65 if you include the prelude.  This is not the last Angst book, I’m about 1/3rd done writing Drowning in Angst.

What does this mean?  My alpha team has been reading and reviewing all along and the good news is, their feedback has been all positive.  Over the next several weeks I’ll be pushing hard to revise this draft per their suggestions before I release it to the beta team.  I’m hoping to have their feedback within 30 days or so.

My wife edited Angst after I received feedback from the last beta team.  Unfortunately her new job is too demanding for her to thoroughly scrub it.  Because of my own insecurities, and the fact that it took so long to write, I don’t want to release the sequel without a fine polish.  Everyone who enjoyed the first book deserves the best I can provide, so I’m in the process of interviewing editors.  It’s a little expensive, and will drag out the release date, but I want it to be right.

I’ve been told, based on the length of Buried in Angst that it will take about 60 days to edit.  That pushes the release date to May.  I hate waiting that long, but I really feel it’s best to offer the most professional and clean novel I can make available.  I’m not one for patience, but hopefully you will find this to be good news.

My other good news is that, I’m not gonna wait to start working on the next book!  Drowning in Angst is mostly written in my head, and I see no reason to hold back the flood gates.  (Heh, sorry for the pun.)  Throughout the 90 days Angst 2 is being reviewed and edited, I’ll be writing Angst 3.  I’m hungry to complete this series.  Obviously not in a rush, but I’m having fun and have more ideas I want to tackle.

Finally, I want to thank everyone for their support and patience.  Working full time, being a full time parent, being social, trying to stay somewhat healthy and then writing full time is tough to balance.  A lot of life gets in the way, but I’ve got this great team of friends, family and amazing people who have told me they like Angst and want more.  Your gracious reviews and thoughtful messages via Twitter, Facebook, my blog and e-mail have kept me writing.  I’m forever grateful.