Book 2 progress update

Last night, I sat down with my iPad and started thinking about book 2. Although I have the basic plot worked out and know where I want to go with it, I realised I didn’t create a backstory for the Brotherhood of the Black Ibis. So today, I have been fleshing that out a bit so that everything will tie in together nicely.

Chapter one and two are slowly being refined and worked on, so I can pave the way for the rest of the story. When I first wrote chapter one, I felt like it didn’t match the quality of book one, and I hated it. But after a 2 day break, I reread it and it’s actually half decent. It’s a draft, I don’t like to get too caught up on editing at this stage.

What I haven’t done yet- the map!

Anyone who has followed me for a while will know that I’m passionate about my maps, and go to great lengths to make them. I have just ordered an A2 poster of the above outline, which should give me the right size ratio. These continents are much larger than the Eastern Isles, so scale has been a bit of an issue.

For anyone who hasn’t been following me: I don’t use photoshop. I do my cartography by hand, and tweak it in Paint. Yes, Paint.

Once I have the world map done in A2, I’ll scan portions of it for each section of the book, similar to Eddings’ The Belgariad.

Also…coming soon: an A3 poster of my digitally created map of the Eastern Isles. I made it in Wonderdraft, and am toying with the idea of selling A3 posters.

Given my work commitments, book two may not be completed until the end of Feb. Let’s aim for a soft deadline of March 2nd for launch.