Stop press: HTTN now has an unbroken chain of 85000 words, from Prologue to Chapter 13 (or 12a, if you really want). The other 20k are an island of magic-infested action close to the end of the book.

odd, really - that 20k aside, there ain't a lot of action in the book at all. i'm wondering if this might be a problem, but on the other hand any more fight/magic sequences would have to be levered in and would look distinctly unnatural. is there anything wrong with 75% of the book being...

Vol.2 of the Empire Dance is proceeding apace - but I've had to make the decision (not easy) that after this I will need to put the project on the back-burner for a while so that the Curse does not suffer. Getting my head out of space-opera mode and back into epic fantasyland will be a bit of a wrench.

But, on the plus side, I'm rather happy with the way ED has been developing, both in my head and on (virtual) paper. When I first resurrected the idea and decided to break it into manageable,...

i keep writing in segments - bits and pieces spread across the length and breadth of Malessar's Curse. so when i say i have 58000 words, they don't all join together....

but a marathon couple of weeks has finally seen the first five chapters (and the prologue) stitched together as a coherent narrative. now what will happen is that i'll jump forward again, probably to the middle of the book, to where Cassia actually meets Malessar for the first time. as this takes place in Hellea, a...

We're on chapter 3 now, but Cassia has not yet left her village. I aim to have Baum reveal his plan to her in chapter 4 after we've got rid of Norrow, then the details are up in the air till we reach the capital. somehow they have to get to the coast so they can take a boat to Galliarca, and around that point i have to split Cassia from the rest of the party so she can spend the remainder of the tale with Malessar.

the second half of the Big Story is fermenting gently in my head, but...