Promises can be fickle things.
I should know. I've been promising the completion of The Dragon Slayer for well over a year now. And while many of these were general promises, i.e. "in the coming months" or "by the end of the year", they were promises all the same.
Before hopes get up too much, this update is not a promise of an actual release date. That's up to the future to dictate and one promise I'm not quite ready to deliver.
However, steady words have been flowing. Characters have taken the first steps in their final arcs of finishing this journey. If dedication and concentration on my behalf wins out (and procrastination and television watching stays on the backburner), I should have a completed draft by the end of June.
Meaning it's entirely possible a late-summer/early autumn release is on the horizon.
The end of The Dragon Slayer has always been in my mind, or at the very least, scribbled on scraps of paper that have collected in a binder. Getting there has been a journey, with words of the first draft written almost immediately after the release of book one in the "Magic of Crieo" series, The Blue Gem, in 2018. Starts and stops have happened along the way, with often months passing by without progress.
Action in The Dragon Slayer picks up immediately after the events of The Blue Gem. This fantasy novel involves the same characters, with a handful of new ones entering the fray. With publication still a few months out, there's time to get caught up, or to re-read, as The Blue Gem is available in paperback or to download.
Of course, you can also start at the beginning if you haven't done so yet with The Dragon Princess (released in 2014 and also available in the formats mentioned above). This book kicked off the stories of this fantasy world and, while set 30 years prior to The Blue Gem, involves a couple of the same characters and the gem, plus the sword known as the Dragon Slayer.
Stay tuned in the coming months for more.
Other writing updates and more
Writing has been a heavy focus, and not just on the fantasy novel.
The Boston Celtics are vying for title number 18 and are currently in the Eastern Conference Finals, battling the Miami Heat. And the Boston Red Sox struggled early out of the gates but have warmed up as of late, winning seven of nine.
I took a break from writing on my personal blog after the finish of the NCAA men's basketball tournament but found some inspiration last week to cobble together something new.
Free time has also been spent reading (mostly) plays and a couple of books mixed in. I recently finished All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, which is a definite recommend.
Speaking of plays, I do have a play brewing. To "well, actually" myself, it's a bunch of random characters, notes, ideas, and musings at the moment. Hopefully soon I'll sit down and mash them all together to see what spills out.
Finally, the fantastic writer Roger Angell passed away on Friday at the tender age of 101. Angell's writing was always top-notch and had a career spanning decades and publications. His essays on baseball were heartfelt, intriguing, and colorful. Angell also wrote an introduction for The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White; a book that I've turned to often over the years.
The Passion of Roger Angell (by Tom Verducci, from 2014)
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