Hi! It’s me Isabelle Knight here with a writing update! (The first one ever on this website!) It has been a whirlwind couple of months with tons of writing, revising, and polishing. I finished the first draft of my series a couple weeks ago and am revising book three. I’ll put the final polishes on book two before revising book four. Hopefully, book one will be out by the time I have finished revising book three. I would be revising book three at this moment, but I think I’ve done all I can today.
Today was exhausting. I think I’ve had to revise four thousand words, maybe about two chapters. Yeah… so, I’m exhausted. It was really hard to refine one scene to depict one of my character’s feelings, emotions, and I also had to rework some of the setting description. I can’t tell you exactly which scenes I had to rework without giving out any spoilers (sorry!), but I can give you a snippet of the revised work. It may not appear in the final draft, but it’s what I got today.
They hadn’t been walking for more than five minutes when a shiver traced up Elenora’s spine. The sky above was a deep, unsettling purple, casting a faint glow that barely penetrated the dense, black canopy. Below, everything – trees, grass, bushes – was an unrelenting black. Vines and branches were intertwined so tightly that Elenora had to constantly dodge sharp spikes jutting out menacingly from several trunks.
It took me a while to get this right and it might still not be perfect (then again, what piece of writing is?) but this is a snippet of the second draft. It was pretty hard to get the setting to reflect Elenora’s thoughts – dark and tangled. That needed a lot of revising but now that I’m done, I think I’m pretty happy with that.
I’m pretty tired since I am not a fan of revising. The thing I hate most is when you just cut one thing, you pull out one single thread and the whole story sweater just unravels at your feet. Well, at least I’ve revised more than a quarter of the book. The first draft was about 68,000 words. I’m not sure how long the second draft will be though. Or the completed manuscript.
Anyway, that’s my writing update for today. I’ll also be posting some book recommendations, what books I’ve been reading, and… I’m planning to have a Book of the Month! I’ll choose one of the books or series that I read this month and one of them will be the Book of the Month! Results will be in at the end of the month (May 31, 2024). Yay! If all goes well, I also plan to have a Book of the Year, though I’m not sure yet.
That’s the end of this blog and thanks so much for coming! I think I’m almost done with putting the final polishes on book one! I’ll be doing a cover reveal soon and I think the publication date will be announced soon! Looking forward to it and I hope you are too! Until next time,
Isabelle.