I posted about this on Facebook this morning, but I thought it was worthy of a quick site post of its own.  I finished that last chapter of Project Lamplighter last night.  This is my second novel and the prequel to Halon-Seven, which I hope to release by year-end.  Written entirely in my spare time, the first draft of Project Lamplighter was started July 1st, 2013 and finished on October 30th, 3013.  It’s 182,000 words and took me a grand total of 170.23 hours to pen.

While I hope to shorten the overall length of the manuscript as I work on draft #2, there are a few small elements than actually need to be added to an early portion of the book.  So I hope to cut more than I add before all is said and done.

Still, that’s a lot of time spent in front of the computer and I think I have a very compelling story to show for it.  And while I expect that readers will finish book #1, Halon-Seven, and demand to know what happens next, I felt strongly compelled to explore what happened to the primary characters prior to the events of Halon-Seven and took the opportunity to use book #2 to explore those events.  There’s also a very practical reason for taking this side trip.  Several of the events that take place in Project Lamplighter, as well as several of the characters, will be making an appearance in book #3.  Similarly, part of the plot of Lamplighter will be significant to understanding book #3.  Understanding the nonlinear timeline will be important.

What does all of this mean?  Well, you’ll need to read books #1 and #2 before it all makes sense.  But I’m looking forward to working on book #3 almost as much as I’m anticipating the actual release of book #1!  Unfortunately, these things take time.  A lot of it, as it turns out.