I’ve finished work on the first draft of what I’m calling book #3.  It’s titled, The Beta Praxis.  While something of a unique name, and praxis is a fairly unfamiliar word, it’s quite appropriate considering everything that is happening in the book.  Title’s always kick my ass.  That, and cover art.  The need to reduce the essence of hundreds of pages of story into a few simple images or a single phrase seems to have detrimental effects on my mind.

The Beta Praxis is shorter than my first two books.  This was a primary objective when I started the project.  When I started book #1, I didn’t know if I have enough plot for a short story, a novella, or a novel.  Judging by feedback from my editor, that book is longer than what is generally considered typical for my genre.  Still, the plot warranted it, so I believe it works.  Then when I wrote book #2.  The intent was for it to be shorter than the first book.  I blew it.  Book two was significantly longer.  That’s one of the reasons that it’s still sitting on my desk and awaiting its first revision.

Timing is the second reason the book two is still sitting on my desk.  I finished the last chapter of that book at the very end of October.  Since November was National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I had to jump right into book three if I wanted to participate.  So began work on The Beta Praxis.  There was a lot of good news on this project.  First of all, I successfully completed NaNoWriMo: 50,000 words in 30 days.  Secondly, when I completed work on the first draft of this book on December 14th, I wrapped with a word count of 72,000 words.  That was right in my target range for a change and a big relief in many ways.

Now it’s on to editing.  Book one is with Kane Gilmour at the moment.  He’s working on the edits.  I hope to have the book for sale by the end of December 2013.  It’s been with him longer than anticipated but I’ve filled the time with work on books 2 and 3.  In the meantime I’ll be working on the next drafts for books 2 and 3.  Perhaps somewhat illogically, I’ll actually be doing the next draft of book 3 before going back to work on book 2.  Does that actually make book 3, book number 2 instead?  I’m not sure.  But it’s certainly getting confusing.

Want to know why I jumped work on book 3 to the head of the line?  More on that in a later post…