Embraced by Darkness is finished!! To say I’m happy dancing would be the understatement of the year, because for a while there, I just didn’t think those two little magic words–the end–were ever going to hit the page.
I actually had a brilliant writing day yesterday–and all because I was stuck at our old house. We’re getting the grotty old carpets replaced with a mix of new carpet and laminate flooring, and I had to be there to open and lock up. So, armed with my trusty laptop, a comfy camp chair and the kettle to make a cuppa tea (most important–the thinking process can survive without many things, but never without tea), I actually just sat there and wrote all day. With no distractions in the form of email, internet, or dogs wanting to be walked, I managed the 8 pages to finish off Embraced by Darkness, and then started a whole new story–and wrote 9 pages of that! 😀 The new one is going to be a short based on Riley’s world and characters, and is set somewhere between the third and fourth books. But it’s told from Quinn’s pov. It’s been a really interesting exercise to write from his pov, keeping within the boundries of his character as we know it from the books, but trying to bring more of him to life. I’m actually not sure if this story will go anywhere or just fizzle out and die, but at this point, I’m enjoying writing it. And it’s interesting to write Riley from someone elses pov.
Anyway, Embraced ended up being 414 pages long, which is a little shorter than most of the other books. But I’m hoping that with edits (which I have to do next week) I’ll add a few more pages. I think the lowest page count for any of my books so far was 428, and I’d at least like to hit that. The printing process reduces the apparent size of a book anyway, and I’d hate for readers to think I was short-changing them–even if by only a few pages.