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Haven’t read Humans Don’t Have Horns yet? It’s available on KU, in paperback, and the audiobook is widely available across major platforms. All links in my Linktree.
Book two in the trilogy, A Crown of Blood and Magic, is now in editing, and the book cover has already been commissioned.
The editing of book 2
My editor has worked through about 40% of the manuscript so far, and I genuinely enjoy working with her. She’s excellent at what she does, but I also appreciate the process itself.
Since this is line editing, the number of suggestions is substantial, as expected. Instead of receiving all the edits in a single, overwhelming batch at the end, we work directly in Google Docs, so I can review and approve suggestions as we go. I’m also able to respond to her comments, especially when she raises questions about clarity, and we can have an ongoing discussion throughout the process.
I imagine at some point we’ll go through certain comments together live, as we did in Humans Don’t Have Horns, because sometimes there’s simply no better way to communicate than by talking.
The beta readers
I’ve also received feedback from two beta readers, one of whom is the amazing . Both their comments were extremely insightful and helpful. I’ve already made some changes based on their notes, though I’m still waiting on feedback from the other two beta readers. I know their insights will be valuable as well.
This is another reason I’m grateful for my editor: she’s comfortable working with a manuscript that is still evolving and may continue to change based on beta reader feedback. A rare find indeed.
The third book
At the same time, I’m hard at work on the third and final book in the trilogy.
I mentioned before that, in some ways, writing book three feels easier than writing book two. You can read here about the challenges book two brings along:
I’m a discovery writer by nature, so when I wrote Humans That Have Horns, I didn’t yet have the full trilogy outlined. Book two was where I really struggled, especially with one of the new characters. Thankfully, beta readers are loving that character so far, which makes me very happy because I invested a great deal of time in developing them.
While writing book two, I also completed the trilogy’s outline. This was not easy for me. My brain does not seem to like outlines.
Right now, I’m still very much at the beginning of book three. I try to write for an hour a day, five days a week. I don’t write on the days I’m editing book two, though.
I’ve shared before that while writing book two, my routine was two and a half hours of writing a day. But now, because I also need to focus on preparing book two for publication, I’ve reduced that time to one hour.
I can’t say it has worked perfectly so far. I had hoped to be further along with my marketing plan for book two by this point, but we’ll see how it goes.
I did update my website as part of the preparations, and I’ve commissioned the cover. I also tried to commission new character art, but the illustrator I wanted never replied 😭
Now for the writing process itself. What I’m about to share contains spoilers for book three and also touches on book two, so this section will be for paid subscribers and my street team only.
