Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated — Mark Twain.

Sorry, I’ve been too busy to post recently. I was caught up in the plummeting oil market. Since last summer my company laid off over half its employees and closed five facilities. The good news is after three months of searching I found a job and we’ve moved again. That’s life in the mining industry I’m afraid. Sadly my story is all too common now, and an ever increasing number of employers view their workers, blue and white collar alike, more as contractors than long-term investments. And then they wonder why employees aren’t loyal.

More good news is that with a bit of time off I made quite a bit of progress on Kingdom’s Forge 2. Currently the manuscript sits at 90K words, about 360 pages based on a 250 word page. I would estimate there’s another 10K left in the first draft. I am planning on four drafts in total, each faster than the last. The process will be: finish the first draft, polish a second, editor for review, third draft corrections, editor for detailed work, and then a final review before publication. I’m aiming for a springtime launch, though the day job tends to affect that greatly.

So what’s in the book?

In the ‘current’ timeline we’ll see fallout from the war between the elves. Several years have passed, but time hasn’t diminished the danger faced by Dain and his little family. We’ll also spend a significant amount of time in Dain’s past, his entry into the paladin order and his subsequent dismissal. Between the long flashbacks and multiple POV’s, I’ll be focused on editing and keeping everything straight to provide the readers with as rewarding an experience as possible. There’s nothing more disruptive than a misspelled word or other grammatical error, and I will be the first to admit that my work is far from perfect. But I will also say that I pledge to do my absolute best for the reader.

Thank you.