Well, I reached the stage where I couldn’t put the book down last weekend, and thanks to taking my laptop downstairs in front of the TV and watching the Open Golf Championship all weekend, I wrote for over five hours a day. I missed some of the good bits of the golf though!
I actually finished the book just about the same time as Phil Mickelson finished his final round – three shots in the lead. I hope Victor’s Adventures are just as good. It’s just short of 51,000 words. It’ll probably edit down to 45,000 or less when I look at it again later in the year.
There are some loose ends untied that I don’t intend to tidy. What does happen to Sundance, and how many things was he doing at once? I find with Sundance that it’s sometimes better not to know. Who was Amelia? Well, I think we establish who she wasn’t, and I leave the rest to your imagination. Is Victor seriously in love this time? I’ll leave you to decide 🙂
What I’m very pleased with is the way the characters that were from older books, across the time tunnel at times, sorted themselves out. Basically, as all the parties realised they were in different time streams, they all behaved sensibly. I’m just going through editing it to make all of Victor’s narrative in the present tense. I think it works better that way and bring Victor’s personality out more. I’ll leave you to judge whether it works.
And I fed in allusions to new technology, effects of new technology, and strange side-effects from new technology, hopefully without making it sound like a technical manual. I’m going to have fun with some of the illustrations for this book!
This is my last postcard from Camp for this year. Goal achieved, book written. If you’d like to beta-read it for me, let me know 🙂 This is the draft blurb:
Adventures with Victor
Victor (regular star of The Princelings of the East series) is developing his business interests – advising castles on improving their revenue and records, starting up little businesses of his own. King Fred asks him to discover why his brother George is overdue from a business trip. Victor joins Sundance and the beautiful Amelia on a trip to Rhineland and encounters a web of intrigue concerning flying machines, wine, and Wozna cola. Victor and George return safely but are unable to prevent Lord Colman taking action that threatens their future.