Concept art of Daniels for Sunborn. By Michael Rubi
So my third novel, Phidelphius, is done. Finished typing it up a few days ago. I've started the first round of edits on it, and once I'm done with those I'll send it off to my beta readers (friends and family who offer to read the rough copy, and then they let me know what they think). And after that I'll hand it off to my writing buddies for a free edit, and hopefully within a couple months from there it'll be available for anyone who would like to read it.
Now, before Phidelphius can be released, I have to do the same with Sunborn, which is the the book Phidelpius is a sequel to. Sunborn's about a guy named Daniels who's basically invincible in the day, but literally rots at night. He lives in a post-apocolyptic world that's covered in ice and water, and he's the last man on earth, or least that's what he thinks until he stumbles upon another civilization that's at war with an advanced city that lives underground. So this guy's been done for awhile. I've just been waiting for Bad Dreams to make back some money before I bought a cover and had it edited. Bad Dreams has made back enough now that I could have Sunborn produced now if I wanted, but I'm getting some great content edits (story edits) from my writing buddies that are really improving the book, so I'm holding out. The only problem is that my writing buddies are day-time teachers (as am I), so it's just taking way too long. If we kept at it at the same rate we've been going it would take 3 more months before we'd finish the book (and we've been doing it for a couple months already). I've decided to shrink the text and spacing of my document (one of my buddies did this with his book, though it was unintentional) to cram more words per page so we can get this guy done in a month or so. I don't know why I didn't think to do this sooner. My partners won't care, and in fact they may end up liking the book better. I find that I question the author's motives for telling me or not telling me things much less when I can turn the page and have my questions answered, rather than having to scribble "What the fuck, man?" in the margins. Hopefully my friends share this sentiment.