Let’s start this progress report with an image from near where I live. This is the Eckernförder Bucht, an inlet of the Baltic Sea. And it stands for the first two weeks of April, which I took off work for vacation.
My sister (who is visiting me this week) and I walked there with two friends who provided transport (I don’t own a car). It was windy and we weathered a couple of showers with hail and snow. And I found a special rock – yellow sandstone with bog iron wrapped around it.
That fallen tree is still alive, btw, it has leaf buds. And just like that tree, my writing is still alive: I have been writing every day, just not as much as usual since I spent a week with my sister’s family. And I got to see my Dad, which was very good.
The Twin Worlds Progress Report
I’ve made substantial progress with the Twin Worlds since the last progress report.
Book 1 is almost ready for beta readers. I need to fill in one or two more chapters and then clean it up (taking out all my writing dates and comments).
I’ve started writing Book 2, and I have some fun coming up when Sara and Judy are reunited with their families. Happiness and heartbreak will go hand in hand there, before things will get really difficult.
I’ve also written a few chapters for Book 3 already – Writer Brain insisted on sending me scenes with such intensity that I had little choice except writing them out. Master Pentas will have quite a role in that one, and I have a neat little secret for Crash to find out there.
I finally made a decision on the series title. It will be known as “The Mages of the Twin Worlds”, and it will feature portals on the covers, to convey that part of the world.
Wolf Print Progress Report
Sorry. I didn’t get any further – which was good because Atticus kept adding functionality. And I just remembered that I wanted to change the preview chapter in Wolves #1. So it is a good thing I didn’t make much progress, but I really, really hope to get moving on that next week.
Atticus is great for formatting books. And I am pondering adding a wolf graphic as chapter header. Would you like that? Let me know in a comment.
Atticus Recommendation
If you are an author and want to format your own ebooks and print books, I will whole-heartedly recommend Atticus. Yes, it’s not cheap (147 USD as a one-time payment), but still cheaper than other formatting software that includes print PDF. And unlike Vellum, it’s available for all OS, including Linux. It works in almost every browser, too.
They have recently added much functionality to their print PDF creation process, giving us a full PDF preview before you download it.
It’s still not a program to write in – unlike Scrivener – but the formatting side of it is now extremely useful. It’s also getting more and more beautiful, with added templates and the ability to create your own unique look for your books.
I enjoy using it, so I hope you will, as well.
