It is my distinct pleasure to announce that I have FINISHED Fragile Gods, my first completed fantasy novel (first draft only).

Though I missed my original deadline (Christmas of 2009), I did meet my revised deadline, which was June 1^st, 2010.

Are you going to try to publish it?

I’m going to send queries and samples see if I get any bites.

It would be naive to assume it will automatically be published, or even represented.

Even award-winning books selling over 400,000 copies will be rejected when the author’s name is unrecognized.

And 99% of the recent success stories I’ve heard for newly published authors involve stalking agents or editors at conventions in order to buy them lunch…not impressing them with an anonymous manuscript. 

So you’re done with this book?

Not even close. There’s a lot more polish required before I’ll be satisfied.

Are you going to take us all out for lunch when you’re rich and famous?

 Sure. But less than 1% of novelists EVER turn a profit. It took me 1 year to write FRAGILE GODS, so if I sold it for a $15,000 advance, BEFORE TAXES, that’s a pretty crummy yearly salary, even assuming I could do it annually. The gulf between “finished book” and “rich & famous” is wider than the Gulf of Mexico. But I’ll make you a deal…even if I sell one book, I’ll take you out for lunch.

Do you want me to read it?

I want everyone to read it who is willing. But I prefer that: 

1. You regularly read fantasy/scifi, or at least popular fiction of some kind
2. You fully intend on actually reading it (within a week or so), not setting the printout on a shelf somewhere
   1. That may sound harsh, but I’m completely un-offended by NOT offering to read. People are busy, and I guarantee you that *I* have no desire to read the work of amateur writers. Why should you? But it does get my hopes up of getting feedback and criticism when someone offers to read, and you have to understand that for me, this is a major project and one of my deliverables is obtaining tangible feedback from my alpha readers.

So what’s your next project?

I am considering going one of three directions.

1. Get more practice writing short stories
2. Write a science fiction novel called Music of the Spheres, which so far is about a soldier who was ordered to kill a baby after a space battle, and has refused the order and is now on the run from his commanders
3. Write my non-fiction book: Accelerate the Progress of Mankind (by using your turn-signal), which is all about boosting world efficiency by making tiny common sense decisions, such as using your turn-signal, or deciding what to order BEFORE you get to the front of the line, or using both doorways of a double-door.

FRAGILE GODS part II is now complete in rough draft form, and I am now going to work on the final section of the novel.

Part II will be available to my alpha readers after a cursory attempt to polish some of the rougher sections.

Some statistics and information so far:

The books three parts have finally been named as follows:

FRAGILE GODS now numbers 190 double-spaced pages at 30,509 words. It is divided into three parts and a total of 27 scenes:

PART I: Rumors of Death (12 scenes)
PART II: Salvation and Glory (15 scenes)
PART III: These Fragile Gods (TBD)

This is extremely short for modern (or traditional) fantasy, but I am aiming for a fast read rather than epic sweeping plots that require a whole trilogy or more to resolve. I’m bucking the trends of huge swathes of description and a cast of characters so large you need an index.

Only time will tell if this effort is worthwhile.