Meredith Mansfield, Author

I finished the “first draft” of the rewrite of THE IGNORED PROPHECY last week. I put first draft in quotes because it’s a rewrite, so the story was basically all already there, though it needed considerable cleanup and improvement in style. TIP is the sequel to THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, which is still doing pretty well, even after the price went up on August 1st.

While I let that draft cool just a little before the next pass, I’m working on a tie-in short story. “Modgud Gold”. Again, a good part of this is already done, because it’s built around scenes (and chapters) that were cut from THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. This one centers around a side character–Vatar’s cousin Arcas.

I’m not sure how much the tie-in short story “Becoming Lioness” helped to pave the way for THE SHAMAN’S CURSE to do so well, but it’s certainly worth repeating in preparation for THE IGNORED PROPHECY. I’ll have at least one more short story, this time about one of the more neglected cultures of this world, before this series ends.

Meanwhile, I’ve purchased some mapping software to see if I can turn out a passable map of this world to include in the next book. If so, I’ll go back and put it in THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, too. One of the advantages of digital publishing. But it’ll have to be significantly better than the hand drawn one, I shared before.

Pathetic, right?

I also need to start spending a little time on cover art again, for both “Modgud Gold” and THE IGNORED PROPHECY.

And I can’t let TIP cool too long. I need to go through it again before turning it over to my writers’ group in September.

Okay, I’ve just convinced myself I need to get back to work right now.