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A quick update on my book progress and Author Site updates.

Privateers of the Dauntless: The writing is done, as are the rewrites. I have author’s notes, a prologue, 22 chapters, an epilogue, and a postscript. About 87,000 words in all, not to mention the cast & characters and the glossary of nautical terms. Whew…

I’ve been toiling away at editing. There have been no fewer than ten edit passes on each chapter, plus an oral read-through, plus a continuity and timeline audit. If that sounds...

Dauntless Update:
It's been a cup of coffee since my last musing, but here I am again. This is now the end of the third week of my retirement, and wow, have I been busy doing... I don't know what. Yet it's not been the writing I had hoped to accomplish. I think I need to go on vacation again to get some serious writing done. Still, I am back editing the Dauntless book. I just completed the first pass edit/rewrite of chapter eighteen. Three more chapters to go, then, like painting the Golden...

Vacation writing...

Here I am on vacation with my family and doing some writing. Perhaps not as much as I might normally, as I have the pleasant distraction of my Son, his Wife, who is six months pregnant with our first grandchild. I'll take that distraction any time!

I am working through the edits to the chapters of "Privateers of the Dauntless" and outlining the next Nick Gazelle investigation. I'm currently working through the coarse edit of each chapter. Some chapters need expanding, and a...

Well, I thought I was done with Dauntless Privateers, but as I got deeper into the editing, I found I needed to break up some long chapters, which forced some rewriting. Not unanticipated. It reminds me of something I heard from another writer, that he'd end up re-writing every sentence ten times, or was it fifty? I don't think I'm that detailed, but I will say every time I read it, I see where I can improve. The cycle continues, write, edit, re-write, edit... You get the picture.

Even with ...

Some of you know that I've been working on a historical nautical fiction, "Dauntless Privateers", well, I finished writing. Ha!

Yes, I have the beginning of the story, the ending of the story, and all the middle bits, but now comes the hard part, the editing, re-writing, re-editing, rinse and repeat. Then typesetting, then publishing. I already know things I want to change and places I need to add to the story, so stay tuned. I hope to give you all teasers eventually, but not so much to be a...

First Person.

I chose to write Dance Noir in first person. I wanted the readers to "be" Nick. I wanted you to see through his eyes, hear what he hears, and hear his inner dialogue. I wanted you to be part of his investigation and see all the clues he finds, red herrings and all. I've always been dissatisfied with the murder mystery, the "who done it", where there is a reveal at the end and the star detective shows who the villain is and the clues that led them to their indisputable conclusion....

It's a lazy day off work, the Friday after Thanksgiving. Even so, I made myself a latte and sitting down wo do some chapter editing. Little by little, page by page.

Writing is the goal and the reward; editing is the work; publishing makes it real; and if others enjoy the ride, well, that’s just icing on the cake.

I just released my new book, Dance Noir, on Amazon Kindle. Both as an eBook and as a paperback:

https://www.amazon.com/Dance-Noir-Bea...

It was a fun write, and I hope you enjoy it. I've been surprised by the number of people who wanted a "real" book with pages to turn. I wouldn't have expected that, but I'm glad for it. I chose to publish in both formats. I know it's satisfying to me to have a real book I wrote sitting on my shelf.

Writing is one thing, but blogging about it is yet another, so...