KYRA HALLAND
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Kyra Halland

Strong Women, Honorable Men, Worlds of Magic

Defenders of the Wildings first draft finished!

11/26/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture
Today I typed the final word of the first draft of Defenders of the Wildings, the follow-up series to Daughter of the Wildings. It clocks in at 182,133 words, or 451 printed pages (11 pt Times New Roman, double-spaced). Actually 450 pages, because the last page has like half a sentence on it. I hate it when that happens. This is by far the longest single manuscript I've ever written; the combined draft of the six books in Daughter of the Wildings was longer, but I wrote each book separately. Defenders didn't really want to divide up into six nice, neat novel-sized units, so I wrote it as one big thing and I'll work out how to divide it up and release it later. Two volumes of three "episodes" each seems like how it's going to work out. Of course, cover art is still a ways out, so I'll still be using the Daughter covers to illustrate posts about Defenders for a while.

This book also turned out to be much larger than I expected, and larger than anything I've written before, in scope of action and number of important characters. Of course it still centers around Silas and Lainie Vendine, but we'll also meet Torrin, a young ranch hand who discovers his magical powers, Magical Mik the traveling showman, Pazit Mahita, who is more than the ordinary farmwife she appears to be, and Lut Dorbich and Gidejoni Cajali, underministers from the Chardonikan Union (which got a name change about 80% of the way through, which is why I should probably stick to writing series in their entirety before I release the first book). You can get a sneak peek at Dorbich and Cajali here.

Writing this first draft was an adventure in itself. After two false starts, where I nearly drove myself nuts trying to figure out how to piece all the different parts of the story together (see story's refusal to fit into nice novel-length units, above), I finally got it. I had to do a lot of copy-and-pasting from the earlier versions and filling in with new material until I got to the place where I had left off, but once I got there it was pretty smooth going. I was getting frustrated at how long this was taking, because there were a lot of times this summer and fall when I couldn't keep up my daily production, but now it's finally done, yay. Now I'm printing it out even as I type this, and it'll rest while I finish up edits on Source-Breaker (note to self: get page on site for Estelend series set up) and start revising Heir of Tanaris.

This project brought me to 264,744 words for the year, including a number of short stories and the abandoned parts of the first two attempts. I'm counting words I'm not going to use, because all writing counts as practice, but I didn't double-count the words I copy and pasted. For a while I thought I might hit 300,000, but having to re-work the Defenders draft slowed me down. Still, considering my goal was 250,000 for the year, I'm pretty pleased.

Of course, at this point I can't even begin to say when Defenders will start being released. Sometime next year, I guess. To make sure you don't miss out on release news for Defenders or my other books, sign up for my email alerts (no spam, and I won't share your info). In the meantime, onward with Source-Breaker and Heir of Tanaris, and planning for the next series, Children of the Wildings!

...And Defenders just finished printing. Here it is:

Picture
2 Comments
Pauline M Ross link
11/27/2016 09:11:14 am

Congrats! Looking forward to reading this! But wow, so huge when it's printed out like that - an amazing sight. But so clever to write it all at once. :-)

Reply
Kyra
11/27/2016 10:53:55 am

Thanks! I hope people who enjoyed Daughter will like this, too :)

Yes, it's a little intimidating to look at it and think about having to revise and edit that monster. But I've learned that pretty significant things can change from beginning to end, so best to not commit with the first book until it's all straightened out and to get the whole thing consistent in one go.

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    I am Kyra Halland, author of tales of fantasy, heroism, and romance.
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  • Home
  • Blog
  • Books
    • Daughter of the Wildings >
      • The World of Daughter of the Wildings
      • Map of The Wildings
      • Map of Bitterbush Springs
      • Beneath the Canyons Sample
    • Defenders of the Wildings >
      • Mages' Home Sample
    • Mage of Storm and Sea
    • Tales of Tehovir >
      • Chosen of Azara >
        • Cast of Characters-Chosen of Azara
        • Reviews of Chosen of Azara
        • Chosen of Azara Sample
      • Source-Breaker >
        • Source-Breaker Sample
      • Heir of Tanaris >
        • Heir of Tanaris Sample
      • Map of Tehovir
    • Urdaisunia >
      • Cast of Characters-Urdaisunia
      • Map-Urdaisunia
      • Reviews of Urdaisunia
      • Urdaisunia Sample
    • The Lost Book of Anggird >
      • Reviews of The Lost Book of Anggird
      • Lost Book of Anggird Sample
    • Sarya's Song >
      • Sarya's Song Sample
      • Sarya's Song Glossary
    • Short Fiction
    • Boxed Sets
    • Still to come...
  • Read Right Here!
    • Home on the Range
  • About
    • FAQs
    • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Email Signup