Because I have found it so useful to talk about my Dissertation process daily, I’ve decided to do the same thing on the weekends, when I work on my Novel. Except this time I’m limiting myself to 300 words. Brevity and concision are virtues I have to work on.

In sum, the book is essentially a fantasized version of the war that brought about the end of the Sassanid Empire and the prostration of the Byzantine Empire before the Arab/Muslim onslaught. It’s precipitated by the discovery of a palimpsest containing a heretical tract, which ignites a long-simmering war between the two great imperial powers of this world, the Imperium and Haranshar, with the tribes of Korray stuck in the middle. There’s also a cosmic element, with an entity called the Demiurge attempting to forge a new faith among his mortal adherents and gain a new place in the material world.

It started as a NaNoWriMo project, but has been developing since then. I have an outline, and several chapters are almost done (though they’re patchy in places).

I managed to meet my Saturday goal of 2500 words today, mostly in a new chapter focused on my queer character Anastasios, along with his ally/enemy Eulicia and the scheming Count Pepin. The chapter is probably about half done, and it does some stuff to move the plot along, so we’ll see how it fits into the whole shortly.

Ultimately, I hope to be done with it by this point next year, and hopefully start querying an agent by next summer. If I can average 5K a weekend, with a final goal of 120K (standard for an epic, so I’ve heard), I can basically get a very rough version done in 6 months.

So, today was good, and tomorrow will be even better.