That makes me especially happy for two main reasons. One, my fans and readers really stepped up to show their support, and as always, I'm grateful for every one of you. And two, I hand-painted Haven's cover myself, so I'm doubly glad people like it. ;)

As StoryFind's cover contest winner, Haven is being featured on the website's 1st Chapter Spotlight, today (Sept. 25th). Click here to check it out. After the initial day, it'll show other books in the spotlight. It's a nice way to preview new reads and browse books of all genres.

Thank you again for participating and supporting the War of the Princes series! Book three is in the works, so I'll keep you updated to its progress.

Happy Wednesday!

All yours,
~A.R. Ivanovich

Updates

Spoiler City has received some new content. If you go over to look at it, just keep an eye out for the Spoiler Level. It'll let you know which books you need to have read before viewing the pages linked there. If you've already read both books, swing by to check out Behind the Writing: Dragoon. Spoiler City is also home to the War of the Princes maps. I've got a huge one in the works that will be posted soon.

Writing anatomy is back! Hurrah! As I mentioned in a previous post, I've already laid down the foundation of the entire book, the "bones" of the story. It turned out to be a detailed fifteen page synopsis that covered everything from plot points to character development. Because I was so thorough, I've been able to lay out my chapter titles and brief descriptions in my Scrivener manuscript.

I'm currently in the drafting phase of writing, the "meat and muscle", the real body of the process. Because I was able to lay out my chapters, each one acts as a goal projection or a marker so that as I tell the story, I don't go rambling too far away from the main plot lines. I also don't end up losing too much time scrapping whole sections of the book. Sure, occasionally everyone needs to rewrite a chapter or five, but spending a little more time on the "bones" can save you an evening of feeding four hundred pages to your paper shredder. Of course, there is no right answer or uniform method to doing anything. At the end of the day, whatever works for you is fantastic!

Some may cry out into the night, "A. R.! You've taken the freedom away from your writing process! Won't I be stifling my creativity if I plan everything out?" My answer to that is, "Why no, of course not." It's all coming from you anyway. All you're doing is rearranging the manner in which you lay out your work. You can't lose your creativity. Ever. Novels are long, there's plenty of time and opportunity for your characters to surprise you, or for a planned chapter to morph into something bigger and badder. It happens to me on the daily. :)

Anyway, this was long-winded, but hey, if you got this far it's because you were interested for some reason or another. I will not apologize for my actions! Not on this day.

All yours,
~A.R. Ivanovich