126,899 words
And so here we sit, many years past the dream that I could not forget with book two almost complete.
How did this happen? How did such a thing come to be a reality? It still baffles and befuddles me each day to see my books in people’s hands, on their TBRs, and on store shelfs. A (once) pipe dream created by a little girl so scared of the world around her has become a reality.
I am a published author.
I am living the dream I always thought impossible.
And now, I have sent version #5768678 (an estimated number, of course) off to my editor for a (hopefully) final pass-through before line editing and beta reading. And then it is published. And then we move on to book three- and beyond.
I have always wished for this, hoped for this, fought for this, and thanks to the fire within me and the love within you all, this dream is my reality.
Speaking of reality…
It had been my hope to clock book two in at roughly 140K words, but after much consideration, editing, and thought, it made little sense to tack on 15K more words to the existing manuscript for the sake of the word count. In all honesty, the pace and build-up of book two is much more intense and slow-moving than book one and that has to do with many factors, 1) the world of Victarius has been blown wide open after the actions in book one, and so, there is more backstory, more lore, more people to get to know, 2) there are a lot of storylines and plot points that book one laid out that book two (and beyond) now much continue and expand upon, and 3) there are secrets. secrets that I cannot divulge just yet but required many words to secretly set them up.
While I know the above word count is nowhere near final, I am confident that (barring any major cuts or issues found) this number will be close to the final count. In comparison, book one was 131,922 words. Somehow, I managed to add more stories and trauma to this series in lesser words than I used to introduce the world to you all.
I cannot wait to divulge more details, share more sneak peeks, and discuss the worlds of Victarius more with you, but for now, I must return to the goblin hole I call my office, possibly wash my hair and change out of my sweatpants, and get to line editing.
Much love and many adventures,
Kristina 09.04.2024
