Look, it’s already 2023! I think it’s about time I update you on my progress with the project. In the last few months, I’ve been very busy with my work as a freelance journalist and also in hosting and organising events and online trainings. Because of this, my work on the novel hasn’t progressed as much as I would have wished.

Since I last updated you on the matter, I’ve now transcribed 40 of the 108 handwritten manuscript pages that originated from my push to finish the novel last March. I am continuing my work on that, but I’ve been slowed down somewhat by switching away from Scrivener. I figured out that this software wasn’t fitting my workflow and am now back to editing the novel as a collection of plain Markdown files. I am currently in the process of testing alternative software, especially for final layout and publishing of the manuscript in print and ebook formats.

As a result of testing the functionality of various programs, I’ve now created a first ebook version of the novel. I am not completely happy with it yet, but we are getting there.

What I am very happy with is the new print layout that came out of these experiments. This is also not 100% there yet, but it is very close to something publishable. These are all test runs, of course. I first need to transcribe the rest of the handwritten pages and do a lot of editing, before I can release anything.

My goal for this year is to get print and ebook versions of the novel published. To that end, I will first concentrate on transcribing the manuscript, followed by a first rough editing pass of the whole novel. After that, I will update the version of the novel excerpts that are available here on the website before doing some more editing and getting some preliminary drafts out to select people to solicit feedback.

If everything goes according to plan, I’ll have the final novel ready for you to buy by the end of 2023. No promises though, as there is still a lot of work ahead of me before this goal is reached. But I am hopeful that it can be done!

The downside of writing a novel in your spare time is that sometimes, life just gets in the way. Since finishing the manuscript in March, I’ve been incredibly busy with work. And over the last month or two, I’ve gotten some well deserved rest and cleared my brain by travelling Europe – roughly 10,000 km by bike and car, all the way from the Nordkapp (12°C, rain and wind) to the island beaches of Croatia (34°C, blazing sun).

Now that I’m back home, I’ve started to transcribe the handwritten pages on my computer. I’ve just started this work, and the Scrivener file is currently reporting 73,876 words. I have no idea how long it will take to transcribe those 108 pages, but my goal is to do a little something on this project every single day from now on and chip away at that mountain of work until I have the whole novel on my computer and can do first full editing pass on it.

One upside of not doing anything on the novel for a few months, by the way, is that I have some distance to what I’ve written now and can do some editing of finer language details while I transcribe it. I’ll let you know how the work progresses. After all that travelling, I won’t be going anywhere for a while.

I’m currently editing some of the earlier parts of the novel based on some annotations I’ve made over the course of the previous year. As I’m working my way along, I’ve also updated the first two chapters of the novel here on the website.

Additionally, I’ve added a new Culture section to the lore repository, which includes some information on the card game Leviathans that’s mentioned in Chapter 2.