I printed out the first 16,000 words of Vaetra Unveiled for my wife to read last week. I know, she’s not exactly an unbiased reader, but she’s an experienced writer, editor, and reader, so her feedback is important to me. She’s also not much of a fantasy reader, but she has enjoyed many of the fantasy books I’ve recommended to her (e.g. The Belgariad, Dragonlance, and several others). She’s the only person I’m allowing to read my first draft because she understands what “first draft” by a first-time author really means.
She claims to like it. She likes the characters and the story so far, and she feels that the events of the story are pulling her forward through the book. She wants to know what happens next. All good stuff. She found a few inconsistencies, for which I’m grateful. I fixed most of them already, but I’m sure I’ll do more refining in second draft.
I’ve completed Part 1 (of 4), and I’m now into Part 2 at 22,000 words (28% complete). My wife will be taking a look at the new pages again this week.
The bad news is that I’m not quite keeping up with my word count schedule. Unless I get a nice block of time to do some serious writing, I may not make my July 31st deadline for the first draft. We’ll see how it goes; there’s still hope.
