3: Time Flies when you’re drafting version 5 of a book :/

Friday, July 3rd, 2026

Oh hey. Long time no see.

I’ve been hiding in my writing cave, working on draft 5 of TFBU. As usual, things have been a little slower going than I had hoped. I’m about halfway through this current draft. Maybe closer to 45%.

I’ve got a great writer friend who is editing it with a lovingly meticulous eye for detail. It’s amazing. She is really helping me to bring out the best in the elements within the novel.

But I fear I’ve been using her slower style editing as an excuse to move slowly with my own progress. The goal with draft 5 was to really focus on improving each individual scene, now that the general big picture elements have all been nailed down, But the further the dig, the more I uncover to fix. Just recently I realized how unspecifc Anri was with his soldiers. I was missing a lot of the intereactions that soldiers would believably have. Well, several days of research later and I’m realizing I’ll need to go back through all of the Anri chapters I’ve already edited and address this oversight. Hence why I’m about halfway through the drafting.

But one can hope that this will be the final draft (Just one more draft! Just one more!). Regardless, I’m aiming to pick up the pace. I’m looking forward to whatever project I will work on next. Maybe I’ll write the sequel I’ve started dreaming up for TFBU. I even have a name picked out, CTTT.

Lately I’ve been reading Dungeon Crawler Carl. I’m about to finish book 7. It’s awesome. Such a great series. It’s so fun to try to explain to people how the book’s MC has a talking pet cat, and said cat also has a pet velociraptor. The utter confusion on their faces as I assure them, “Don’t worry! It makes total sense! It’s so good! Read it! Read it!”

I’m dreading the fact that after the next book, I’ll be caught up.

I guess that’s it. Thanks!

-Trip C