The first draft of book 3 in Empire of Chains is complete! It clocks in at about 120,000 words, making it the shortest in the series. The first book is sitting at about 165,000 words while the second is about 145,000. I’m not too worried about length, though, as long as the lengths remain reasonably similar.

I’m really excited about this book. I think I wrote some of my best action sequences yet (and I love writing action sequences). It was a bit bittersweet finishing it, though, because I felt quite sad about some of the events that transpired. Of course, I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll leave it at that.

There’s still a lot of editing work to be done on books 2 and 3 (and probably a little bit left on book 1). At the moment, I am thinking a fall/winter release for book 1 is reasonable. I’ll obviously provide more information once we get closer to that date.

Now I have to decide what to work on next. I’m about 20,000 words into book 2 of Sunweaver, so that may be the next book I’ll tackle. For now, I think I’ll relax a bit. I always feel like I’ve earned a bit of relaxation time when I finish a first draft.