End of 2025 Wrap!

“G.R.R. Martin writes too slow …”, I hear you cry. “Hold my beer, George!” says I.

Book I: Migrant. A Libyan Storm. (Storm Series)
The rewrite is done. Sixty-eight chapters of action and adventure, sitting at around 95,000 words, and for the first time in years it feels like a real novel rather than a half-built ship in a dock.

The big milestone: I finished the full manuscript and sent it to my Alpha Reader in the summer. They have stuck with me through this long journey, and once it was all together in one spot, they loved it. I cannot thank them enough. The genuine enjoyment of a reader of this behemoth; which I’ve been wrestling for many seasons, is something I have deeply wished for but never dared to hope would come to pass.

Then, in early autumn, I got promoted in my day job (go me!). However, I dragged the whole thing back onto the bench, rolled up the sleeves, and brought out the polishing wheel. Fingers crossed for this to be the last pass.

What comes next
The plan is for the finished novel to head to the agent in early January. Hopefully, my agent. Years back I received positive, encouraging feedback on the first manuscript, and now the final_final_final manuscript is at last strong enough to stand before the mast.

If the agent becomes my agent, I will commit to seeking to go traditional. If by summer I have not secured a contract, I will take the leap into self-publishing. Either way, this series needs to hit the page.

Book II progress
Book II is now a partial draft, and 2025 gave it a proper upgrade. More adventure, more momentum, sharper turns. Again, it’s remarkable to me how you can change each word in a story and yet still see the spine of it which you created so long ago. John Carroll is heading into deeper water, and there might even be a love interest on the horizon for him, although in this world nothing comes easy and nothing stays clean.

Closing the year
I have been working on the #StormSeries for years. “Frustrating” does not even cover it. But this year I proved something to myself: the work moves when I do. The story is alive, the direction is right, and the finish line is no longer a myth.

The next update will be from the other side of submission.