Hey all, by now I’ve shared this all over Facebook and Instagram, so it’s probably only going to be news if you aren’t following me there, but… last night I completed the final draft of my novel The Altar of My Fate.

Here I’ll pause to note that this has been in the works for a long time.

Some of you have always known me as “That Guy Who’s Always Talking About Writing A Novel, But Hasn’t Actually Finished One.” Let me talk a little about that… and I’ll share a blurb at the end.

The Prehistory of The Altar of My Fate

As I once explained in this blog post from forever ago, back when I still blogged on Medium, it took me three tries to get a completed draft. Getting to that point alone was basically a five-and-a-half-and-a-bit-year process, roughly from January of 2013 to August of 2018.

To be a little more precise, my first draft was a shambolic mess and I wrote myself into a corner by the end of 2013. I was young, dumb, and didn’t know what I was doing.  

Most of 2014 was a time of creative stagnation for me for various reasons, but by the end of the year I was working on a greatly-revamped Draft Number Two.

The story changed quite a bit from my abortive Draft Number One to my longer-but-still-abortive Draft Number Two, but I was still pretty young and dumb and didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I dead-ended around late spring of 2015.

After two failed drafts, you’d think I’d wise up and write something else. That might well have been a smarter thing to do.

Naturally, what I did instead was to revamp and reimagine the story yet again in the winter of 2015-2016, and then around spring of 2016 I started to write that third draft.

This time, I determined, I was going to finish that draft no matter what.

And I did, over two years later, in August of 2018.

Love, Life, and the Decision to Rewrite Again

The year 2018 was an inflection point not only in my writing career but also in my personal life.

I typed the last words of the third draft, the first completed draft, on August 11^th, 2018.

Later that month, I traveled from Oregon, where I live, to Southern California for my younger brother’s wedding. Four days later, I received a notification from an online dating site: someone had liked my profile.

My first thought was: “There must be some mistake. She’s wayyy too hot for me.”

We went on our first date not long after. She’s now my fiancé.

She’s also the reason I decided to give Altar another try.  

When I completed the third draft, I initially planned to come back to it and do a fourth draft… but then I lost interest and started working on other fiction projects.

But when my girlfriend (now fiancé) read the third draft, she liked it—and I decided to give it another go.

Naturally, since it had been a couple of years, and since I’m me and I don’t like to do things the easy way, I decided to start all over again.

“Just One More Draft”

I expect most of the people reading this already know me well enough, or at least have been following my updates on Facebook since late last year, and so you probably already know that I started Draft 4.0 around Thanksgiving.

When I look at Draft 4.0, I see something that is wayyy better than 3.0, but still incredibly rough. My fiancé loved it, but I was certain I could do better… I just needed one more draft.

However, 4.0 provided a decent enough foundation that I was actually able to excerpt large parts of it for what I’m calling Draft 4.2.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge The Fantasy Fiction Formula, by Deborah Chester, an enormously helpful writers’ guide that I’m now going to recommend to everyone with an interest in writing. Deborah Chester may not be a household name, but she taught Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files.

When I look at Draft 4.2, for the very first time I feel happy with my work.

So, all that to say, what’s the path ahead?

Tentative Publication Schedule and Blurb

If you’re wondering when and where you can pick up a copy of the book, I have great news: very soon.

I’ve decided to go the independent author (“indie author”) route and publish on Amazon through Kindle Direct Press (KDP). I will also be enrolling in the KDP Select program, so The Altar of My Fate will be free on Kindle Unlimited.

My tentative publication date is February 2^nd, 2022, but I’m hoping to beat that and publish in January. We’ll see, and I’ll keep you posted on further developments.

Now, here’s the current working blurb I wrote just before I wrote this post:

Trained to ride a horse, loose an arrow, and wield the sword, Rosteval lusts for the glory of battle, the taste of victory, and the spoils of war. Denied the right to inherit his deceased father’s chieftaincy by his iron-fisted grandfather, the king, Rosteval seeks a path across the great desert to the fabled lands of the south—the source of the slave-girls he needs to reward his war-band and gain greatness for his tribe.

His journey leads him to a warrior mystic who has foreseen their encounter, and a slave-girl who could help him master a dangerous spirit at an ancient altar, an artifact of the vanished Shaper race that once ruled the world. South of the desert, Rosteval and his war-band enter a world of palaces and pleasure-gardens, living gods, beautiful women, and tribes and kingdoms impressed by their prowess as mounted warriors.

But crossing the desert may be easier than escaping the rule of his grandfather, who is sending an army and his own champion to master the spirit and claim the power of the ancient Shaper altar.