So I have a single, 13-page chapter left as far as editing Family of the Tri-Rune.  I’m probably going to save that for tonight and tomorrow will start the input process.  That doesn’t take very long, but it will be slow going due to Passover on Tuesday (Jews and our whacky diet restrictions on holidays) and my son having spring break this week.  I’m going to have to keep his 3-year-old butt away from all the drinking (milk), partying (on his swingset), and the rest of the debauchery that pre-schoolers are known for during their spring breaks.

My ‘plan’ is to get a few chapters into the input process and then have my wife start reading for typos, continuity, and overall entertainment.  She tends to be busy and easily distracted, so this stage can take longer than me actually writing the book.  On the plus side, given that this is book 4 of Legends of Windemere, she has plenty of time.

The fun question will be what I should do after the input process.  As I sit here, the outline for book 5, The Compass Key, is sitting in front of me.  I went through it last night to see if anything needed to be added or any chapter sections could be merged into one.  Yet, I probably need to take a small haitus from the series, which brings my eyes to the marble notebook of ideas.  I haven’t touched it in a month, so Darwin Slepsnor and his series have been trapped in character bio phase.

I’m leaning toward taking a week off from the series and finishing up his cast of characters and basic plot outlines.  This should also give me time to decide if I want to go through with his second series.  The first one has his initial adventures where he teams up with characters whose destiny he changes by accident.  Along the way, I came up with an idea for an adventure that had him on his own called The Slumber Wars.  Great title, but I’m always scared that a character like Darwin can’t carry a series alone.  He’s a great character with heart, innocence, and very little mental depth.  He isn’t stupid, but he isn’t a great thinker, which I fear is a weakness that many readers won’t enjoy.  Here’s an example of Darwin’s genius:

He had taken a lightning glove off a priest who followed a god of destruction.  He always took magic items that were simply laying around.  At one point, he found a door protected by a lightning trap and a kidnapped princess was on the other side.  The thief was  elsewhere and the wizard had taken a shield to the face and was ‘sleeping’ it off.  So, Darwin thinks that a lightning glove from a god known to destroy his own followers would protect him from the trap.  It blew up the door, nearly killed him, and he STILL didn’t learn a lesson from it.

So, would a dense simpleton whose most redeeming quality is a desire to help others be able to carry a trilogy?  That’s a tough question.