The Gods in Haven: Part One First Draft Complete

As I hoped, splicing the two short stories together to form the chapters in part one of The Gods in Haven proved straightforward. There were a few terminology changes here and there, some topping and tailing of each chapter, minor tweaks for consistency, improved characterisations, and that was about it.

It helped that I deliberately wrote Anjuna's story in three phases, knowing they would form individual chapters. Luckily, Chandra's story split naturally too. The first chapter covers the phase up to the end of the first Conclave, the second detailed the subsequent investigation, and the third focussed on the events of the second Conclave.

So that's the first draft of part one, Latter Gods, complete, coming in at 19,000 words. Not a bad start. Now it's time for part two, Colliding Conspiracies.

I've sketched out what I expect to happen, and the phases of the character arcs that will happen during the story. I had one character (Alton) whose arc was unsatisfying, and lacking in detailed motivation, but that's now sorted – and helps to deepen Laury's motivations. Phew, happier now.

These are the chapters I'm planning for part two:

• Emergent Abilities

• Puzzling Aftermath

• Scene Stealing

• Uneasy Camaraderie

• Heist Takes

• Signs of Life

As before, these chapters will alternate between Anjuna and Chandra's perspectives, starting with Anjuna this time. Although I have concrete plans for parts three and four, I expect these will shift as the characters tell me who they really are.

I'm not expecting part two to be a fast writing process, at least in the sort term. Besides Christmas coming up, my son's house move is getting closer (hoping to exchange contracts this week, at last). That will be my main focus, both beforehand, and in helping to get straight after.

Yes, that's another variant of the cover above. The positioning's all wrong, and I'm not sold on the design yet, but that wasn't the main reason for this new version. It was created from scratch in a different tool.

I always used to use the excellent (and free) Paint.NET on Windows to create my covers, even though I've used an Apple Mac for my writing for many years. However, a year ago, I retired my old Windows PC when I bought the wonderful Mac Mini. Paint.NET was the only thing I used it for anymore.

I swapped to using Pinta on the Mac, largely a clone of Paint.NET. It's pretty good, and I successfully created the Pantheon Triptych cover using it, but it has a few wrinkles. Some of the UI is a little counterintuitive, and it's frustratingly buggy at times. So I looked for other options.

I'm currently looking at Canva's Affinity utility, which seems remarkably powerful for free software, but has a much steeper learning curve. I started by trying to recreate The Gods in Haven cover. It didn't take too long, and is much more easily post-editable than using Pinta (e.g. I can edit the title as text, and not just as graphics). I think I'll stick with it for a while and see what else it can do.

Onwards.