The Gods in Haven: Part Two First Draft Complete

Finally, part two of The Gods in Haven is done. Took a while, as I previously warned it would. In the end, I didn't properly get started until the beginning of March, what with my son finally moving house, and then ongoing jobs and trips to stores. It's been great though!

It also took a while to ramp back up to full speed, but I'm just about there. Part two is done. Admittedly, it wasn't the part two I set out to write, but that made the journey even more fun. One unplanned character, Vassily, popped out of nowhere to fix a bridging problem in an early chapter, and he insisted on coming back again at the end. Now, I fear, he's going to return regularly, particularly after part three.

The story's all the better for it, but that wasn't the biggest change. I realised than not only was part two dragging on a bit (it was already longer after four chapters than part one), but it had a split focus. After a bit of rejigging, the novel now has five well-focussed parts, rather than four whose purpose had become muddied.

The parts have new names too, currently:

• Emergence

• Influence

• Convergence

• Resilience

• Insurgence

I'll probably replace them with more quippy names to match some of the chapters. Part two ended up with only four chapters, but still came in at 20,750 words:

• Enigmatic Ally

• Puzzling Aftermath

• Sponge God

• Basin Instincts

Think those chapter titles are terrible? Wait until you see what I have lined up for part three:

• Quoth the Maven

• Sleight of Foot

• Heist Takes

• Fate Accomplice

• Family Disunity

• History's History

Things will be in a right pickle by the end of that. That's where Vassily will come to the fore.

Right. Time to stop stalling. I mustn't lose momentum. I mustn't lose momentum. I mustn't lose momentum.