Today I completed a provisional, conditional draft of COLD STEEL.

It completes the Spiritwalker Trilogy.

It’s a first draft in the sense that this is the first complete draft of the book. Many sections are not first draft as they have been written, rewritten, and revised multiple times, but the full shape of the book is now “laid down” — rather, I suppose, as one might set up the frame of a house. Of course, I have a huge amount of revisions and cutting to do, but I cannot express how relieved I am to have gotten this complete draft done and the frame of the plot finally fully in place.

This has been an immensely difficult book to write. In fact, I can now safely place it with THE LAW OF BECOMING in the category of “most difficult first draft” books I’ve ever written.

I’m probably going to write a post about the process & difficulties later, but for the moment I want to thank you guys for the support you have given me (a lot of this went on in email, both my writing friends and my readers). I know you have been cheering for me through a grueling process, and it really has made all the difference.