Dungeon Runner 2
Dungeon Runner 2 represents the novel version in the Dungeon Runner trilogy. It takes place after the haunted house dungeon and the third Eizel episode.
If you liked the haunted house dungeon as much as I did, you’re going to love the new dungeons featured in this book! It’s my goal to push the envelope of what is expected in a dungeon. So expect some crazy new dungeon themes, puzzles, and monsters. :)
Updates
5/21/2023: Dungeon Runner 2 is, for the most part, done. Yay! I say “for the most part” because a few chapters are not finished, and it needs a light edit. So . . . why have I marked it as done?
Going forward, before I release a book in a series, I will write them all. This is good for everyone! For me, it helps remove stress, and if the book doesn’t do well, it won’t affect my creative mind-space. For you, once the first book is published, you know the others are ready to go within 1-2 months, depending on the audiobook publisher.
With this process, it’s okay to leave a chapter unfinished as I move the story forward and figure out the best way to handle it. I’m always able to jump back and change something, which I wouldn’t be able to do (you can, but it makes a mess of things) if I published the books.
So, Dungeon Runner 2 is done! Woot!
Head over to Dungeon Runner 3 to see my progress there. :)
5/14/2023: Added 13,500 new words to Dungeon Runner 2 this week. It’s now about 20,000 words longer than the first book, and still not quite done.
I absolutely love the climax, and the ending is shaping up nicely. I imagine I’ll be moving on to Dungeon Runner 3 this next week (I know, I’ve been saying that for a while, but the book went long!).
My new writing schedule starts today. I’ll be writing every day. I’m excited to dig into my many unannounced projects and get them out to you. :)
4/30/23: +2% on Dungeon Runner 2’s progress. . . .
It’s not done. It’s getting really close, but I couldn’t give it the attention I would have liked. Instead, I’ve been spending time with my family and negotiating audiobook rights. Look forward to a big announcement coming soon(ish)!
My family will be in town for one more week. After that, I’m going to be working day and night, Monday through Sunday, for the rest of the year (or my life, whichever comes sooner). There’s so much to do! I wish I could share all the details. But that would be breaking my rules. ;)
Don’t worry about me. I’ll be exercising, taking plenty of breaks, using my crazy ergonomic keyboard (I’m up to 50 words per minute on it), sitting in my nice new chair with lumbar support, and enjoying my downtime each evening (playing Diablo 4, woot!). Work hard; play hard. Have a wonderful week!
4/23/23: All did not go well! That’s in reply to my last update. Alas, I did not finish Dungeon Runner 2 this week. Instead, I did my taxes (so fun), got a Kinesis keyboard and proceeded to slam my forehead against the keys (trying to relearn how to type is hard), started negotiating audiobook rights to my entire catalog, and brought back the 8,000 words I deleted last week. . . .
But that’s not all! This week was very much about preparing for the future. I changed my writing computer from a Mac Mini to a MacBook Air + Studio Display. This allows me to move my last editing session each day to the time I spend in bed, writing in my journal about how I feel the story is going.
Why the change? It increases my writing sessions from six to seven, adding ~650 more words a day without extending my work day. I call these types of changes magic. :)
These next two weeks are going to be a bit tricky. I have family arriving, family I only get to see once every other year (they don’t love me; joking). So, I’ll be focusing on learning my new keyboard and, hopefully, finishing up Dungeon Runner in the mornings. Let’s get this done! See you next week. :)
4/16/2023: Instead of hitting my 24k-word goal this week, I worked on the editing. The first 80,000 words of the book are done, edited, proofed, and polished. I also updated a lot of small details in Dungeon Runner 1 to ensure consistency. And lastly, I removed about 8,000 words, words that didn’t work for the building climax of the story.
I fought against losing those words. . . . My intuition said, “This isn’t working,” and my mind rebelled, saying, “I’ll make it work.” The lesson? I need to trust my intuition and not be afraid to delete hours of work.
If all goes well, I’ll finish the book next week and dive into Dungeon Runner 3. I have lots of fun ideas to explore, and I’m excited to bring the story to its conclusion, which will make it my first completed series. Onward! :)
4/9/2023: I pushed myself to write 27,000 words this week and ended with 17,687. Bah! What happened? I have a few thoughts and a few changes I’m going to make for this next week. Read on!
Writing 4,500 words every day, for me, is definitely possible. But I write a clean first draft. This means I edit as I go. And the increase in words has made it impossible to keep up on editing and reviewing the new content.
On Thursday, I noticed a sizeable gap between my new content and my reviewed content. I took the day to catch up and was still behind, so I took Friday, too.
This next week, I’m dropping one of my 50-minute writing sessions—from seven to six—so I can focus on editing. My goal is consistency. I don’t want to charge ahead, then have to run back to earlier content every few days. I also want to ensure I am writing new words every day. Losing two days to editing made it difficult to write new words on Saturday.
The other challenge that slowed me down is where I’m at in the story: the ending. I find endings to be the hardest. Lots of things need to come together and work. Psychologically, I probably become a bit too critical at this stage.
So . . . 17,687 words. Three weeks ago, I thought 16,000 words was fantastic. Now 17,687 feels bad, haha. This next week, with my six sessions instead of seven, I’m shooting for 24,000. A consistent 20,000 is nine books a year, so shooting for 24k and landing on 20k while giving myself extra time to clean up my day’s work, might be exactly what I need to do. We’ll see!
4/2/2023: New record! I added 20,124 words to Dungeon Runner 2 this week (that’s longer than the original first episode). The book is up to 72,000 words and should be done at around 92-100k words.
When the first draft is done, I had planned to take a week to edit the book, but I don’t want to give up the writing habit I’ve been building. I’ll probably use the first four 50-minute sessions to write the next book, then use three sessions for editing. Since I write clean first drafts, this is mostly typo hunting.
My goal for this week was 24k words. I set that goal knowing I needed to push myself to hit 20k words. Next week, I’m aiming for 27k words, which is 4,500 words per day (about 18 pages). Onward!
3/26/2023: Dungeon Runner 2 is officially 50% done. This week, however, was dreadful, haha. Monday saw a total of 140 new words. . . .
I’ve come to learn that I need to really push myself in my endeavors. If I think, “You know what, 15,000 words per week sounds like a good and comfortable pace,” I’ll write 140 words instead of the 3,000 I need for the day.
I ended with 13,512 new words but cut 2,219 of them (~9 pages). Writing lots of new words is important, but what’s more important is that the story is good. I had to start Part 3 three times to find a good introductory chapter. Oi.
The result of all of this work, however, is fantastic. :) The story works. It’s fun, it’s hilarious, and it’s filled to the brim with exciting new things.
Next week, I’m shooting for much more words. I can’t settle. And when I hit my new goal, I will set my sights higher. Wish me luck!
3/19/2023: +15 to project completion, woot! This week, I added just under 16,000 new words and finished the first two parts of five. Part 3 has some fun ideas that I’m trying to wrangle. All and all, it was a good week.
I think 15,000 words is a healthy goal. For this next week, I’m going to cut one of my writing sessions because I found that if I don’t study in the mornings, I struggle with focusing on it in the evenings. My brain doesn’t want to learn. It wants to play Halo or the Diablo 4 beta (which has been a lot of fun).
To hit 15,000 words next week, I’ll need to average 500 words per 50-minute session. I’ll be pushing myself for 600 since I averaged around 650 words per session last Thursday. Let’s see how it goes!
3/12/2023: Added 10,000 new words to the book and threw out my outline. I keep going back and forth on whether to discovery write the story or outline it first. Having an outline tends to improve my writing speed, but I find the story less enjoyable or engaging.
A story flows from one tiny detail to the next. These tiny details form logical cause-and-effect chains for everything. Outside of plotting large events, there’s just no way to know what these tiny details will evolve into.
When I outline, the chapters tend to shrink and become focused on the outcome rather than the journey. But it’s the journey, IMO, that makes a story enjoyable, not simply getting to the next cool thing. This is a constant struggle. I’ll keep experimenting as I aim to add 15,000 words to the book next week. :)
3/5/2023: I finished all of the rewrites this week, which gives me a clean point to write new words starting tomorrow. We’re going to see how having an outline of the story helps me write.
My biggest challenge, I believe, is writing myself into corners. With a nice little map to guide me, hopefully, I will stop doing that, haha.
2/26/2023: Dungeon Runner 2 is about 14,000 words right now. Most of this was written before I decided to make Dungeon Runner a trilogy, so I’ve been doing a lot of rewriting and planning.
I’m returning to outlining my books (instead of making it up as I go). Every night, I give myself an hour to think about the overall story, the premise, and what I think will make for a fun experience. This change should help me write faster while ensuring the story doesn’t wander from its initial premise.
We want awesome dungeons! And that’s what I hope to give you. :)
2/19/2023: The new novel form of Dungeon Runner 1 is nearly complete, which will allow me to return to working on this book. This project is no longer for Dungeon Runner 4. It now represents the second novel.
2/12/2023: I’m in the middle of some pretty big changes for the Dungeon Runner series. Since I can’t announce my plans (my second law), I’ll simply report on what I’ve done. Loopholes! Muahahaha.
This week, I combined Dungeon Runner 1, 2, and 3 with Eizel 1, 2, and 3 in an effort to make it a novel. I feel this format will work better once “things” happen sometime in the future.
My goal is to provide the best reading experience and value to my readers and listeners. But don’t read too much into this. Nothing is set in stone.
2/5/2023: Got feedback on the new Dungeon Runner cover, which has me making adjustments and trying new things. I also worked on the new map. But, unfortunately, no writing. Most of my time got sucked up into registering my business. That’s 90% done, so I’ll be back to writing next week.
1/29/2023: I did not make great progress on Dungeon Runner 4 this week, but I did make progress on the soft relaunch of the series. The new covers are looking great, and I can’t wait to share them. Besides that, my focus has been on contracts and forming an LLC. As always, lots to do!