🚀The Dark Age: A finished draft

Hello, friends!

In the last Dark Age letter, I confessed that I hadn’t been writing very much. I wrote that letter in anticipation of breaking out of the doldrums, however, with my first writing trip since 2019.

I didn’t go far, just a 90-minute drive to the Oregon coast. I grabbed a little Airbnb cottage, located about three blocks from the beach, and got to work. For a little over four days, I divided my time between long walks on the promenade or the sand and writing sessions at the dining table of the cottage.

The work resumed fairly easily. I wasn’t operating blind; I had a list of things I needed to get done. I realized two days in that I might finish my draft entirely, and that gave me a fresh burst of energy. I stitched new scenes in between existing ones, sliced others away entirely, added little bursts of clarity here and there, removed some unnecessary detritus that was mucking up the engines. And, happily, by Friday, draft three was altogether finished.