Thrushbeard was the first full story I actually finished. It’s a bit under 32,000 words, so novella length.

When I went to write the second draft, I decided to turn it into a full-length novel. Which means draft two isn’t a revision, it’s a total re-write. Even the names of the main characters have changed. So I figured you wouldn’t mind revisiting the story in its new guise.

The version I’ll be sharing with you, starting with my next post on Wednesday, is this bigger and better (or at least different) one. It came in somewhere around the 82,000 word mark and still needs work.

For comparison, Calypso (about 120,000 words) has also gone through further drafts since I first started posting it, but that has been revision and refinement. The current version is shorter and simpler than the story you’ve been reading here, and needs to be trimmed further.

The end plan (very end, it’s still a fair way off) is to publish these, probably independently. Most fairy tale retellings are indie published. Calypso might be queried out to agents – just for the experience if nothing else – and if they’re not keen, I’ll self-publish that as well. Eventually…

The version of Thrushbeard I’m posting here isn’t the latest. This is the draft I sent to three amazing beta readers, and I’m currently working on weaving their feedback into the tale.

I hope you like it, and would love your thoughts and observations on the difference between the two versions if you’ve been around here long enough to have read (and still remember) Anaria’s original story.

Thanks so much for reading my blog, and (I hope) enjoying my stories. I look forward to bringing you more, and better ones, as I learn more about writing.

Kat.

P.S. I’ve set up my author site – it’s very basic and I don’t yet have a newsletter, but I’d love your feedback on the things you’d like to see on there, and in any email I send.