DUNE 7 BLOG

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Another Round

I received a package from Brian containing a flashdrive, a flashdrive backup, and even a Zip disk as a backup-backup, containing his edited Draft 4 of SANDWORMS. Last week I had sent him Draft 5 of HUNTERS.

We also received a letter of comments about HUNTERS from Carolyn Caughey, our British editor -- the first feedback we've received. We should get a letter from Pat LoBrutto, our US editor, as well as comments from my three test readers, before the end of the month. Every step improves the book.

Over the past eight days, I spent most of my time buried in editing SLAN HUNTER, a much shorter novel than HUNTERS OF DUNE -- only about 275 pages, with lots of action and plot twists. After I finished that edit, I shipped the manuscript to Lydia Van Vogt, and she called to tell me she had stayed up until 3:00 AM two nights in a row to read it. She gave the new novel her wholehearted approval.

After a week of 11-hour days at the keyboard, and before starting the next edit of SANDWORMS, I took a day off to go for a 12-mile hike up in the Big Thompson canyon near Loveland, Colorado. Of course, during the "day off" I dictated the last three chapters in OCEAN REALMS, the second book in a young-adult fantasy trilogy, "Crystal Doors," written with my wife Rebecca. On the hike I also had four cell-phone conversations with Brian about ideas for edits and changes to HUNTERS. No such thing as a day off!

And finally, kudos for all of you reading the blog and checking out the Dunenovels website. I started writing these semi-regular reports and essays back at the end of October, and we have been keeping track of the numbers. dunenovels.com has been very consistent, averaging about 30,000 hits a day, 900,000 hits per month. These are tremendous numbers, demonstrating the continued interest and dedication of Dune fans. Thank you all for your continued interest and your immensely supportive fan mail -- and for keeping Frank Herbert's great universe at the forefront of science fiction.

--KJA