The Road to Magic Arrives – It was a long struggle. Let me lay out step-by-step how I wrote and published my first fantasy.
The Road to Magic Arrives – Writing
Magic Arrives Back Cover
I track all my writing of all my books in a spreadsheet. Thus, I know the date I started and the date I ended my first draft.
Start date: April 3, 2023
That’s three years ago! No wonder it felt like forever.
However, this is the beginning of the planning document. I wrote down all my ideas as ‘vignettes’ and then I organized them as an outline.
The REAL first draft was: April 19, 2023
I had to organize six plot threads, one per chapter, for 54 chapters. Whew!
When did I finish? April 2, 2025 with 111,345 words!
The Road to Magic Arrives – Editing
I rediscovered the Book Progress app in Word Press and I decided to use it to report on the progress of my first fantasy book, with the working title, Magic Arrives. The app asked me about my writing method and I decided the Snowflake method is the closest to my process. I work on multiple parts at a time. Here’s the overall structure:
Story Structure – Done! April 19, 2023
Characters – Done! April 2, 2025
Scene List – Done! April 2, 2025
First Draft – Done! April 2, 2025
Editing – Content editing done January 26, 2026 (Line edit) – Dori Harrell
Proofing – Done! March 31, 2026 (copy edit) – Dori Harrell
Format edit – Done! ebook, paperback, hardback April 8, 2026 – Rik Hall
Cover and content assembled on Amazon – done April 26, 2026 – Illustrator Sean Flanagan
Publishing on Amazon
ARC Copy
The process looks like:
Upload your book contents in pdf format.
Upload your paperback or hardback cover spread (they’re different)
Review uploaded book for errors.
Schedule publication date. May 17th for Magic Arrives. The book is on pre-sale before that.Buy it here on Amazon:
For the ebook, the process is:
Upload your ebook contents in eps format.
Upload your front cover for the ebook icon
Review uploaded ebook for errors.
Schedule publication date. May 17th for Magic Arrives. The book is on pre-sale before that.Buy it here on Amazon:
The Road to Magic Arrives – Story Structure, the Series
So far I’m 100% complete on the Story Structure phase. I’ve captured my plot for this book, and the next two books in the triology.
Have a preview of the spines of the trilogy here.
Magic Arrives
Magic Wars
Magic Rules
Your Part
First, join my newsletter. I’ll give away free copies and discounts to my subscribers. Click here to join.
Next, beg, borrow, or buy a copy of Magic Arrives and read it.
“What’s in it for me?” you may ask. I would, if I were you.
I give away free books with every issue. This is important if you love books These are my books (Zombie Turkeys, and others, and the books of other authors.
Another way to get free books from me is to click here. I give away eight free books of mine with every newsletter. But you’ve got to join first. Plus, I tell you about events, I give you free short stories, and more. The newsletter comes out twice a month, but you can reduce that to monthly or even bimonthly.
Do You Want to Be Special? – The Second Way
The Secret Supers Series So Far
This way leads you closer to my heart. How?
“The way to an author’s heart is through reviews.”
It doesn’t have to be long. One sentence works fine. It doesn’t have to be a good review (look at my one and two star reviews). It’s just that you care enough to tell me what you think.
That’s why I think you’re special.
Do You Want to Be Special? The Third Way
This way makes you most special to me. Less than four thousand people in the world are in this category. But you can be.
Have a preview of the spines of the trilogy above.
My First Fantasy Book Magic Arrives – Characters
Front and back Cover of Magic Arrives
I just made progress on Magic Arrives! So far I’m 100% complete on the Characters phase. I’ve got about 71 characters so far, including magical dragons, talking dogs, gorillas, and intelligent dolls.
Magic Arrives Progress – Scene List
ARC Copy
I just made progress on Magic Arrives! So far I’m 100% complete on the Scene List phase. That’s 100 out of 100 scenes.
Progress – First Draft Words
I’m done with the first draft of Magic Arrives! I’m 100% complete. That’s roughly 112,00 words out of my goal of 100,000. Oops. Overshot.
Line editing – done
I’m done with the self-edit. I sent it to my editor, Dori Harrell. She did the line editing. I’m went through that and approved the changes. Now Dori is doing the final proofing.
I created the front cover, back cover and spine with my illustrator, Sean “Fuzzy” Flanagan.
Then there’s the small matter of uploading it to Amazon and publishing it there. Finally, I order paperback copies so you can get your copy here, directly from me, as less than Amazon.
From Chapter 4 London, the first draft of Paranormal Privateers, we find the paranormal privateers, George, Diane, Lulu, and Sharon, going incognito as undeclared zombies, quite against British law at the time. They’re using bloodhounds and zombie corgis to track down terrorists threatening London. Oh, and they have a truckload of zombie bulls.
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The Chapter 5 London chapter icon – what could it mean? Click and find out!
Scotland Yard met us the next morning when we docked in the port of London. We divided up into three groups to cover the area. Diane and I took everything between Grosvenor Place and Belgrave Place. Lulu and Sharon took the area from Belgrave to Basil. The Scotland Yard dog handlers Jerry Naismith and Benjamin Buxley took the wedge from Basil to Knightsbridge.
We jogged along, Diane and I. She had picked up the special two-wheel wheelchair, iBot, from Kamen industries office in London and loved tooling along at six miles per hour. Since we were in England maybe I should use the metric equivalent: ten kilometers per hour. I had no trouble keeping up with her, even as a deaf-mute. If people talked to me, I just handed them my deaf-mute card. The dogs, our two corgis, and two bloodhounds, also in service dog vests, loved it.
Then came a yell over our headsets. It was the Scotland yard crew, Jerry and Ben, both yelling.
“We’ve found them! The terrorists! They’re on the second floor of Harrods, in the tableware section!” said Jerry.
“We can’t get any closer! They’ve got tasers!” said Ben.
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Chapter 10 icon
“The hounds found C-4 in crockpots. When the sales clerks saw us they shot tasers at us!” Jerry continued.
“We would have been fried, but our kevlar vests stopped them,” added Ben.
“Now they’ve surrounded us in the ladies WC, taking shots at us,” Jerry interjected.
“We’re not far away!” said Lulu. “We’ll be right there!”
“George, we’re over a mile away, but we’re close to our truck, er, lorry holding the bulls and more corgis.”
I nodded. We had decided killer turkeys and the crowds of London were not a good combination. The turkeys remained on the yacht.
Diane jumped out of her wheelchair. “I’m breaking cover, you can too, George!” We ran to the truck, about two blocks away.
“Let me drive Diane,” I said.
“Of course. Left-hand drive scares me!”
Left-hand drive just required flipping all my US habits around. Look right first, then left. Keep left. I got the lorry out into traffic. We got into the traffic circle off Grosvenor.
“Look for Brampton exit,” I said.
We went all around the circle. No Brompton.
“Let’s try Chesham,” Diane suggested.
“We just passed it,” I said.
“What about Wilton?”
“You mean that last exit? We can’t go back to it now.”
“Here comes Belgrave again.”
“Let’s pull off,” I consulted the map on my cell phone. No map appeared for London. Rather, a popup said, “Directions disabled for London by order of the City of London. Please consult an official London cabbie.” I read aloud, incredulous.
Get Your Free Excerpt of third zombie book, part 3
The bulls bawled in the lorry. “There’s a taxi stand over there,” I pointed to Diane.
“I’m on it!” Diane leapt out of the lorry, ran across the busy traffic circle, accompanied by honking cars and talked with a cabby. She gave him some money and ran back.
“He’ll lead us to Harrods!”
I followed him out of the traffic circle. Then I heard in the headset, “Yow!”
Paranormal Privateers back cover – Click to get your preview
“Ay, caramba!” That was Lulu.
“What happened, Lulu?”
“Sharon caught a taser in the face. She’s down! It’s way more electricity than a regular taser. It can stop a zombie!”
“How are the Scotland Yard guys, Jerry and Ben?” I asked.
“We’re fine!” Jerry answered.
“After Lulu and Sharon attacked the clerks let us alone,” Ben added.
“Then we slipped down to the first floor,” Jerry said.
“That’s the second floor in US terminology,” Lulu said.
“So if the tableware is on the second floor, that’s the third?” I asked.
“Yes,” Lulu said.
“What’s your situation, Lulu?” I asked.
“I’m using a cutting board as a shield. When the taser hits it, I cut the wires with my katana.”
“Are they going to rush you? Where are you?”
“I don’t think so. One tried sneaking past me and I bowled him down by throwing a mixer at him. I’m guarding the exit to the dinnerware room. They can’t leave past me, but I can’t advance. I can’t leave Sharon anyway. How long until you get here?”
“We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
“We’ll need about ten more minutes,” said General MacGregor, who was in charge of the backup forces.
“Good! Double backup! Lulu, hang on, we’re bringing in the heavies!” Diane said.
Get Your Free Except – An Author Reading
Here’s another excerpt, read by Yours Truly, Andy Zach. Get Your Free Excerpt is from the beginning of the book, chapter 1.