It is official! I have finished my first edit of “Shadow of the Western Moon”. That’s right, you heard me. I finished the FIRST edit… Now the book is going to my faithful proof reader to tell me where, how and why it sucks… But enough negativity, I finished the first edit and that is all that matters. Reading through the novel I found numerous errors that I am rather ashamed of , but, when you take into consideration that I wrote this whole book in 25 days, I think the errors can be excused to a point. The most common error that I have is using then instead of than. Yay! Grammer Nazis attack that foul mistake pronto!
Anyway, on a more serious note, I ended with 53,903 words in my word count. That is 16,097 words shy of the minimum that I want the final edit of this book to be. Once my proof reader gets done with it and hands it back with all the red lines and red ink corrections, we will see what I can do about adding those 16,097 words.
All in all, I actually deleted about 4,000 words in the editing process, but added around 7,000 words to it while editing. So an extra 3,000ish words added to the original word count is not bad by my standing.
I am still wondering if I should add the chapter titles like I mentioned in the last blog post. I would like to hear some feedback from the people who read my blogs on what they think.
Anyway, I know you all want to have another excerpt from the book so I guess I can leave you with one more just to tease and tantalize you. Enjoy.
Alissa leaned over and kissed him deeply when Jonah settled down beside where she had taken a prone position in order to get the most stability for the rifle. Feeling her tongue swirl gently in his mouth he gave in and kissed her in return. Quickly she broke the kiss and looked into Jonah’s eyes.
“Just in case,” she started. “You know, if things go bad...” She trailed off from what she was saying then dropped her right eye to the scope before squeezing off the first round.
The explosion from the shot caused Jonah’s ears to ring smartly as the rifle recoiled violently against Alissa's shoulder. She took the recoil with ease as if this were a common practice for her. She quickly ejected the shell and had a new round chambered, ready to fire again.
Jonah turned his attention back to the followers that appeared as a shapeless mass at the center of the cloud of dust that followed them. Just as he turned his attention back he saw a twisted, formless shape flip into the air from the mass right before another shot rang out into the air, seconds later another shape flew into the air.
Looking back to Alissa he could clearly see that she was enjoying herself as she fired round after round into the mass, though the mass did not seem to slow despite her efforts, if anything it was steadily drawing closer. Once again Jonah checked his gun before looking back to the front of the cart.
Rasheed worked the controls of the clockwork horses like a madman, throwing the levers wildly as he tried to push them faster than seemed possible, Lilly had a small pistol out in her right hand while her left arm was wrapped protectively around Basheer. She was looking to the rear of the cart and updating Rasheed on the progress that was made by the followers. She saw Jonah watching and smiled reassuringly, despite the worry that was etched into her brow.
Off to the distance Jonah could see the churning waters of the river Thane, but as fast as the clockwork horses could carry the cart, he knew that they would not reach the river in time. He turned back to rear of the cat and now realized he could see the creatures that followed. He could now see that it was the same type of creatures that had attacked the farmlands and killed his parents while taking Father Mallory's leg when he was a child. Jonah had never seen the creatures for himself before, but he had heard enough stories over the course of his life that he knew them by sight.
There seemed to be hundreds of them following behind, striding impossibly fast on impossibly long legs in an effort to catch the cart. Their writhing skin and morphing bodies caused him to shudder in revulsion. The creatures came at them moving quicker than Jonah could have ever imagined that they could move and soon they were nearly upon the wagon.
Jonah stood up, took aim with his revolver and pulled the trigger for the first time. The recoil was much stronger than he anticipated and it knocked him backward onto his ass as the creature he shot seemed to disappear in a spray of blood, bone and gore. Alissa paused in her shooting long enough to look at Jonah's gun in amazement before going back to work picking at the mass of creatures as fast as she could.
Struggling back to his feet Jonah heard a small crack from behind him and knew Lilly had joined in the fray, firing her small pistol at the creatures nearest to her. Soon as he was back upright, he braced himself as best as he could and squeezed off another round, this time he rocked back with the recoil as the creature he had been aiming at exploded. Quickly he brought the barrel back down to fire again taking another out in a spray of gore. Jonah soon got into a rhythm, allowing him to fire shot after shot with surprising speed that was broken only when he needed to reload as the revolver auto ejected the spent rounds as they still smoked. Jonah struggled to reload the gun the first time, his hands shaking from adrenalin and the sheer power of the weapon in his hand but soon he mastered the process and found it came to him with ease.
One of the creatures was now close enough to reach into the cart, going for Alissa with an elongated arm that, instead of a hand, had a large spike made of bone, which it thrust forward, seeking her flesh. Jonah pushed Alissa to the side roughly with his left foot causing the spike to catch him in the calf, shredding through both muscle and bone. With a gasp of pain Jonah fired on the creature at point blank range as it started to attach itself to his left leg. Its upper torso vanished as the round hit its flesh causing the now detached spike to wither and fall to the ground.
