Island of Fog Book 6 - Chamber of Ghosts

Posted on November 5, 2012 (Subscribe to Blog)

The sixth and final installment in the Island of Fog series now has a title and cover. Up until now I've been using a working title for the book, and it irks me every time I look at it, but the new title hit me this weekend when I was in the middle of writing. It just fits perfectly. I checked on Amazon to make sure it wasn't already being used, and -- surprisingly -- it isn't.

And so, allow me to introduce you to Chamber of Ghosts.

New titles always take a little while to sink in, but once they do, they become permanently etched. This particular title refers to a chamber within the mines at Bad Rock Gulch, which as you may recall from the end of Roads of Madness is the next destination for our intrepid heroes. The chamber is supposedly haunted and the locals tend to avoid it, but guess what? For reasons I won't reveal here, Hal and his friends end up spending quite a bit of time there. And do they see the ghosts? You betcha.

Progress on the book is much better and faster than I expected. I've written 38,000 words, and the target is around 100,000, so I'm, er, well, 38% through if my math is correct. Since I already wrote chapters 9, 10 and 11 earlier and have now done chapters 1-6, it means that I'm about to "catch up" and close the gap. This will seem like a huge leap forward because I can then continue onward with chapter 12, which is slightly more than halfway through the book.

That final half is going to be challenging and fun to write. It's not just the last half of the book but the final book in the series, and I plan to pull out all the stops. Up until now, Hal has been going along for the ride and dealing with situations as they arise. But now he's about to become a "man with a mission" -- and nobody else is in agreement. It's where he lets his inner dragon out and takes control.

What's he going to do? Well, you'll have to wait and see. ;-)

I'll be writing this up until Christmas, and then editing in the New Year. I still plan a launch date of April 24th (the anniversary of Island of Fog's release in 2009), but if I find that I'm all finished way ahead of time, well, I might just go ahead and release it early.

Okay, now I've gotta get back to Hal and his friends...

Comment by BRIAN CLOPPER on Monday, November 5, 2012...

Gorgeous cover! Any chance of a post showing how you created this ethereal masterpiece?

Comment by CANAAN on Monday, November 5, 2012...

I love the new cover!

Comment by ROBERT FEAR on Tuesday, November 6, 2012...

Twice now, it has been mentioned of Hal wanting to eat wild animals (!) Could this happen when his "inner dragon" comes out to play? We shall see....

Comment by ROGER ESCHBACHER on Wednesday, November 7, 2012...

Great title and cover! I remember wondering, as I went through the earlier books, if you were going to focus on ghosts at some point. I guess the answer is "yes!"

Comment by KEITH ROBINSON on Wednesday, November 7, 2012...

Glad y'all like the cover. :-)

Brian, I'll put together a "how to" post sometime. I've been meaning to for a long time. Robert, it's funny you should mention that about wild animals... I've already written one scene where Hal catches a wild beast, and yes, he has an urge (later) to eat one as well. Will he, though? And Roger, ghosts was one of the things on my "possibles" list. Werewolves was another, so it's great that I get to do both in one story!