We are now halfway done with the Spring’s Calling Kickstarter campaign! It’s hard to believe how quickly this is all going and yet it also feels like it is moving rather slowly. I worked on the campaign itself for close to three months before launch and we are only 16 days away from the end.

As of this post, we have raised $1,532 of our $2,000 goal. We are over 75% of the way there but as I mentioned before, you don’t get your rewards unless we reach 100%. In today’s campaign update, I shared a little profile on two of the story’s main characters, our protagonist Ezri and department psychologist Desmond who is a distant cousin but still very much Ezri’s family.

It’s interesting that of all the changes this novel has been through in the last six years, Ezri and Desmond have remained at the center. Sure, early drafts had some weird romantic tension that quickly got tossed out the window for professional reasons, but their connection and Desmond’s support of Ezri even when she doesn’t want it or can’t see that she needs it has always been at the heart of this book. I’ve also found that the basic tenets of magic that I devised while writing the first draft have remained largely the same which made subsequent drafts easier in that respect.

I honestly can’t say enough, though, about the great editorial assessment that I received from Rebecca Heyman. Yes, it resulted in the second complete rewrite but it needed it, badly. I hadn’t quite realized that the plot I’d written while an acceptable plot for a young adult protagonist (it was very much a coming-of-age situation), it was not going to work for an adult protagonist. She made me confront some of the aspects of the story that were superfluous (goodbye animal familiar and all-too-convenient brother) and gave me the opportunity to deepen some of the other supporting cast.

I really want to be able to share this story with all of my backers, but we are still $468 away from making that happen. Please, even if you can only spare $1 or $5, it adds up and together we can produce the best version of this book. So, if you haven’t pledged yet, go and grab your eBook (or paperback) copy today!