Returned...

New plan. I've just rewritten the first book of Blood Angel, and it seems settled at around 24,000 words. I just completed a red-pen edit of it, dumping most of the first chapter because it was just word-salad meant to set the time and scene but was actually detracting from the story. Tomorrow, I'm going to input the changes, which will be the equivalent of draft 5. I think I'll have it ready to go in a couple weeks.

I'm going to post it solely on Smashwords as an ebook and see what kind of response I get before I move forward with the following books. If things go well and I wind up doing all 7, I'll combine them into a single paperback. I don't think making a series of books this slim is really worth the trouble or expense, and I wouldn't like the look, anyway.

Oh, and I'm thinking of licensing this image for the cover.

Some subtle changes in Léonidès and his monks. Initially, they are taking sexual advantage of him...but also get him to learn how to read and do math. And their turnings are spacing out a bit more. Geoffrey is now Gregory, and he was an ecclesiastical scholar for a king that lived 200 years before Léon. The others were taken, one by one, and forced into becoming vampires by the Prior because he wanted them. They've accepted it, but it's not until they become bound to Léon that they truly enjoy being that way.

I'm also explaining the beginning of the Oiym, the oldest Blood Angels. So far, it's a case of a pack of wolves who roamed Sumaria and those they bit or attacked were infected with vampirism. A woman brought forth a baby during the change, and that's where the bloodline comes from. The Oiym decide to keep the purity of their group by making rules all vampires must follow, under threat of eternal imprisonment, to keep the world from being overrun, and the Prior ran afoul of these rules when he turned Gabrielle, Léon's sister, and then tried to kill Léon.

Dunno if this will make sense in the morning, but we'll see.