Yesterday I wrapped up the first draft of Wyrdworking.  At this point it is almost 94k words, which (to give some perspective) is a little less than twice the length of TTME.

I’m really happy with the way the book is shaping up.  Of course there could be (and probably will be) a lot of changes before its 2011 release.  I am setting it aside for a week or so.  Then I’ll go back through the manuscript to collect the words I’ll be putting in the glossary, and to look for anything in the text that I want to change.  Once the glossary and bibliography are finished I’ll need to sketch more than 50 runes and images going into the book.  I should have everything ready to mail to Llewellyn by mid-November, which is fine, because my deadline is mid-January. 

Then begins the year-long process of editorial changes, cover art and soliciting blurbs.

Approximately half of Wyrdworking is devoted to rune magic.  But these are not your former Priestess’s runes.  Ignoring most new-age ideas about the runes, I turn to the lore, to the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem, to discern the inner mysteries of these ancient symbols.  There is also more of a focus on rune magic – in contrast to divination – than you find in most rune books. 

The remainder of the book explores other magic skills; galdor (sound magic), wortcunning (herb magic), seething (trance magic) and scrying.  The final chapters illustrate how to combine these skills for effective spellwork.