Just over halfway through the first draft of the novel now. Hit a couple of snags in the past couple of months that slowed the writing down, but now that they’re sorted out, I’m back on track and making steady progress. One major change that I had to make was changing the location from the real-life Salem to a fictional town called Penance Cove. As I developed the story, I just found myself taking too many liberties with the historical facts and couldn’t continue using the real-life town as a setting. Now that I’ve made up a fictional town, I’ve got the freedom to do whatever I want. I’ve made Penance Cove an isolated seaport to the north of Salem; one of the many neighbouring towns to have been swept up in the witch hysteria of 1692. It was founded long ago by Puritans who had questioned their faith in God and fled their fellow man to seek atonement in the harsh and unforgiving wilderness.
At this rate, the first draft of All Hallows’ Eve should be done sometime this Spring.