Book 5 Update: March

Posted on March 7, 2019 by

Just a brief update, since I don’t have the news that any of you readers really want to hear.  I’ve finished the final draft of Book 5, The Bloodied Army, and am awaiting further notes and/or tweaks from my editor.  The cover is, unfortunately, still in the wind; my artist has been having a rough time lately.

However, I plan to take ~a week’s break, then edit a short story (unrelated to the series, but which I’ll post here), then start on Book 6.  Hopefully we’ll encounter a block of time in which we can get both the 5 and 6 covers done — since I have the concept for 6 as well.  Doesn’t matter too much to me if the two final books come right on each other’s heels.  I just wish I could get them out to you all ASAP.

See below, my shabby author’s composite concept of the Book 5 cover, which alas is all I can show at the moment.

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Unrelated Mystery Tracks

Posted on March 1, 2019 by

Hi there!  This has nothing to do with writing (though I will note that book 5 is still in Final Edit Mode).  Now and then, though, I do post weird things from my backyard.  This is one such weird thing!

We got a pool cover last year, but since the pool is a very weird shape, there’s a depression right off-side of the central drainage strip where water tends to collect.  It’s been a very rainy winter, so often a small pool of water sits in that spot for a while, until it dries, leaving dust.

This dust means that seeing tracks is pretty easy.  And someone has been visiting.

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Book 5 Update: December

Posted on December 6, 2018 by

So.  Book 5’s main draft is done.

Looking at my timeline for this book is pretty embarrassing.  According to my notes, I started the rough draft on 11/1/16, finished it on 3/7/18, then immediately started this draft.  Which I have just now finished, nine months later.

So much for speeding up my production cycle!

Some data:

The rough draft clocked in at 439 pages (in my preferred page/font size), which came out to 317k words.  Whereas the main draft, this one, ended up as….338 pages and 246k words.  I fricking gutted this book.

More comparisons:

Book 1’s final final version is 186k words.  B2 is 238k words.  B3 is 336k words, and B4 is 288k.  So if this one stays around this size, I am indeed making a bell-curve of book sizes, which is something I weirdly kind of want?  Remains to be seen if B6 will follow that trend or expand into something very different.

I now have to wait for my beta readers to go over the last bit of b5 I’m shipping them, then go through the final draft (possibly chapter by chapter on googledocs with my alpha) and deal with all the new notes this draft generated, then format everything.  Also, of course, I need a cover.  Cover Artist has been having a rough time recently, so Book 5 might not roll out til mid-late spring at this rate…  But that’s just how it is.  I’m on no timeline but my own — though I do hate to keep people waiting.

Anyway, thanks for your patience.  I’ll try to post more while I have some brain-space available (aka while the betas are doing their thing), but it being holiday time, who knows if I’ll succeed?

Regardless, more…soonish.

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Book 5 Update: July

Posted on July 29, 2018 by

So.  Hi there.  You might not believe it, but I’m alive.

I am also about as useless as a flattened, desiccated gecko.

It has taken what feels like a majillion years to finish editing the second of the three threads that go into Book 5, but finally, that is done.  Starting tomorrow, I move onto the main thread.

This is still just the main draft edit — it will have to go through beta readers once I’ve done it all, and then go through me again for the final edit (if not more).  At this point, and with my dried-out-dead-thing pacing, Book 5 will most likely be a 2019 release.

But the work goes on, tortoise-like as it may be.

Until I finish the draft, I’ll probably remain quiet.  Just wanted to say hi!

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Titles, Book 4

Posted on April 6, 2018 by

Hey look, it’s me again!  What?  I’ve been silent for a month?  Nooo, shhhh, you saw nothing.  (Uh…literally.)

I am just now getting around to some of the standard post-book-release info discussions that I used to do immediately.  Guess I’ve been in a blogging slump.  Book 5 editing continues apace, so consider this a mini-update on that, but as for the Book 4 titles…

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Book 5 Update: March

Posted on March 7, 2018 by

Just a quick update here, since I’m about to head off to the Day Job:

The Book 5 Rough Draft is now complete!  At 439 pages (in the text file) — comparing it to Book 4’s rough, which was 447 pages, I’m pretty well on target.  I want to shrink it down shorter than Book 4 in the final draft, and I feel there’s plenty of space to trim — but I also have to add a few things, as I feel I’ve given short shrift to some story aspects that should have been more important.  We’ll see.

Anyway, I’ll be taking a long weekend from the book, but then jumping back in to start editing it.

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Book 5 Update: January

Posted on January 22, 2018 by

(Or: The Tale of My Hellspawn Computer.)

Now that my various computer issues seem to be over (knock on wood), it’s a good time for a project update!

I am currently still working on the rough draft of Book 5, which I started more than a year ago (sheesh) but put off in order to do the big ol’ re-edits of Books 1-3 as well as polishing up and publishing 4. I picked up Book 5 again around when Book 4 went live in November, but started having computer troubles soon after.

Like…right before an already-scheduled free promo. Son of a butt…

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