October Progress Post

It’s once again time for the monthly progress post! I notice I skipped September—whoops. I can summarize September by saying I got very little accomplished because of the conference, various family emergencies (minor and handled, but time-consuming), and the need to finish up the Girl on Fire launch. Alas, September, how you disappointed!

October, though, y’all. *shakes head*

The project I’d labeled in my head as ‘the wedding novella’ was intended to bridge the end of the Princes’ Game series with the beginning of the forthcoming Earthrise2 trilogy (which needs a proper series name; I’m thinking about it, honest). It was supposed to cover Sediryl’s wedding and investiture as heir… basically two parties. I thought ‘hey, that should be quick.’

Yes, I know. Those of you who’ve been with me since the Rose Point Holiday debacle are shaking your heads and smirking. Bear with me here. 

Since I like low-hanging fruit, and I thought it would be nice to have something to release at the end of 2018 for the holiday shopping season, I decided to go for it. I started in October, got 4000 words into it, realized I’d started it too far back in the timeline, threw out all 4000 words, and started over. And proceeded to write over 100K. In October. Which got me to the end of Book 1 of a duology. *facedesk*

So on the bright side, I accidentally came into two books when I intended to come out with one novella. On the not-so-bright side, I gave myself RSI pounding the first one out on a cheap portable keyboard and now I need to finish a second book during a period I’d planned to use for Other Stuff. I’ve solved Problem #1 by buying a second ergonomic keyboard, this one for my Surface; now I’m ergonomic on both my major computers, standing and sitting. But it’s the Other Stuff that I’m mulling now, because writing, editing, painting covers for, and releasing two full-length novels wasn’t in my plan for the last quarter of 2018. I’d been intending to use that time to build up some backlog on both Kherishdar’s Exception and Squire Marda, the second book of Coracle. The wedding novella was supposed to be low-hanging fruit not, you know, an entire fruit harvest. -_-

This would be marginally easier to plan if I felt like I could stagger the writing/release of the wedding duology, but it’s one of those “this is really one story split into two parts” things that responds best to being edited for continuity at the same time. Plus, you all will thank me if I group-launch them, because while Book 1 ends on a nice note with the wedding, it’s so full of loose ends that you’ll want to leap immediately into Book 2 to see how I wrap them up. I don’t particularly want to duplicate my mad writing rush for Book 2, either. I know lots of people will tell you about how awesome it is to write quickly and I agree that writing fast is intoxicating… but I only have one pair of wrists and I need some recovery time post-flare-up. Moderating my tempo would be the better part of wisdom. Also, flipping through the manuscript I see a lot of places where I rushed through things that needed more love, which means I’m going to spend a lot more time in the editorial phase than I usually do. As usual, methods have their pros and cons.

Right now, I’m not sure how I’m going to re-arrange 2019. I have some thoughts, based on the need to put bread on the table and the relative popularity of various series. I’m also keeping an eye on our Patreon goals—those of you who are detail-oriented might notice we dropped off the ‘I can write an entire niche novel’ goal and are back down to ‘maybe a niche short story or novella would be do-able’, thanks to fluctuations in the Patreon totals. But it doesn’t look like I’ll have an entire niche novel to deliver, which is great, because apparently I’ve set my entire roster back by three months. -_-

I know this sounds doom-and-gloomy, but it’s actually magnificent, because it means you're getting two full-length novels—at once!—in Q1 of 2019. With a lot of your favorite characters too… doesn’t matter if your favorite Peltedverse series was Her Instruments or Dreamhealers or Princes’ Game, there’s going to be something for everyone. (Well, except Alysha fans. I still want to write new Alysha material next year, but we’ll have to see how it goes.) I just have to figure out where to slot in all the other projects that need doing!

While thousands of people are furiously at work on Nanowrimo this month, thus, I’ll be faffing around with outlines for next year’s books, and messing with project management charts, and maybe, at some point, I’ll get started on Wedding 2… probably after editing Wedding 1 and getting it to first readers. (Discord users, the link will go up in #vault when it's ready. Otherwise, if you want to volunteer, wave a hand. You'll need to be familiar with all the existing stories with Eldritch in them. And I do mean all of them.)

Other Stuff that happened in October while I was writing: nothing. Seriously. I did some sketching, I guess, but mostly if I was awake and working, I was writing. -_-

That wraps up my overview of October’s progress! Discussion of why I’m rearranging my publishing schedule for next year is coming in the monthly sales post, available to coffee-cup subscribers. Your comments, questions, and observations are, as usual, welcome. And thank you for your patronage. Y'all are awesome. <3