Time for a project update!
I currently have two different books in the editing/revision phase, one in the proofreading phase, and four projects teed up for the rest of the year. This year, I’ve been making a big push to get things done before GenCon because I’ll be on the road for a month, during which little writing work will be done. While I’m not doing Ragbrai, I am working GenCon, MALCon, and WorldCon, in Indianapolis, Denver, and Kansas City, respectively. As such, I’ll have some clumped together releases in the next month or so. Here they are, in the order I hope to release them, plus my next year of intentions.
- Superheroes In Denim, hardcover. The peculiarities of working with hardcover formatting have slowed me down tremendously in getting the print version of this book out. I normally do both print and ebook versions at the same time and have both ready to go at the same time. Not so for this one! I’m hoping to have the hardcover ready by the end of the week.
- The Greatest Sin #4: Illusive Echoes. The cover isn’t done yet. It’s in proofreading, which means the text will be ready to go within a week or two. If everything goes according to plan, it’ll be ready in the first week of June.
- Unnatural Dragons: a science fiction anthology. The Clockwork Dragon team has been hard at work on an anthology of stories about dragons taking place in a science fiction environment. Because dragons in fantasy is too easy. So far, we’re on track for an early June release.
- Spirit Knights #3: Ethereal Entanglements. I’m looking to have this book ready for pre-order by June 14. When exactly it’ll be good to go after that is a question I can’t answer yet. As seems to be normal for this series, there’s a plot problem I still have to fix. Lucky me.
- The next Illauris book has begun. For a while over the winter, I waffled over which culture to feature next. I’m now firm on Myveshar as the setting and elves as the culture. This book has a tentative release date of late October, making it ready in time for Jet City Comic Show, EuCon, and OryCon, my last few shows of the year.
- Chowndie. This book, I swear. It’s about 25% written and I’m happy with what I’ve got so far. If I can release it in November, I’ll be ecstatic. December would also be acceptable, as would January…heckbiscuits. I just want this book to live.
- Spirit Knights #4: Ghost Is the New Normal. This book has a planned release date of Norwescon, which is Easter weekend of 2017. Despite not finalizing book 3 yet, I’ve already started writing it.
- Super Secret Dragon Project. Along with #6, I’m hoping to have a new dragon-centric book ready to go for Norwescon. Writing has begun on this as well.
- Super Secret Non-Dragon Project. This is something I’m doing on the side, in my copious free time. I’ve got some interesting plans for this one, and I’m hoping the first draft will be done sometime in October. Considering my summer/fall schedule, it may spill over into NaNoWriMo.
- Anthologies. I expect to have 2-3 anthologies I want to submit to, and that’s slated for my NaNo time.
- Super Secret Non-Dragon Collaboration Project. This one is so secret it doesn’t have a firm deadline, but we’re hoping for April.
- The Greatest Sin #5 is currently penciled into my schedule for release next May. Erik and I are hoping to stick with May for TGS releases for the future. Also, we’re intending to keep the rest of the books around the same length as Illusive Echoes, which is only a smidge longer than Moon Shades. Spoiler alert: we may fail at that and succumb to series length creep.
- Clockwork Dragon. The book–which will be a standalone collaboration with Jeffrey Cook–has a tentative release date of GEARCon 2017 in Portland. Yep, I really do plan that far in advance, you sometimes just can’t tell. If the project slips under the weight of good intentions, the backup release date is Steamposium 2017 in Seattle.
Is this ambitious? Yes. Is it also feasible? Heck yeah. Off to work I go.