Happy Monday!
I’ve got some work updates this week. First off, the final Blood of Kings book is back from its line edit, and I’ll be putting together ARC copies this week to send out to my advance readers. Cover art is pretty much done, so we’re well on track for release in the coming few weeks. I’ll let you know as soon as I have a firm date on that! I’ll have some posts with cover reveal, title reveal, and excerpts over the next little while, so make sure to stay tuned!
The first draft of my next Alpha Protocol book is also complete. I’ve a few tweaks that I need to make before sending it off for developmental edit, but I’m in good shape to get that book out in the Autumn.
Aside from that, I’m working hard on my next fantasy series, which as I’ve mentioned before, is set in an entirely new world, which I’m very excited about. Although I’ve been world building for this for a long time, now that I’m actually sitting down to plot out the first book, I’m seeing all the areas that need a bit more detail and thinking through. That’s not exactly a chore, though, as this is the part of the process that I always enjoy the most. What’s more, the deeper into all of this I dig, the more excited about it I’m getting!
I’m taking a slightly different approach to writing this series, and am spending a bit more time plotting it out in advance. In the past, I’ve had a start point, an end point, and a number of checkpoints in between, and went with the flow from there. This has left me spending a lot of time staring at the screen wondering what’s going to happen next, or how I’m going to get out of the corner I painted myself into a few chapters back.
Often this involves a lot of rewriting which is very time consuming, and definitely feels like one step forward and two steps back, which can be quite demoralising when you’ve 100k words ahead of you! This time, I’m writing a much more detailed synopsis, and taking some time to keep reworking it over a number of drafts, until I have the full story and flow shaped up. It’s a lot easier to rework a 3k synopsis than 40k of written words. It’s working well so far. Hopefully it’s a new and more efficient tool for me!
That’s all I have for this week. I’ll be back next week with a Plastic, Paint, and Glue post, and there’ll also be some announcements to come over the next couple of weeks! Until then, take care!