What’s Coming Up Next in My Writing World

After rambling on last time about what I’m NOT going to do in the future, I’m kind of sort of hoping you’re curious about what the future does hold.

Sorry, I don’t have a crystal ball about any major world events (it may be best that we don’t know), but I can clue you into what’s coming up in my writing world over the next year and maybe get your input on what you’d like to see from me.

A Plethora of Projects

Besides really wanting to use the word plethora, I actually do have a gob of projects I’m eagerly trying to tame and most are well underway. For me, the problem is never about coming up with ideas, it’s deciding which one takes priority.

The options include…

1. An urban fantasy-zombie-magic-mystery trilogy
2. A fantasy-sci-fi-time-traveling-pirates stand alone novel (why can I not tame these genres?)
3. The final two books in my mythological fantasy series, The Osteria Chronicles
4. That historical novel I’m dying to write.

Making Decisions Without Flipping Any Coins

It quickly came down to a battle between Options #1 and #3.

Luckily, it was easy to knock Option #2 down a notch since I only just outlined the story in April and ideas for the plot are still rolling around in my head…although I can already picture how the majority of it will play out (always a good place to start).

And since Option #4 hasn’t done anything more than crawl around in my head for the past couple years, I think I’ll just let it keep rooting around in there for now.

As for Option #1, this urban fantasy-zombie-magic-mystery trilogy is a project I am absolutely in love with. I’ve already written pretty strong first drafts of Books 1 & 2 and the third book’s first draft isn’t too shabby, just a bit thin.

I’m sure I’ll be gushing on about the trilogy later, so I don’t want to annoy you too much with it, but imagine you’re working in a funeral home and your “clients” start coming back from the dead. And it’s up to you to figure out why.

Anyway, as you can see, that trilogy is far different than what you’re used to from me and it’s been a thrill to play around and stretch my writing muscles with it.

Then there’s Option #3: Books Five and Six of the Osteria Chronicles. When the decision making process started, the very thought of working on them had me cringing. They were both in very awful, truly terrible, absolutely horrid first drafts. Book Five wasn’t so bad, but Book Six resembled something my cat hacked up.

(Don’t worry, I’m not including a cat puke meme)

The Winner

I’ll be honest, for the first couple months of this year, I was diligently plugging away on Option #1 (zombies). I’d written the first book of the trilogy last fall and books two and three came together with little effort in January and February.

But then there were The Osteria Chronicles whimpering in the corner and wondering why I wasn’t paying any attention to them. After all, this series started WAY back in 2014, which is about 10,000 years ago in self-publishing time. Basically, I’m well overdue to see this series to completion.

Of course, part of me hopes there’s a couple people out there who want to read the conclusion of this mythological fantasy that began oh so long ago.

So, the magic zombies got filed away and, in May, I started dismantling the horrid first drafts of Books 5 & 6 and cobbling them back together in a way that’s making them much less horrid.

The manuscripts started out at a slim 39,500 words for Book 5, and 31,000 words for Book 6. Now, with only about 6 chapters left to revise, the books have been treated to an all-you-can-eat word buffet and have bulked up to 84,000 words and 76,000 words, respectively.

The Plan (For Now)

Of course, those numbers above only represent the second draft, which I’ll finish this week (YAY!!!). After that, the manuscripts (which I’m working on at the same time to help with continuity since these two books are closely tied together) will face a couple more drafts to nail down the plot, organize the flow of the various storylines, strengthen the setting, and hone the language.

Then, there’ll be a little break from it before I head into the final drafts that mostly involve proofreading and making sure all the formatting is sorted correctly. During this break I’ll probably sneak over and start playing with one of those other options.

In other words, there’s still plenty of work ahead, but what I’d like to know is, what do you want to see after the finale of The Osteria Chronicles? That’s right, it’s….

That Was Fun, Now What About Release Dates??

I haven’t set these in stone, but I expect to do a box set of Books 1-3 of the Osteria Chronicles in December-ish as a lead up to the release of Book 5 in either January or February, then (as promised last time), there will be a break in between releases and Book 6 should be out sometime in late spring.

What do you think? Anyone out there cheering this announcement? Anyone hissing and booing? How do you prioritize projects? Slap a comment in the box below or go back to your email and hit reply to share your thoughts!!

***