Eye of Darkness

It is mid-October already! I can’t believe how quickly this season is flying by. Of course, it might have something to do with the fact that I’m teaching four courses, working full time, part time, preaching, and just trying to survive. Yeah, that might have something to do with it.

At any rate, the reason I haven’t posted in a while is because I’ve been writing – in addition to the aforementioned thieves of time. But since I had a comment to respond to and a book cover to upload here anyway, thought I’d bring you up to speed.

UPDATES:
Eye of Darkness is nearly complete. I found that I had to go back and add a chapter somewhere in the middle of the book, which is now complete, and I’m plugging away toward the end – which, if I haven’t mentioned just yet, had eluded me for some time. I think I’ve got it figured out now, though.

The Lost Scrolls now has a cover approved, and it is slated to come out in September of 2012. It isn’t the March publication date I’d hoped for, but I’d rather take the time and get it right than rush into market before it’s time. My publisher tells me that the book will be available in March for endorsements, which will then be added probably in the front matter and in marketing efforts.

I haven’t heard anything yet from my friend Linda about The Elixir of Life. She did send a couple of thoughts early on, but nothing since. I can only assume she’s busy, what with her own books coming out and all. It isn’t a high priority at the moment anyway, since it’s another book to offer to Ellechor rather than one I’m releasing on my own.

And for fans of the Jefferson’s Road series, you’ll be happy to know that I’ve restarted work on The Tree of Liberty. I know, I know: I’m only supposed to work on one book at a time. Maybe it’s the Occupy Wall Street protests or the ramping up of the election cycle – or all of the above – but I found that, yet again, I have to write this series. I’ve always enjoyed writing books, and have done so largely for amusement. I’ve never actually felt compelled to write a book until I started this series. At any rate, I guess I can thank the poor little commies in NYC for the protests. I’m sure I can use one of the images in the cover of God and Country or one of the next books. I’d been relying on an image from the Vancouver riots, but now I can pick something a little closer to home, I think.

At any rate, the story is moving forward nicely, and I’ve got enough sense of what happens immediately next to write several chapters ahead of me.

The Coppersmith continues to be my bestseller. I’m not making as much money from it (only $.99 compared to $2.99 for the Jefferson’s Road books), but I’m selling a lot more copies. Roughly half of my sales totals so far.  I’d like to work on Topheth toward that end, but I don’t think I can justify going back to working on three projects at a time again, much as I’m tempted to do so. Of course, I confess I have tinkered with it a little bit. I think, once Eye of Darkness is finished, I’ll be able to give a little more time to it. Priority will be The Tree of Liberty, of course.

And that’s about it. Gotta get back to work now. Peter is about to cause some trouble.

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Finished!

Took me a lot longer than I thought it would – largely due to my inability to find time to sit down and write (when I actually have energy – er, maybe that’s a discipline issue), but the good news is that I’ve finished The Elixir of Life. I’m quite satisfied by the ending, now. I don’t think I’ve overwritten any passages – even in my attempts to beef up the word count. Overall, I think it’s simply strengthened the story and given me a chance to include some details in the story I’d meant to add at one time, but hadn’t included in the first draft.

Final word count: 74K. It’s still a little shorter than I wanted it to be, but I think I can live with it. Now it moves into the editing phase, but I’m not going to put a lot of time into it until I’m closer to a submission date. Given that I probably need to wait until The Lost Scrolls comes out before offering Ellechor a sequel, this means I can at least move on to Eye of Darkness, which I hope to wrap up before the end of September.

Speaking of September, my sister is asking me when Patriots and Tyrants will be available in paperback. I’ve gotten this question a couple of times now, and I’m beginning to think that I ought to release it sooner than I’d originally planned. They don’t teach you this stuff when you decide to become an independent author (actually, nobody teaches you anything. You have to figure it all out on your own. Hmm… might be a series of valuable blog posts there…), but releasing your book at the right time is as critical to your success as writing a quality manuscript. There are certain periods where readers buy. I’m going to do a little more research on this, but look for Patriots and Tyrants to come out sometime next month.

Given that I’ve got people demanding even The Tree of Liberty, I’m pondering which book to work on after Eye of Darkness. My original plan is to work on Topheth first, and then Tree, but I might reconsider. Regardless, I’ve got some time before that becomes an issue.

Now, I’m gonna help my wife get the house ready for company, and then I’ll disappear back into my man-cave once the guests arrive (’cause they ain’t here to see me!).

Feels pretty good to have this book done, though.

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I’m thinking about employing a new strategy. For a few months now I’ve been struggling to finish some of the projects I’ve been tackling of late, making very little headway on any of them. It’s occurred to me that holding four separate novels in my head simultaneously might not be the best way to accomplish this.

For the record, I have the following projects in various stages of completion:

So you can see, I’ve been plenty busy. It’s just that I haven’t gotten some of these off my plate yet. Perhaps they’re taking up too much room in the fields of my imagination. Better to harvest them and get them out of the way, and then move on to the next with a little more energy.  I only need about 10K more words or so to wrap up Elixir. Eye only needs 20K more or so. Topheth needs 50K. And Tree needs 65K at least. That’s assuming I reach my baseline goal of 75K words per book. Bear in mind, this is a minimum target. I’ll write until the story is finished, naturally, but it does give me a sense of how much more there is to go. I suppose it’s possible that Eye could run for another 50K words, though I doubt it at this point.

Regardless, I think this’ll help break the logjam and get me rolling again. The only downside is that I won’t be able to release Elixir due to contractual obligations (Ellechor gets first crack at any Jon Munro adventure – really, any Christian adventure fiction I write).

After this, I can take a serious look at the other projects languishing in forgotten corners of my mind (like Descent, my story about alien abductions, or The Novem, a sci-fi thriller about children with neural implants that connect them directly to the internet), and that’s not considering the remaining sequels in the series I’ve already begun (Janelle Becker books have two more; Jefferson’s Road has three more after Tree; Jon Munro has at least two more, possibly three; and Lucas may have as many as three more.).

I’m starting today. I’ll let you know how it works out.

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Nearing the end of July, now, and my big plans for writing Eye of Darkness in a single month have, of course, failed to pan out. Nevertheless, I’m still pleased with the experiment so far. I’ve composed almost 60K words as of tonight, and probably in excess of that by the time August 8th rolls around, which will represent four months since starting the book. It’s been difficult, and I don’t know whether or not I’ll be able to improve on this pace with a different work or not. Admittedly, I’m both out of my genre and out of my depth, but I’m still getting more done and more quickly than if I weren’t shooting for the moon on it.

I’ve gotten bogged down here and there on the story, and many times lost any interest whatsoever in writing it. Sometimes, just to keep going has been a major effort. Naturally, I’ve taken time off to work on The Tree of Liberty, or fiddled around with Topeth a bit.  And the thing is: I don’t think it’ll be ready to publish as soon as I finish it, either. This thing is gonna need some editing and a little rewriting before I dare release it to the public. I want to put forth my best work, of course.

I was doing pretty well for the first 40K words, but that’s when the trouble started, and I got bogged down. I don’ t know if this would’ve happened had a) I stayed in a more familiar genre, or b) had I let the story be a little more “formed” before trying to put it down on paper. There’s a very real sense in which a story doesn’t really take shape until you write it (to paraphrase Nancy Pelosi (of all people!), “We have to write the story to find out what’s in the story.”).

But like I said, I have to be pleased. I’ve gotten a lot done, and this pace at least allows me to triple my story output (three books in a year as opposed to just one), even if I’m not all the way where I want to be just yet. Rest assured, I’m going to keep trying to get more books done in less time, because the sheer number of stories I have to tell has not diminished at all.

On a positive note, I’ve edited Topheth to the point where I’ve been able to start work on it again, and just as soon as Eye is done, I’ll be tearing into it big time. With only 50K words or so left to write on it (or more, of course), I don’t know that it will take me that much longer to release another one.

And as August is right around the corner, I’ll be in touch with Ellechor soon to talk about The Lost Scrolls, due in March. We’ll begin the editing process on that one shortly (at which time I’ll want to put the finishing touches on the sequel, tentatively called The Elixir of Life. Meanwhile, I continue plugging away at The Tree of Liberty, even though I’m not looking to have it finished until next April.

Busy, busy, busy!

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