In The Widening Gyre

Doing the Happy Dance!

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Still working on the next chapter installment of In the Widening Gyre, but in the meantime, I thought I’d share the really great news I received from my publisher for The Lost Scrolls. This is what she wrote me this morning:

Now, the great news: We will be offering you a contract for book 2 in your Jonathan Munro series, The Elixir of Life. We will aim for another summer release, and I am optimistic on success because all of our editors love your books! That’s hard to do. Your contract will be the same as for The Lost Scrolls, and I can send you the official offer this week. Let me know your thoughts!

I am so excited! I’ve actually begun the preliminary research for the next Jonathan Munro Adventure, which takes place in Russia and involves the story of Rasputin, among other famous Russian characters. There’s a few characters from The Elixir of Life who’ll reappear in this story. I’m reasonably confident that we’ll see the return of Brother Demetri Antonescu as well, though I’m not sure exactly how. The story is tentatively titled, The Music of The Spheres, and might involve an unfinished Tchaikovsky composition that holds a secret mystery within the notes. I can’t say more, though (and I haven’t really worked everything out yet). At any rate, I’m now reading up on Russian history in preparation for outlining the story.

And have no fear for In the Widening Gyre. I had to take a small break to prime the pump again (that means: read some more fiction. I find it’s important to do this in order to keep generating my own stories. Not really sure why, but if all I do is write all the time, I wear out. Got to read to pour back in, I suspect). I’ll be back to work on it in no time at all. Along with the other series I’m writing.

God is so good!

In The Widening Gyre, Chapter 13

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The thirteenth is up. This chapter starts the second part of the book. The first is called “Turning and Turning,” and the second is “The Falcon.” I won’t tell you yet what the third is called, but if you’re familiar with the poem, you can probably figure it out.

Right now I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Bushnell’s Basin, waiting for my eldest daughter to wrap up her co-op program before I truck the three of them over to an art class across town. My youngest is reading chapter 12 on my son’s laptop, and she thinks the hand is too over the top.

She  thinks an eyeball would be better.

Go figure.

At any rate, I’ll think about it (no, not about putting the eyeball in there). I don’t want this to be too heavy for the readers, and I’m more than capable of getting graphic (anyone out there read The Coppersmith yet?), so maybe that’s too much.

Gotta go right now. Here’s the link to the next chapter.

Chapter 13

In the Widening Gyre, Chapter 12

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Chapter 12 of In the Widening Gyre is up. This took a while to write. Partly because life intervened with other challenges and priorities too numerous or trivial to mention. But partly because this chapter represents a major turning point in the book.

I’ve divided the book into three parts. Part One – Turning and Turning – is now complete. In the next chapter, we start Part Two – The Falcon. The book will conclude in Part Three – The Falconer.

The images are lifted straight from Yeats’ poem, but given an entirely different application than the poet intended, of course. I suspect you’ll be pleased with the final result.

This took a little longer than I thought…

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Here’s the next installment of In The Widening Gyre.

Chapter Ten

My goal was to have chapter ten done as of yesterday, and be finishing chapter eleven today. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Part of it was the family’s insistence on watching a double feature last night, but the biggest reason was, I think, just being tired. The double shift I worked on Tuesday didn’t help matters. The overtime will help, of course, but not as far as the story is concerned.

Some days I just can’t wait till I’m earning QYJM from all this. I don’t really want or need to be rich. I just want to earn enough to do this full-time.

I suppose, in a way, this is a discipline. Paying my dues, that sort of thing. If I can learn to crank out the volume needed to make it as a writer, then I’ll have acquired the discipline needed to make doing it full time a worthwhile investment. It’s not like I’ll ever take a full year to write a novel again. My goal now is one every two months (assuming I can even pull that off!). This way, I’ll be able to progress on all six series I’m currently writing.

My wife pointed out to me the other day that I’ve already released three books this year. True, the sequel to The Lost Scrolls had to be submitted to my editor at Ellechor, but I did finish the edits and release it to her. And, of course, I finished both Spilled Milk and Eye of Darkness this year as well. This means that I only have to complete three more and I’m on target.

If I can wrap up In the Widening Gyre by May (and I hope sooner than that!), then I can take two months to finish Topheth (July), and two more to finish The Tree of Liberty (September), which will give me the last part of the year to start work on the next installments of the Spilled Milk series, The Dragon’s Eye Cycle, and the third Jonathan Munro Adventure. None of them will be due until 2013, either.

I think, once I get the Spilled Milk series done (and I expect only three titles in that set, at most), I’m still gonna resist doing any more series until I wrap up at least two more. I really want to finish off Jefferson’s Road and The Dragon’s Eye Cycle, since both of these series have a clearly defined end point. New World Order (of which In the Widening Gyre is just the first installment) does as well, but the anticipated series is nine books long. That’s a major investment of time, so I can’t really focus all my energies on finishing the series just now. By contrast, both Jonathan Munro Adventures and Janelle Becker Books are somewhat open-ended. I can write as many books in those series as I can think up. And since each novel stands alone, it’s not like I’m gonna have people breathing down my neck like I do for the others.

I think, in the future, I’m might steer away from sequential series. At least, I’ll stay away from this many! Maybe one or two at the most, with some stand alone novels and series thrown in the mix. Still, by the time I’m done with what’s currently on my plate, I’ll have written 33 books.

Don’t think I can complain about that at all, actually.

In The Widening Gyre

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I mentioned earlier that my daughter is all over The Hunger Games, and that I’ve been considering about writing my own dystopian teen thriller to sorta capture the sense of what these books were all about. I’ve finished reading The Hunger Games series as of yesterday, and I was quite impressed with the story. Suzanne Collins did a smash-up job putting this world together. Honestly, the only thing that hung up for me was the utter hopelessness with which the book ended. Okay, that might be too strong a word, there was a little hope, but so very, very little. Then again, what else should we expect from dystopian fiction?

Regardless, I’ve been thinking a lot about both the books and my own foray into this genre (and yes, I promise I will complete the other books as soon as I’m done), and I’ve decided to try something a little different for this one.

I’m going to give it to you, chapter by chapter, here on this blog. At the end, naturally, I will send the book out to both print and e-publishing (because who wants to spend all that time reading a blog!), but in the meantime, I thought I’d invite you to join with me (and my children, who are my Beta Readers for this) in experiencing the book as it unfolds.

With that in mind, I’m also soliciting your comments, thoughts, and suggestions both on the writing and on the story as it unfolds. You, dear readers, will serve as my editors and sounding board. You’ll also hold me accountable to finish it quickly, I suspect.

I will post the first chapter tomorrow, and then all subsequent chapters as I complete them. There may be a slight lag at the beginning as I have a little catch-up work to do. Expect about a chapter a day, with time off for weekends, probably, and I’ll do my best to hold to that schedule.

I hope you like the story!

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