“When’s That Book Coming?” Spring 2018 Edition

Short answer to that question…that book–whatever the book* is you’re waiting for–is coming sometime. Eventually.

Long answer: I lost my beautiful girl last month, and the months/weeks prior to it threw me off my game as well. My heart is broken, I am exhausted and very tired, and I’m trying to keep myself afloat. I’m doing okay in a lot of ways, but I’m still having a lot of nightmares and battling low-grade depression.

What’s New

Not much compared to last time See above.

What I’m Working On

Chipping away at Livi 3 revisions (the title is likely changing; it’s something I’ll preview for Patrons of Snark first). I’d originally projected a June release.

That’s not happening.

I realized when I started revisions that it was going to need a lot of work, and I’m not done my second pass yet. Despite cutting a lot of boring crap and useless scenes, I had new ones to write, and the word count is creeping up. I could see this one being around 115-120K when all is said and done. For comparison, Livi’s books are normally 105K, but this one is a big, complex thing with a lot of moving parts, and it needs the space to breathe.

I am not entirely convinced readers will like it, but for a book that was never supposed to exist, it’s turned out to be absolutely critical and a fitting end to Livi’s first character arc (the first three books really function well as one complete story). I do think it might be a better book than the others as well, but I don’t necessarily like it yet myself.

Also, if you’re mad at me for certain aspects of Oblivion‘s ending…I will say that there is an apology of sorts in Livi 3.

Okay, but is that all you’re working on?

Nope.

I did finish Tiger’s Memory, the West prequel novel. It clocked in at 76K. The final installment posts next month for the West Is Best Club on Patreon. The Beta of Awesome has it right now–she read the original novella draft, but a whole lot is different in this one. This summer I’ll do a revision pass when I’ve had some time away from it, then get it copyedited and it’ll be an official ebook download for the West Is Best Club.

There are no plans to release it for sale any time soon as it spoils later plot points in the series.

Come July, West stories continue with Solomon’s Seal from his POV.

This isn’t just some of the novel’s scenes from his POV–he has his own story going on when he’s off the page as well, and it’s a glimpse at him trying to balance his various identities as he suspects his cover might be blown, his conflicts with the agency, and Livi managing to unintentionally make everything more difficult.

I wrote part of it a few years ago and I’m not sure how long it’ll take to finish. Afterward, I have West’s Nightmare on the docket–his POV before Livi calls him in Ashford’s Ghost and during the events of that novella. That’ll probably be next year, though.

Also on Patreon, I’ll be doing a Livi postcard story this summer. Patrons at $5+ will get a postcard in the mail every month (for five or six months) from Livi about an adventure she’s on. Folks at $10+ will get bonus goodies, like a travel journal to collect the postcards in and some special gifts at the end.

There are a few additional projects in progress, but I’ll talk about them when I have more to talk about.

What’s Upcoming

I literally have no ETA on Livi 3 at the moment. It’ll take as long as it takes. I’m finishing a revision pass hopefully this week, then I have to go back and do a third to clean up because I’ve made some major changes, then it’ll go for copyediting, more revision from me, proofreading…

So. It’ll be a bit. I’m hoping August? Or September for Solomon’s Seal’s anniversary.

That is not the answer readers want to hear, and believe me, it is not the answer I want to give. But it’s the best I can do given the upheavals in my personal life wreaking havoc on my mental health, and trying to do all this around freelance work.

Other Stuff

I made two Livi posters, they’re in my Zazzle shop (btw some products in the shop require you to be signed in to view, like the Cuntania t-shirts.)

Finally, if you’re on Patreon, or you’re thinking of checking it out, I put together a detailed Table of Contents linking excerpts, stories, and writing essays, and made it a public post so you can see what we do every month.

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*Except Wolfe. I have no news on that, so apologies to everyone behind the recent spike in site hits for that one.