Future Writings

Here’s what I’m working on, and where in the process I am. See “My Writing Process” below to understand what each of the stages mean and how long they are likely to take:

  • The Changeling (The Seelie Court, Book 2)
  • The Harper (The Seelie Court, Book 3)
  • Nine Times a Cat (The Seelie Court, Book 4)
  • The Wedding of Light and Shadow (The Seelie Court, Book 5)
  • Traitor’s Blood, Traitor’s Magic (The Seelie Court, Book 6)
    • Current Status: Final Edits…35% Complete
  • To Dream Alone (The Seelie Court, Book 7)
    • Current Status: With beta readers
  • Nereida’s Voice (Stand-alone fantasy novel)
    • Current Status: With beta readers
  • File Under “C” for “Conspiracy” (Stand-alone sci-fi/humor novel)
    • Current Status: Idea
  • City of Steel, City of Sorcery (Book 1 of unnamed epic fantasy series)
    • Current Status: Drafting…50% complete
    • The Clockmaker’s Son (Book 1 of unnamed steampunk series)
    • Current Status: Aging since December 2023

My Writing Process:

  • Idea: At this stage, the book is nothing more than a thought along the lines of, “This might be neat.”It’s hard to say how long the book will stay in this stage (although if I’ve bothered to put it up here, it’s almost certain the book will get written sooner or later).
  • Outlining: There are planners and pantsers, and I’ve tried very hard to be the latter, but I’m not. I need a plan before I go into writing, the more detailed the better. At a minimum, I need a chapter-by-chapter description of what I think is going to happen. Usually it takes about a month to complete.
  • Drafting: I take the outline and turn it into a rough draft. My goal here is to take about a month to do this; too much longer and I start to lose the threads of the narrative. However, especially for longer books, it doesn’t always work out; sometimes it just takes longer, and sometimes life gets in the way and I have to put aside a novel in the middle and come back to it.
  • Aging: After I finish a draft, I tend to think that I’ve created the worst novel ever written, something that makes Eye of Argon look like a masterpiece. I need to set it aside until I can get some perspective. This can take anywhere from a few months to a year.
  • Cleaning: I take my draft, re-read it, and then clean up everything I’m too embarrassed to show other people. This takes from one to two months once the process gets started.
  • With Beta Readers: I send the clean draft to people I trust to get an outside opinion on how things are working. This process depends on other people, so I can’t say how long it takes.
  • Revising: I rework the novel, with the changes that the beta readers gave me in mind.
  • Copyediting: I send the novel to a professional in order to correct grammar, spelling, and sentence structure.
  • Final Edits: I incorporate the suggestions of the copyeditor as well as doing the final formatting, table of contents, and acknowledgements.