June 30th update
Well, here it is, my update for the last two months. One important thing that happened is that the publication date for GODS OF THE HOLLOW WILD has been changed to June 2027, with BOOKS 2 and 3 coming out at the same time in 2028 and 2029 respectively. Honestly, this was great for me. It took away the time pressure from the final draft of GOTHW, and I just spent about three more weeks achieving all my hopes and dreams before I sent it off. In the end, over the previous two months, I went through every chapter again. All 83 of them. I’d sent my editor 269 000 words—she sent me back about 267 000. I cut that down more than I expected in the rewrite—now it’s been sharpened to a startlingly lean 244 000 words!
That was three weeks ago. I then sort of took two weeks off. By which I mean I worked furiously on my job as a creative writing teacher, which I wasn’t planning to do but then realised that I really should. It does pay the bills.
This week I transformed into the BOOK 2 month, and the return was… eh… a little slow the first few days. For three days I just ground away and felt I wasn’t getting very far. But then in the next four days, things started to come together. BOOK 2 stands at 239 000 so far. I reckon I have about 20—40 thousand words more to go. Maybe more. I am super excited about where things are headed. Each book is going to be successively more bonkers than the last as all the action escalates and collides and different vantage points to the action unfold—I’m loving the challenge of making that work. I want it all to be very tight and to just carry you along. I am a huge fan of how Pierce Brown achieved that effect in Red Rising. I have four books planned out, but the plan keeps deepening as I think through the consequences of the world I am creating. I suppose I’m Sanderson’s third lawing my way through all the things I’ve set up. This week I’ve had a lot of those ‘wait, if this happens, doesn’t that mean that…’ moments.
GOTHW is a very intimate introduction to Urvir and its impending crisis through a handful of point of view characters. BOOK 2 broadens that scope and shows the crisis as it begins to accelerate. I love making stuff and then watching it break. Some of my favourite characters get introduced in BOOK 2, and I am happy to say that some of them even survive into BOOK 3. Anyway, I will finish the final draft BOOK 2, THE SECRET IN THE BLOOD, by the end of this year. And then I am definitely having a break. I swear it on the blood of my ancestors.
2027 will be the year I work on BOOK 3, working title, THE RETURN OF MEMORY. I’d love to get the first draft completely done by the end of 2027, but I suppose I will have at least until the end of 2028 to get there. I reckon I can do that. My writing seems to be getting faster and faster as the world matures in my mind, and I figure out more and more of the outstanding elements. So, full steam ahead? My next update will be at the end of August. I am predicting that I will have at least 10—15 thousand written by then, so we’ll see how that goes!
See you then!