A few days back I wrote about where I was with various new writing projects and how, creatively, my mind basically exploded with new story ideas following finishing off Ghost of the Argus. (available now!)

So much so that I suddenly had four novels in the works simultaneously, three of which were new and one of which I wanted to finally get “done”.

As of last Friday, October 24, I finished the first draft of that later novel, a story that is effectively the conclusion/postscript to the whole Corrosive Knights saga.  I had a “rough draft” of this story done years beforehand in the form of a graphic novel/comic book but felt since the other Corrosive Knights stories were presented as novels, I might as well make this story a novel as well.  Earlier this year I began converting the graphic novel into an actual novel.

So last Friday I finally got the first draft of this novel done.  It’s a little on the skinny size, clocking in at a mere 50 pages, single spaced (in comparison, my other Corrosive Knights novels run about 170-200 pages).  This is obviously a bare bones work at this moment and there’s much more work to be done with it.  I suspect when I’m properly done with the novel, it will be closer in size to the other Corrosive Knights novels.

The big question, therefore, is: When will this novel be ready and released?

That question is a tricky one to answer.  Now that I have this first draft done, I intend to put it on the back burner and work on it with whatever spare time I have while focusing more exclusively on Corrosive Knights books #6 and 7 and my standalone novel expanding on a short story in my Shadows at Dawn book.

The fact is that this “final” Corrosive Knights story is just that and I want to have it completed but I don’t feel it appropriate to release it until the other Corrosive Knights stories are out.

While tempted to pat myself on the back because of my ability to get something done and save its release for another day, I’m certainly not the first author to do something like that.  During the London bombings of World War II, mystery author Agatha Christie wrote Curtain, the final Hercule Poirot novel, because she feared she -and England!- might not survive this war and she wanted to have a final story for her beloved sleuth.  The war ended and Ms. Christie kept that novel in a safe until the 1970’s, when she was very old and knew she would be unable to write any other books.  It was then that Curtain was released.

I’m hoping my final Corrosive Knights novel won’t stay hidden quite that long…

We’ll see.