Yesterday George R. R. Martin announced, via his blog, that the latest book in his HUGELY popular Game of Thrones series might well be released this year.

Some fans were very quick to note Mr. Martin’s said similar things before and, while I can certainly understand the frustration of these readers who no doubt are very eager to get to the books before the HBO series finishes off (which it will do in the new season, beating Mr. Martin’s final novel in the process and potentially spoiling material he may have been building towards), I have quite a bit of sympathy -perhaps even more- for Mr. Martin.

For you see, though my novels aren’t nearly as popular (or well known) as Mr. Martin’s, I’ve “been there” with books in the process of being written which I’ve thought would be ready at a certain time and, alas, they simply were not.  In fact, my most recent Corrosive Knights book, Foundry of the Gods (#6 in the series) I originally thought I could finish by February of 2016 but didn’t get it done and released until November, nine full months later.

Trust me when I say I would have loved to finish the book in February and be nearly a full year into Book #7 of the series rather than a little under two months.  Sadly, sometimes it takes longer than you’d like to finish something and, while my novels don’t feature the virtual army of characters present in Mr. Martin’s series, the story I’m laying out in Corrosive Knights is intricate and requires many pieces to fit together.

Rushing Foundry of the Gods’ release would have done no one any good, neither me -I would have been very disappointed with the book- nor those who have read it, who no doubt would have been just as disappointed reading what amounted to a “rush job”.

So for those impatient for Mr. Martin’s latest Game of Thrones novel, I urge patience.  Hopefully the book(s), when they are eventually released, will prove worth the extra wait.

Having said that and as should be obvious by the header above, I’m presenting an update on Book #7 of the Corrosive Knights series.  As should also be obvious, this book follows Foundry of the Gods and, more importantly, is the conclusion to the Corrosive Knights series.

Perhaps it is because the book finally reveals/focuses on events I’ve had swirling in my mind for many, many years that the writing of this novel has progressed quite well.  Even though I had little chance to write for most of the end of December (vacation and daughters come home and enjoyable distractions abound!), as of today I’m roughly 33,000 words into this book.  As my novels tend to run around 100,000 words, it means I’m in/around 1/3 of the way through this story, an incredibly quick pace compared to other works.

Even more thrilling is the fact that yesterday I laid out the outline for the material that fills the remaining 2/3rds of the novel, which means that for much of that material I simply have to write it out and not sweat the plot details.

That’s not to say, however, that the book is “just about” finished.

There are still story gaps to be dealt with, specifically in the middle section of the book.  This, by the way, is very typical of the way I work.  While some writers have trouble finishing a novel (a complaint I’ve heard often of the books of Stephen King) or beginning one, I seem to have the least amount of difficulties coming up with my novel’s start and finish.  It is the middle sections, the glue that joins my story’s beginning and end, that tends to cause me the most “hard” work.

Still, there’s reason for optimism and while I cannot guarantee the book will be finished before year’s end, I can absolutely guarantee that if it isn’t done by the later part of 2017 it will be finished and released by early next year.

Let’s see how things go.