Before I get to the update, a story presented on theguardian.com and written by Stephanie Convery:

Terry Pratchett’s unfinished novels destroyed by a steamroller

The article’s title is self-explanatory.  The late author/humorist Terry Pratchett, who died in 2015, wanted his unfinished works steamrolled so they took what one has to assume were the hard drives of his computer and did just that.

A shame, I must say.

While much of my “bits and pieces” are pretty crappy and not worth printing, on the other hand they are bits and pieces I’ve worked on and given some of my time to.  Maybe one day people will be curious to see all my stuff and, in that case, I’m not adverse to having it available to be seen… though I doubt at this time you’ll find a large amount worthy of “discovery”.

Which is a good segue to my Corrosive Knights series and the progress I’m making on book #7, the latest in the series.

With regard to that, there’s the proverbial good news, bad news, and good news here…

I’ve mentioned before Book #7 was intended to conclude the series’ main story, though I’ve been hasty to add that there was going to be a book #8 which would present an “epilogue”.

Well, things might be changing.

Without getting into any spoilers, Book #7 was always intended to present a “two part” story which dovetails in the end before reaching the conclusion.

So, the first bit of Good News: Instead of concluding the main story with Book #7, I’m now thinking it might be better to present the two stories separately, ie have a Book #7a and a Book #7b.  Or, to be less anal about these things, have a book #7, follow it up with Book #8 -no longer the epilogue story I was planning-, and end it all with that epilogue story as Book #9.

In other words, the Corrosive Knights series, to all those fans out there of the books, may wind up being one book longer than I intended.

The Bad News is that if I go this way, it means there’s a lot of work for me to do on what might be the “new” Book #8.  It will no longer be part of a book and, being its own full novel I feel it has to be “novel length” which means it clocks in at the 100,000 word area.

Which puts me in a bit of a quandary.  The first part of the story is essentially written up (It already reached the 100,000+ range).  It needs considerable editing/cleaning, for sure, but I was holding off on doing this and instead focused on the second part of the novel’s story.

Now, if I decide to let that second part be used in its own novel, it means I could jump back to that first part of the story and finish it up and get it released relatively quickly.

However…

Here’s the thing, I’m in something of a “groove” with this second part of the story and I’m loathe to switch gears and move away from what I’m currently doing.

Let me be crystal clear here: I’m dying to get the book out but writing is a difficult thing for me.  Mostly its because I’m very, very hard on myself.  I don’t want to create something that is at best average and/or predictable.  I pride myself on releasing stories that, I hope, surprise and engage readers.

To do that, I get into this OCD-like state where I’m thinking about the work I’m currently doing during almost all my waking moments.

I know this sounds like exaggeration, but I assure you this is the case.

For me new, interesting ideas can suddenly pop up.  I could be walking the dog or driving to get some crappy fast food or sitting on the toilet or taking a shower and, just like that, it hits me.  Most other times I’m thinking about where I’m currently at and how to write the latest chapter.  Either that or rewrite it and make it as good as I can get it.

The bottom line is this:

If I have enough material to make a second novel out of that second story (something which is still not a done deal), it means the concluding two books of this series will take a little longer to be released than I was hoping.

My hope was to release this last book by late this year or early next year but, if we do have two final books, I have a lot of work to do and that will take me through the end of the year.

At least.

And then, I have to get into the rewrites/editing and that will take longer.

Which brings us to the last of the Good News: If I do decide to split this book in two and finish that second book before going into the editing of the first, the last three books of the series are going to come out really quickly.

I’ve already written out what would be the first book.  I’m currently writing that second book.  I have the first draft of the epilogue book already written.

All I may need to do once I finish that second story is edit the three last books which means they will be released pretty quickly.  Writing a book is always far harder and more time consuming than editing it.

However, all this is in flux.

Let’s see how the second half of that story goes and I’ll update you soon enough.

In the meantime, stay dry and enjoy the last of the summer.