Progress report

Wow, Easter weekend is SPEEDING PAST at a tremendous clip.

Let me see. Well, Wednesday I finished (finally!) running through the entire manuscript of Death’s Lady #2, lots and lots and lots of fiddly line-editing plus a few instances of more substantive revision. This created an additional three pages, which was fine — I don’t want to mess up the cover, which is already sitting here, sized for 300 pages, but the cover size isn’t THAT rigid. A few pages one way or the other is no big deal. It looks like the final length is going to be more like 315 pp, counting the blank pages and title page and everything. KDP seems to think that’s okay. So, Thursday I finally created a proof copy, which my mother will read, checking for remaining typos. No doubt there are a handful, even though Linda S caught a bunch.

So, Death’s Lady #1 and #2 are basically finished. Whew!

Also on Thursday, I ran through Death’s Lady #3, fixing the typos Linda S caught for that one, and then (for the second time) read through various people’s comments about this section of the story, and started from the top with the final line-editing pass. Today I’m continuing with that. This is by far the longest section: 450 pages, give or take. But I hope I will get through the whole thing by the end of the weekend. I think I will.

Getting this project finished up will be SO nice. I’m not exactly hating every moment I’m spending on it, fortunately, because I do honestly like this story quite a bit. But I did write the original Tenai manuscript years ago and I’m quite ready to move on to other things.

Let me see. Things I’m ready to move on with … in rough order of priority …

a) Caitlin sent me notes about an SF novel that I’d like to see traditionally published. I haven’t read the notes yet because I don’t want to get distracted from the Death’s Lady project until it’s entirely finished and ready to go, but this is a neat project, one I like a lot. It’s a story that includes my first and only alien species. (Not counting the griffins.) (Which do count, I guess, in a way, but magical nonhuman species aren’t the same as science-based nonhuman species.) Anyway, reading through those notes and adjusting that story is up next. I may not have looked at the notes yet, but right now I’m aiming to turn this back over to Caitlin by the end of April. Preferably well before the end of April. We’ll see how it goes. If it doesn’t land somewhere via a traditional publishing deal, I will of course self-publish it eventually, but no rush.

b) Finish the kids’ story for the next Black Dog collection and write two more of the novellas I have in mind for that collection. At least two more. Honestly, these novellas don’t take THAT long, provided I have a decent idea about the story in the first place. A week each? Something like that. So, hopefully I will get all of these finished by the end of May.

Speaking of the end of May, I bred one of my dogs last week and, if the breeding took at all, she will be due at the end of May. I’ll know in a month.

In a way, having tiny baby puppies is of course quite distracting. On the other hand, I stay at home, keeping an eye and more importantly an ear on the puppies for ten days minimum, and guess what I do while I am rather casually supervising puppies? After the first sleepless 48 hours, yes, I generally get a lot of writing done. This does depend on the puppies basically thriving. If Morgan has puppies at all, hopefully they will be (a) plural, for a change; and (b) healthy and thriving.

Anyway:

c) I really, really want to finish the completely different SF novel that is sitting at 80,000 words, waiting for me to finish it. You perhaps remember that I said I’d worked out everybody’s secret plans and was now ready to write the rest of this novel. Well, I totally want to do that. No alien species in this one, I will add, although a human variant that is pretty far off the historical human type.

d) OBVIOUSLY I WOULD LIKE TO WRITE BOOKS FOUR AND FIVE OF THE TUYO SERIES.

I mean, you knew that, right?

For some reason I just figured out a key thing about Book 4 this morning, after I woke up but before the alarm went off. It’s one of those hugely obvious things that I ought to have figured out long ago. Anyway, fine, now I know this obvious thing. I made a quick note in my rough outline for the book so I don’t forget this obvious thing, though seriously, how could I when it’s that obvious?

At this point, I have more complete outlines for Kehaunani and Tasmakat than I have ever had for anything. I hope that turns out to be helpful rather than otherwise. They aren’t such detailed outlines that I think they’ll get in the way. Probably.

e) It would be nice to start the final Black Dog book, Silver Circle, sometime this year. I don’t need to finish it this year, it’s perfectly fine if it’s not finished this year, but I would like to get it properly started and in good shape so that I can finish it next year without tearing my hair out, and release it for Halloween 2022.

f) Big complicated fantasy that is barely started. I have eighty pages or so sitting here. Every now and then, this project nudges at me. I’ve got some great characters I’m dying to work with.