So Many Works In Progress

I had already set a pretty ambitious writing schedule for myself over the next year. My plan was to release A Shift in Fate in August and then release books 3 and 4 next year. I’m not the fastest of writers. If I’m in a good headspace, I can write 3,000 words in a day, but I try to set a goal of 1,000 words a day with the occasional day off. I burned myself out in November doing NaNoWriMo and it took me months to recover from it. The writing goals I set out were realistic and would still allow me to release two books next year, but then I got some ideas for some other books…and now I’m jamming more into that schedule.

Part of this is my editor’s fault. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read this blog, so I’m going to lay the blame for this completely at her feet. Hehe. I’ve mentioned before that I’m cutting one of the characters out of A Shift in Fate because it didn’t work with the overall story. That character is going to play a minor role in Book Three and will get their own spinoff book, Book 3.5. But introducing the character at the start of Book 3 won’t really work. It would seem out of place and I’ve already written the first part of the book assuming that it’d an established character. My editor’s recommendation was to do a novella to introduce the character between A Shift in Fate and Book Three. I really like that idea so I’m planning on doing that. Some of the scenes that were cut from A Shift in Fate can be reused and I already have the overall plot thought out in my head. I just have to get it written down on paper. So that’s one more project added to the list.

The other two are also novellas. One of them is going to be a reader magnet for everyone that is subscribed to my newsletter. I haven’t started any work on that one yet and I only have a vague idea of what I want to do for it. I do know that it’s going to be about how Nemain meets Kaysea and will mostly take place in the fae realms. The second novella is one that I’ve already started writing and that’s going to be a prequel to A Shift in Shadows. This idea popped into my head randomly a few weeks ago and I’ve already started writing it. My goal is to have it done by the end of summer, but we’ll see how that goes.

All of this leaves me with this rough release schedule.

  • A Shift in Fate – almost done, going through copy-editing/proofreading now — August 2022 
  • Prequel (novella) – started writing, about 4,000 words done — August 2022
  • Book 2.5 (novella) – not started — January 2023
  • Book 3 – started writing, about 15,000 words done — February 2023
  • Book 3.5 (character spin-off full-length) – not started — August 2023
Not included in this is the Kaysea/Nemain novella I’m going to write for the reader magnet. I’m not sure when I’m going to squeeze that in. I’m sure the timing of all these releases is going to change slightly. I have my cover designer scheduled for all of them, but I still need to schedule my editors, which is always the part I struggle with. I need to book them a minimum of four months out, which means I need to commit to a date that I think I can realistically manage. My goal is to have the first draft of Book Three done by early September, but I also really want to get the prequel novella done and release in August. I see a lot of cupcake bribery in my future.