And we’re done! I finished the first book of my new series earlier this week.
One thing that I’ve always found a little amusing about my writing is the way in which I just barely hit deadlines. It didn’t happen every time with the Alex Verus series, but I did finish several of the books the exact day before my contract said that I was due to send them in, to the point where I started thinking that it probably wasn’t a coincidence. In the case of this book, the personal deadline I set for myself was “end of January”, and I finished the last sentence of the last chapter at 11:53pm on January 31st. I think I have some weird mental thing where my mind subconsciously calculates how much time I’ll need and spends every bit of its “budget”.
Writing this book has been a very strange feeling. I wrote the first draft of the Alex Verus book, Fated, in 2008. Since then, my writing career has involved the Alex Verus series and nothing else, meaning that this is the first time in 13 to 14 years (depending how you count it) that I’ve written a novel that wasn’t an Alex Verus one. I did actually wonder while I was getting ready to start whether I’d even be able to do it at all (I was worried that I might have gotten so used to writing a divination mage that I’d forgotten how to write any other way), but as it turned out, it went just fine – putting myself into the shoes of a different protagonist felt very natural.
This book’s definitely been harder work than usual, though. I wrote about my decision to start a new series a few months ago, and one of the points from there that I’ve been reminded of a lot is that a new series means starting from scratch. When you’re a few books into a series, you have a lot of background, setting detail, and (most of all) characters that you can draw on. For a new series, you have to make up EVERYTHING – it’s been a long time since I’ve done this, and the last few months have reminded me of just how much work it is. Still, it’s done now!
The next stage is going to be dealing with my publishers – unlike the Alex Verus books, this novel is un-contracted for, and in publication limbo. I think I should have something agreed reasonably soon, though. As soon as I have a publication date, I’ll let you guys know.
Woohoo! Congrats on finishing.
Hopefully the sales issues are because of bidding war! Looking forward to whenever it comes out. And if you end up self-publishing it because a deal doesn’t work out, I would definitely buy it.
Perhaps you have a very reliable internal clock.
Very excited to read this new project!
To quote Kim Possible:
“You can’t spell inspiration without procrastination!”
“Um, yes you can.”
“Well, not the -ation part!”
Best of luck on the new series!
I read your first four Alex Verus books right after #4 came out, read #5 after it came out, then honestly forgot to check back the next year and life got in the way. I just finished re-reading all of those as well and reading through the entire rest of the series in just over a week, and just finished #12 today!
You are such a great author and your character/world building & the way you wrapped up Alex Verus… was incredible!
Again best of luck in your new endeavor. Also if you ever get approached to do any kind of tv/movie deal (which I think your books would be perfect for) make sure you don’t give up creative control. You deserve Harry Potter treatment, not Percy Jackson treatment, and your characters are too rich to see them treated like Peter Jackson did to the characters in Mortal Engines.
Can’t wait to see what you come up with next!
Congratulations on finishing! I’m sure publishers will love the book. You are an amazing writer! 🙂
Looking forward to the new series. Hopefully, you will find a publisher and have a bidding war for the series.
Hope a network Disney, Netflix,HBO picks up the Alex Verus series!. Your Alex Verus world is so rich, pleas continue to write Novellas concerning the other great characters!