Hope you all had a good New Year’s! Now that everyone’s heading back to work, here’s what I’ll be doing over the coming year.
January
My main goal here will be to start work on Book 2 of the new series. I’ve done pretty much all my notes and preparation by now, so I’m expecting to start sometime in the next week. I’ll also finalise the series title.
February
By this point the copy-edits for An Inheritance of Magic should have arrived. But these shouldn’t take too long, and I’ll be spending most of this month focused on Book 2.
March/April/May
This whole period is also earmarked for Book 2. I’m probably going to have my head down and be fairly uncommunicative during this spring, especially in the later parts as the book approaches its end.
June
My rough deadline for Book 2 is mid-June, so if all goes perfectly to plan, I’m hoping to finish the first draft around this point. This might be optimistic – it took me way, way longer than this to finalise Book 1. However, I’m not labouring under the same disadvantages as I was last year – I’ve now got a fully developed world and set of characters, as well as a much clearer idea of where the story’s going. So while finishing in June might be optimistic, it’s definitely possible.
July
This (or whenever I finish Book 2) is going to be my ‘holiday’ period. But I don’t usually stay on holiday for that long, so my tentative plan once I’m done with Book 2 and have had the chance to have a bit of a rest is to write another Alex Verus novella – I’ve got an idea for one centred around Variam, and his relationships with Luna and Landis. This all depends on the book going smoothly, however, so it’s very possible that it’ll be shelved or delayed. If I have to choose between my books and my novellas, my books are always going to take priority – the novellas are fun side projects.
August/September
At this point we’re moving into the lead-up to the release of my new series. I’ll (hopefully) finish the new novella and (definitely) put the first chapter of An Inheritance of Magic online. This is also the point at which I’m intending to start putting up some worldbuilding articles for the Drucraft setting, similar to Alex Verus’s Encyclopaedia Arcana.
October
Book 1 in the new series, An Inheritance of Magic, will release on October 5th in the UK/rest of world, and on October 10th in US/Canada. I’ll do another Reddit AMA shortly afterwards, probably a week or so after its release.
November/December
By this point the excitement will be over and there’ll be nothing to do but wait and see how the book does. Well, actually, that’s not really true – by this point I’ll hopefully have edited book 2, and be starting work on book 3!
∞
So there you have it, my plans for the year. We’ll see how accurate they turn out to be!
It’s all very exciting. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s looking forward to whatever you have for us next.
Wow, you are so organized as well as hardworking! I am excited for the new books and novella! I’d love to see more of Landis particularly. He is hilarious. And the Sean Connery accent used for him in the audiobooks definitely doesn’t hurt either. 😉
Congratulations on the new novel! Looking forward to it. Also thanks for continuing Novellas set in the Alex Verus World. I still think there are many story lines your fans would love you to explore in that world. Thank you for finishing the Verus series without extending it so long that many of your older fans might not have been around for the ending! Note to Dresden Fans-LOL.
Hi there! Last fall I had some time to spare and went into a book store. Picked up Alex Verus 1 because of the amazing cover (german version) and spent 3 hours sitting on a park bench reading.
I haven’t been able to read that long in the last few years, because I get distracted so easily. But this year I set my goal to 8 books and just finished my first. 🙂
So – thank you, I guess. For getting me back to reading! Take care