Book 2 in my new Inheritance of Magic series is coming along. It passed the 60,000 word mark this week, which judging the length of past books probably means it’s about 2/3rds done.
Unfortunately, this also means there’s no way I’m going to make the June 15th deadline. I always had the feeling it was a bit unrealistic, since it usually takes me a bare minimum of 6 months to write a book (and that’s if I’ve done all the planning and preparation already). In this case I started writing in January, so June was very unlikely ever to happen. Given the way things are currently going, August is more realistic.
I’m never happy about missing deadlines – quite apart from the general principle of the thing, it means everything else has to be put back as well. I can’t start book 3 until I finish book 2, and I can’t start book 4 until I finish book 3, so each delay causes a series of further delays stretching out into the future, which I find frustrating. Still, given where I am right now, delays matter less than quality. I want to keep working on this series for the rest of the decade at least, and that means it’s really important that I do a good job . . . particularly with these early books, since these are the ones that’ll do the most to forge reader impressions of the story and the world. So if I have to choose between being a few months late or putting out a book that I think is below standard, I’m always going to pick ‘late’.
Anyway, the good news is that none of this has any bearing on the release of An Inheritance of Magic itself, which is still coming out in October as planned. The UK cover should be done soon – I’ll post it up here as soon as I have it so that you guys can take a look!
Thank you for the update!
Although I’m always impatiently waiting for your next book to be published, quality matters a lot, and I’m ok with waiting until you are happy with your creation.
Definitely agree quality work is more important than deadlines. If it takes a little longer we fans don’t mind.