Great news, bad news, and kinda interesting news.
So let's start things off on the right foot with the good news. I'm way ahead with the next Spellheart book: Warlord of the Blackgorge. So far ahead that this draft alone is already beyond the scope of what I can stuff into one novel.
That's where the bad news comes in. I'm going to have to split this one into two books. At first I was hoping I could just make one big book like in book 3, but that just isn't going to work. I've drafted ~160,000 words and I'm only just past the story's midpoint.
Basically, I was experimenting with new writing methodology after speaking with several other authors. I'm once again trying something new. I've never used this technique before so my estimates for final book length were way off, and the only way to fix it would be to cut out 3/4 of a plot I've really been looking forward to writing, so instead I'm just going to slice the book down the middle and write them as two novels.
Now, I'm definitely going to rework each book in editing so that it can stand on its own as a novel, but at the end of the day I did design both novels to be one continuous story, and no amount of editing is going to completely overcome the fact that I designed them to be one. Some aspects of the books will have to be edited together to get the beginning of book 5 to tie in with the end of book 6.
So here's the bad news; I may have to delay book 5 until I'm almost done with book 6, that way I can release one shortly after the other and they can be experienced the way I originally intended. (And also give me the chance to edit them properly as a set.)
This may make things take a bit longer than they otherwise would, but the fact that I'm well ahead of my original timeline means we'll be going a bit faster. At the end of the day, I'm hoping books 5 & 6 will release about when you'd normally expect the next Spellheart book.
I'll keep you updated here!
The kinda interesting news:
I'm working on another series! You all knew I had to start one of these eventually. A man can not live on Theo's adventures alone.
It's still on the back burner for now, since I'm pushing hard to get these next two Spellheart books out together so there isn't too great a delay between books 4 and 5. Right now I'm thinking I'll make it a much shorter series than the Spellheart books and just save them on my hard drive until I'm nearly done with the third one. That way I can release with a bit of a bang, and I'm not on the treadmill to write more because I've already done most of the work ahead of time.
