Future projects

Just so you all know, my next novel “Dreams of the Old Explorer” is still marching along.  It’s currently being proofread with a few final (very small) edits.  Nothing more than sentence structure and readability.  A bit of polishing, if you will.

While the novel is in the hands of others, I’ve been hard at work on other projects.  “Journey of Seven Circles” and “Dreams of the Old Explorer” are both stand alone works.  While I’m happy with them, I’d like to write a short series next.

That’s what I’m working on right now.  I’ll keep the details to myself for now, save to say that there will be five medium length books (100k to 150k words, give or take).

Now, there are plenty of valid ways to write a novel.  For myself, I’m a hard core plotter.  I don’t feel comfortable staring page one unless I have a clear map of where I’m going.  Sure, I’m willing to be flexible if I have a stellar idea somewhere down the road, but I find that I produce my best writing when I’m working from a carefully constructed outline.

As I said, there’s no absolute “correct” way to write a novel.  This is just the one that works for me.

That said, when writing a series, I need to plot out the entire series.  That means an outline from the start of the first book to the final page of the last one.

Said process takes time.  A great deal of which involves me typing out pages of notes which are shortly chopped apart, glued back together, or simply tossed away.  There are days it feels more like cobbling together a jigsaw puzzle than not.  I can see all the pieces before me, though I don’t know exactly how to fit them together.

And inevitably, there’s always an important piece that managed to find its way underneath the cupboard of my brain and requires no small amount of hunting to find.

Be that as it may, the series is shaping up.  I’ll keep you all in the loop.

Happy Reading,

Russell