The Sacred Band

I should tell you something...

It's about Acacia 3...

Yesterday was my deadline for submitting the finished manuscript to my editor. It's now fair for you to ask me if... I... actually... finished... the... damn... thing...

My answer...

Yes.

(Did you hear that? I kinda whispered it. I'll try again...)

Yes.

(Did I just say that? I'm giving myself goosebumps...)

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's done.

Now... (deep breath) ...this doesn't mean it'll be smooth sailing from here. My editor needs to dig in fully and then I'll have to respond to his editorial suggestions. I'm hoping that he'll find I've written a large, detailed, well-paced conclusion to the whole story. I think I did, but I won't know for sure until... Well, until I know for sure. I will let you know what that confirmation comes through.

I also can't say for certain that this title will stick, but at the moment we're calling the book...

The Sacred Band: Book Three of the Acacia Trilogy

How's that sound?

Acacia 3 Update

I've been quiet about how the third Acacia book is going only because it's such a long process and most of it, unfortunately, is lonely business. You can be assured that I've had my head down working on it, though. These past few months it's taken over as the fabric of my waking and sleeping hours. Honestly, I'm with it always, and it's with me always.

We've become very intimate.

That doesn't mean I'm done, but this week has seen things step a little closer. I've agreed to float the first 400 pages to my editor as a partial delivery. He's going to start working on it, and kick the pre-publication machine into production. I've agreed to have the rest of the book to him before Christmas. What this means is that I'm still officially on track for a Fall 2011 publication. I know, that's still a year away. Sorry. It's not, however, late. That was always the planned pub-date, and I'm very relieved that we're on track for it.

This doesn't, of course, mean that things couldn't still go wrong. Lots of things could go wrong, starting with my editor thinking the book is a stinker. One never knows. One really never knows...

I take some solace from the fact that my wife has read most of the book and thinks I'm getting the job done. And my kids have heard portions of it and haven't balked yet. So early signs are good.

I may even know the title of it now, but I'm holding off on disclosing it yet. Let's see if it sticks as the editorial process starts.

Wish me luck!

The Socket’s Got Juice

One time in my eight-grade chemistry class I got bored. Go figure. For some reason, I decided to stick a piece of moistened cardboard (or maybe a paperclip, I'm not sure) into the electrical socket of my table. Ah... I don’t know what drove me to that.

I do know that I got a vibrating, teeth-clenching few seconds of voltage-driven unpleasantness for my efforts. I sat there afterward as my teacher droned on, sitting desperately still, feeling like smoke was puffing out of my ears but unwilling to let anybody know what had just happened. I swallowed down little smoke burps, and promised myself I would never, ever, do that again.

And I haven't. At least, not literally.

That's a rather round about way to introduce a bit of good news. As I've been working on Acacia 3, I've been aware that a couple of the plot threads didn't have juice. The sockets were there, but when I plugged in to them nothing happened. I wasn't sure where that particular aspect of the larger story would go. I just worked on other stuff, hoping that at some point I'd connect the right wires...

Yesterday, I did. One of those sockets sprung to life. I figured out a whole lot of stuff all through one revelation. Weird. I had to take a walk afterward, with my mini-recorder, getting all the little tangential ideas down. Today, I'm at the computer trying to make sense of it. This is a good thing. The socket's got juice, and I'm plugging into it.

Hoping it doesn't blow my head off...

A Revelation

I had one. I've been writing, folks, working on Book Three. I've a long, long way to go still. I mean a long way to go. But that's not anything I haven't budgeted for. I'm still planning on delivering this one with about the same gap as I had between books 1 and 2. Consistency, that's what I'm going for. But in this case that also means I'm in the fairly early stages of cranking this one out.

Thing is, I've been living with something of a conundrum for about the last nine months. I knew one thing that was meant to be the climatic event of one of the story lines. It's solid. It's there. It's the culmination of three book's worth of character and plot and history work. It's big.

Other thing is... I had this other plot element that in introduced in the first chapter. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Had an idea for how it tied in to the very end of the book, but the problem was that tie-in clashed with the previously mentioned conclusion. Seemed like I couldn't have them both. Until last night.

I gave my wife some stuff from the new book to read. She did. We were in the kitchen talking about it, and I got to mentioning this clashing plot idea problem. I opened my mouth and said, "So obviously it's not going to work to have both. I've tried but I ca..."

I literally paused in mid-sentence. Why? Because for no good reason at all I'd just figured out how I could have both things. Between beginning that sentence and getting four words into it the answer jumped out of hiding and starting do a shimmying hula hop victory dance right in front of my face. Just like that.

Weird.

And that, friends, is a bit of my creative process. I kissed the wife and danced around myself, and then stood at the sliding door staring out at the backyard for a while, amazed at how this whole process works.

I got my doubled-barrel ending. I'm very, very pleased about that.

My Declaration

I can announce with some relief that I've just come to terms with Doubleday for another novel!

It will, of course, be the third in the Acacia series. I don't have a title for it yet and it largely needs to be written, but I do have it mapped out in detail. It's my hope that you'll find it a big, satisfying meal that wraps up a lot of the series' plot threads, sees major characters come into their destinies, and leaves potential for continuing stories. That's what I have in mind, and I'm glad to have Doubleday on board to continue the journey with me.

It's too early to start talking pub date or any of that. I just wanted to let you know that if you're kind enough to begin the series there will be at least three books and a reasonable amount of closure by the end of that cycle. And if you read these books in significant numbers... Oh, I could be happy writing in this world for a long time.

So, for anybody that thought I was just dabbling in fantasy, I hope the continuation of my efforts here show that I'm series about this genre.

Good Vibes Needed

Today, folks (and for next few weeks, actually) I'd love to have your positive energy. You see, The Other Lands concluded my existing book contracts with Doubleday. I've done all five novels with them so far, and I think things have gone quite well. Of course, each new deal brings a new set of surprises, and I've known for a few months that I was going to be pitching my next book in a free falling economy. Being prone to bouts of exuberant positivity (I'm joking about that) I decided to quit my day job before having that new contract in hand (I'm not joking about this part), and after my publisher went through a major restructuring. Go figure.

I've been working on a proposal for the concluding book in the Acacia trilogy for some time now. I chipped away at it slowly, layering in more and more details as they came to me. Fortunately, I can now say the fricking book makes sense to me! I know what happens. I see it. I like it. It exists - although only in a summarized version of about 24 pages. Oh, and at a bit more length in my head.

Recently, I sent that proposal to my agent. We went back and forth about it and about other aspects of what we'd look for in a new book deal. Yesterday we decided it was ready, and today he will have initiated the pitch and discussions with my editor. It'll be a few weeks, probably, before I know just what's gonna happen.

This is where your good vibes come in. Send them to me. Shoot them out to my editor. Make sure he knows at some cosmic level that you want this thing finished. Convince him that David and family should be allowed to eat and live indoors the next few years...

If it works, I'll be most grateful to you.