I just wrapped up the first cozy mystery, “A Trail of Clues.” In case you haven’t followed previous posts, I am trying my hand at a five-book set of cozies about a 20-something computer programmer who has a robot dog that is so lifelike that nobody knows it’s a robot except him and his friend. The dog, of course, is integral to solving the cases. It also gives me a little bit of sci-fi to add to the story.

With the first book done, I’m going to switch back to Daphne and finish RUSTY’s Memories. This week will involve me writing the rough draft, and I will be full-speed ahead. In fact Monday is Veteran’s day and I work for a credit union, so I have that day off (bank holidays, what can I say).

I expect this book to be at least 70k words, which would make it the largest Daphne book to date. Stolen Property was 56k for comparison, and all others were smaller, with Novis Terminal at the short end at 42k.

Keeping my fingers crossed, I’m hoping to hammer out 10k to 12k on Monday, then about 2.5k per day for the rest of the week. The weekend will be the Read-Out-Loud for the cozy, followed by publishing next Sunday or Monday (17th or 18th of November). I will continue with Daphne until this book is completed. According to my projections, I could have the rough draft done before Thanksgiving, but there will still be a week of editing, plus the Read-Out-Loud before the book is published. I’m going to predict that it’ll be ready in the second week of December.

After Daphne, I’ll switch back to the cozy series and complete the next four books. Each book will be approximately 50k in size, so it’s small. That means I should be able to crank them out at a rate of one book per month. That’s when the real fun happens. Maybe April? That seems about right. That’s when the last book will be published in my cozy mystery series.

I plan to market the 5-book set to see how they perform. If they’re a hit, I’ll add five more books to the set. If they’re not, then I’ll have to decide what to do from there.