Frozen Logic

The rough draft for Frozen Logic is complete. The total word count ended around 65k words, but that will expand or contract, depending on my edits. I still have to work through the TODOs that I left in my notes. Those are story things that I left hanging, or had an additional thought, or something I wanted to change throughout the story. Once those are done (probably today, Saturday), I’ll read the entire book from start to finish, editing as I go along. Fingers crossed, I should have that completed by Friday. If I’m done with that task by Friday, then next Saturday (9/20) will be the Read-Out-Loud. That takes a day or two, followed by final edits, which could be minor stuff, or a complete restructuring of chapters or scenes. Then I’ll publish. Usually, after the ROL, it only takes me Sunday night to fix everything and hit the publish button. That means the book might be on Amazon Sunday night… Woot!

Next Up

Everyone already knows that the next Daphne book is a done deal. IT WILL BE WRITTEN! I don’t buy a cover unless I’m committed. Will I start writing it on Monday, the 22nd? That’s possible. To be honest, I’ll have to spend a few days to hash out how I want the story to work. I have the story turning points defined, and I know how I want it to end, but that’s all I have at the moment. I also know which characters from previous stories I’ll be bringing in… so it’ll be a lot of fun.

There are a lot of holidays and a one-week vacation in the mix. Sometimes that can help; other times, it kills my productivity. We’ll see what happens. I should map this out on the spreadsheet to see how the schedule looks.

I’ll be right back…

OK, I’m back. The schedule looks like the book will be published around December 7th. It could happen earlier, since I have no idea if I’ll have any writing time during the holidays. I’m blocking out Thanksgiving as no-writing days. Columbus Day is a bank holiday that I get off, but that’ll be a good writing day. I left that day as a regular writing day (I’ve had bank holidays that allowed me to write up to 12k words in one day, so I use those for slack days). I’ll shoot for December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day.

Well, then what?

I knew you were going to ask that! Right now, I don’t have anything planned for after Dust Bargain. I’m still watching sales data for the Q Mystery series (Cozy Mysteries written under my pen name, Elliot Droit). Those books have not found their audience yet. It’s tough to get a new series going, especially if it’s the only series that an author has. The Daphne Blazefire series is selling well, and I hope the new Robot Whisperers series takes off. That series will start with one book (you laugh, but the Q Mystery series began with five books). I’ll be monitoring the sales of Frozen Logic while I’m busy writing Dust Bargain. If it does well, then I’ll continue with that series and write the second book after Dust Bargain. If Frozen Logic is a failure (some books just don’t catch on), then I’ll have to come up with another story idea and leave that book as a stand-alone.

I can’t believe I’m already thinking about plans for 2026, but the end of the year is coming up fast. Dust Bargain will close out this year. I’ll probably spend Christmas writing the rough draft for another story. Will it be another Daphne story? Dust Bargain will round out the series at eight books. The read-through might force me to make that the last of the current series (I’ll just start a new Daphne Blazefire series).

There is one other possible book I could write… but I haven’t made up my mind yet. The success of the 2nd release of Novis Terminal has me theorizing on what would happen if I wrote a 2nd release of Dangerous Cargo. Currently, the read-through from Novis Terminal to that book is 40%. I have to assume that it’s because Dangerous Cargo was written in 2022, which I had not yet learned depth (as well as other techniques). That’s how the second version of Novis Terminal came about, and it was a wild success. If I write a better version of Dangerous Cargo and get the read-through up over 80%, then the set will make more money and make the rewrite worth it. It would also make it worth writing a book 9 and a book 10. All of that will depend on how Frozen Logic does. If that takes of like wildfire, then I’ll just cap the current Daphne at book 8 (Dust Bargain) and start a new series, while writing more Robot Whisperer books.