Yesterday, I started the rough draft for Dead End (book three of The Traveler series). I still have some scene fixes I have to do for book two, but I’ll get back to that when I get the bulk of Dead End roughed in. There are several plot points that I need to connect, so things will depend on how the story progresses for book three. The total number of words for book two came out to 76,301. The word count will change as I add things to book two to connect it with book three, but I already completed all the scenes I planned to write.

I’m still on track to publish both books by the first or second week of March. My spreadsheet shows me ahead of where I should be, but that’s only based on the assumption that I would write 90k words for book two and go straight through to another 90k for book 3. Things are usually that smooth, so I’m banking on the fact that the two books will each be less than 90k words, but I’ll spend more time editing between the two to make sure the stories line up.

I have a 99-cent promotion going on for The Archons. If you haven’t picked up that book, now is the time to do it. I plan to run this promotion for a week. It’ll probably end on Friday (I haven’t decided on the end day yet). I’m doing this promotion to collect statistics. I’m trying to determine if the covers are right for the series (which I suspect they are not), and the blurb is good. Unfortunately, I get a lot of comments on my Ads from people who think this is a Battlestar Galactica knock-off. It does have similarities, and I drew some of my inspiration from the newest TV series, but there are some twists to the story that make it significantly different. Probably the largest differences are that there is no Earth and no Baltar. In fact, there’s no character in the series that substitutes for Baltar, though there are a lot of thorn-in-the-side characters that could be considered a replacement for Baltar. Instead of Cylons, I went with a hideous alien creature that opens a different dimension to the story. If you make it to The Demon in Me, you’ll know what I’m talking about, as that book is centered around one character dealing with these aliens. I wrote that book as a first-person experience around Cassandra’s character, and it gets deep into her thoughts and fears.

Anyway, I will start book 5 of The Abyss series right after these two books are published. I expect that book to be published in June. Then I’ll be on to book 6. By that time, I should have a good plan cemented in place for The Abyss series. It’ll all come down to two books or three books to end the series.

Stay tuned.