The Traveler series

I’ve settled on doing a trilogy for this series. That changes my plans a bit. Well, I didn’t have much of a plan after book 2 of The Traveler series, but now I’m going to do books 2 and 3 simultaneously. I’ll work up a schedule today and come up with a deadline when I’ll publish both books at once. Then… After The Traveler is wrapped up, I’ll switch back to Escape from the Abyss and work on Book 5. By clearing the deck on this series, I can focus solely on the Abyss series and hammer out the last books. That series will take a few books to wrap up, so I’m uncertain how long it’ll be before the last book is written. I’d like to get it done by the end of 2024, but I seriously doubt if that’ll happen. I could have it done in 2025, maybe even in the Summer of 2025.

For the traveler series, I’ve spent the past week re-reading Desperate Action. I forgot how good that book was. Yesterday, I updated all the character information with stuff that happened in book 1 (sometimes characters take on a life of their own). I want to ensure the characters have the same personalities when I start the next book. There is nothing worse than a character that behaves one way in book one and then segues into some other personality by book two by accident. I also have some subplot ideas that I organized yesterday. Most of these ideas existed with the original story concept, so those are subplots that are critical to the story and must stay. On top of that, I’m working on subplots that are going to intertwine with the necessary ones to make the story more complex. I don’t want a story where there are four subplots that are independently playing out until the end. If you’ve read the first book, you’ll notice that all the subplots are connected to each other. I had only a couple of scenes near the end where I set up a storyline that will play out in the coming books.

Now that I’ve decided to write this set as a trilogy, that means that book two has to end on a dark note. It sort of changed my storyline a bit, but the overall story will conclude with the same ending. Trust me, that part is already set in stone. I know how this story is supposed to end.

Escape from the Abyss series

This series is only delayed a bit. As I mentioned, once The Traveler trilogy is complete, I can focus solely on The Escape from the Abyss series. I promise this is the last time I’ll ever start a linear series simultaneously. That was a huge mistake. I should have completed The Traveler series before starting the Abyss. Live and learn. In fact, after I complete the Abyss series, I’ll probably do stand-alone books that can be converted into chronicles. That way, I can do a bunch of stand-alone books in a row until I see which one is the most popular. If a book doesn’t catch fire, then I’ll just leave that story alone. It’ll give me some space to write different stuff. I’d like to write some books in other sub-genres to see how that works.

Gotta get busy on that schedule. I’ll do another post today or tomorrow with the schedule that I come up with so everyone knows when to expect the trilogy to be published and when I’ll get back to the Abyss series.