The Encounter
I’m currently 2,174 words behind schedule, which is almost a round-off error. It’s technically one weekday’s worth of writing. I’ll try to make it up and nail my deadline for the rough draft. Of course, it assumes I hit 120, words for the whole book. That might happen, or it could end up a little shorter. Though I’m already at 83k, it’s safe to assume the book will be more than 90k before it’s done and according to the spot I’m at, I think it’ll easily hit 100k.
Winter is starting to make itself known around here. It’s still above freezing, which means that I’m not shoveling snow every day. Hopefully, this winter will not be as bad as the last. Our house sits at an elevation of 6,000 feet, so our winters can be tough. Almost as bad as the ski slopes. OK, not quite that bad, but they are bad. I keep telling myself that all we have to do is get through Halloween. Just one holiday. Then I can start planning for the next holiday. November, of course, will consist of editing The Encounter. Then I’ll publish it in December. I’m planning on publishing the first week of December, but you never know for sure.
I hate not having plans, so I already have another project stacked after The Encounter as I’ve mentioned many times before. Book 2 of The Traveler will start shortly after The Encounter is out the door and off my mind. I’ll have to re-read Desperate Measures to get my mind back into that story. Commander Winters is such a long time ago (OK, it was only last year). After that book is finished, I don’t have any solid plans for what happens. It’ll depend on what happens with sales of Escape from the Abyss series. If that decides to take off, then I’ll switch back to book 5 of Escape from the Abyss, otherwise, I’ll be tempted to roll right into book 3 of The Traveler series. By the end of December, I should have a plan for which book will come next.
And… what comes after Escape from the Abyss and The Traveler series are complete? That is a good question. By the time I’m done with both series, I’ll have some sales data from both sets of books. Will they do good or will they flop? In the back of my head, I’m leaning toward starting another chronicle. Just write one book, set up the Ads, and see how it does. If it takes off, then write another, etc. That would reduce some of the risk of writing a first book of a long series that doesn’t sell. I wanted to see how the first Abyss book was going to sell before continuing, but it takes at least a month of Ads to see a trend. By then, I could complete 1/3 of another book. That’s how I ended up 3 books in before getting Facebook Ads to work. Another option, besides writing a chronicle, is to write a stand-alone book and test Ads against it. That sort of writing is tricky because I’d have to leave the story open for a continuing book or two. There’s nothing worse than closing off a story with a book that fans crave. Always leave a way to write a second story, but close the one in progress. That would allow me to write only one book and move on if it didn’t go anywhere.
Still, I do like to write in series. Escape from the Abyss will have an obvious ending because it’s their destination. How it will happen, who will survive? Well, that’s still to be determined. But, after the last story, there is still the possibility of another series of books involving their return to the colonies or a war between the colonies and the Archons. How will that go? I have ideas in my head (which I should probably record someplace), but I haven’t decided yet. Especially since I haven’t decided to write such a series yet. When I get to the end of the Escape from the Abyss series, if fans demand it, I’ll write it. Maybe it’ll have a new cast of characters. Maybe the Archons will get a serious upper hand leaving the colonists in a desperate situation. No matter what happens, it’s going to be fun. Oh, and nail-biting.