38,140 words.
With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, sister home from college, and an unexpected reunion of old friends last week, the social life decided to hit me over the head with a hammer and remind me that yes, I am a human being with connections to other human beings, and cranking out 5k words every night isn’t the most realistic goal to have.
Originally I was going to aim to have the first draft done by Thanksgiving, but – again – life is short and we ought to treasure the loved ones we have. So we’re still looking at finishing the 55k first draft by the end of November. Just looking at the end of November as the solid deadline, instead of sprinting as much as possible, and then aiming for a mid-December publication date for IG3.
Aka: Countdown to the End Of The Trilogy!
After this I’ll be working on a space opera series, as well as the meat of the Iron Gentry series. The Callan books are essentially one big prequel to what’s coming up – not that I don’t love Callan and Brianna and Hazel – but these books are basically a stepping-stone to introduce the world of the Iron Gentry, Willow and Aspen and Larkspur and the rest. Eventually I’m looking at putting together an omnibus of the three Callan books, illustrated by my favorite renaissance artist/editor, possibly with bonus material that isn’t plot-essential but that’s fun to think about. As for the rest of it — how long is the main IG series going to be? Who knows? I have a lot of ideas I want to explore in the Un/Seelie courts, and I’d like to take the proper time to examine them. I’m pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing – which, duh. If I wasn’t excited about it, I shouldn’t be writing about it.