Will be busy for the next few days getting the Ruby Key copyedit finished. Copyeditor also loved the book—this is an encouraging thing.
Over the last few days (excluding yesterday, which was a family birthday) I’ve been working on the story arc for the rest of the Moon & Sun series. The story, which starts with two kids fighting to save their mother’s life, has by mid-series expanded to include the whole of the world they live in, and a series of other worlds besides. I identified eight massive tasks the kids have to succeed at and complete in order to win back their world, and have been indexing wildly, setting up stories in which they first figure out the problems they face, and then seek solutions. It would be wonderful to get to finish the series as I envision it, and not have it fall prey to the three-book ordering-to-the-net death spiral.
Insanely, I have hope. After being kicked in the head by the dark side of publishing so many times, I might be an idiot, but I do still have hope.
So once again, I’ve deeply invested myself in the story. I’ll probably never get to write Redbird, which was to have been the third Korre novel. But this… maybe this could happen and I’ll be able to get all the way to The Sunrider, the last book in the Moon & Sun series. After the copyedits are done, I want to sit down and make some maps. The weren’t necessary for the first book. But the world starts opening up in the second one, and they could become critical. Mapping the moonroads is going to be a challenge, and not just for Genna.
Anyway. Work, and lots of it, awaits. Will be back as soon as I can.
Holly, If you stop writing, it would be the end of the world. I absolutely loved the Ruby Key. The Silver Door was good, but not as good as the Ruby Key. My favorite character is Yarri. She has a fabulas personaldy, and she is just like me. I can not wait for The Emerald Sun!!!!
I don’t want to say. Call me superstitious, or just paranoid with good reason, but I’ve created a whole lot of worlds intending way more than three books for them, and this time, though I know the exact number for the Moon & Sun series, I’m just going to keep it to myself until I see how things go.
Sounds like FUN! 🙂 Can’t wait for Ruby Key.
How many books are you planning on for the Sun & Moon series?
I hope you get a chance to write Redbird someday. I will definitely buy it. 😀
I could be wrong, but I think that with this particular target audience, if the kids love your story, your optimism will pay off, big time.
I’m thinking of the last American Idol, where a bunch of teenage girls kept Sanjaya [sp?] on the show for weeks even though he was a bad singer.
If your story is good [and I’ve read enough of your books to know it will be], and your characters resonate with the kids who read it, it will spread like wildfire.
I’m looking forward to reading it, and I’m also wishing you the biggest word-of-mouth marketing virus to hit a YA book since Harry Potter.
I think it’s called incurable optimism — and that’a crucial “disease” for a writer to have. May you continue to suffer from it for many, many years to come. And may the positive results pour down upon you and yours.
I can’t wait to read to first book. And now I find out there will be more, wow.
You’ve got my best wishes and hopes behind you! It would be nice for you to get to see the happy side of publishing once in a while, too, to make up for the dark side.
Lots of luck on getting this series completed.
By the way, Archibald, fun though he is, is pushing your page-layout on this site into a cocked hat.
Hopefully won’t turn into another World Gates …
I hope you get to finish the series as you see it. Good luck on the copyedits.