The wire approaches… and all the gears are turning behind the scenes at Thorium Publishing to get Ascent of the Fallen out on time. Many thanks to my cover artist, Monica Chambers, and my editor, Nicole Gingrich, for burning some midnight oil to help! I’m anxious. The internal dilemma, part of what Steven Pressfield would say is The Resistance, is balancing my perfectionist tendency with the reality of “Ship”. I can noodle on a document for hours, critiquing word choice and information layout all day long. That said, I need to cross the starting line at some point. Hopefully, enough of you stick around for the ride to see where Lord Fallondon Breck and his company of knights head to in Exiles of Heaven and Map of the Stars.

That said, the good news is that Exiles of Heaven will be following right behind Ascent. The first draft is complete and in editing as I type this. It’s taken a little bit of a backseat as I get Ascent into publishable form, but should be out in early spring. The basic elements of book 3, Map of the Stars, are in my mind already. So the timing was perfect for a wager.

Ship the Darn Thing: 2017

My buddy Ken St. Cyr challenged me to a writing contest. He writes technical material and has published two books before. He’s thinking of a third. And in the nature of friendships, called me out as a writer. The challenge is this: who can get a 60,000 word book out the door (i.e., live on Amazon or respective publishing platform for purchase in final form (not pre-order)) the fastest? Our target timeframe is to ‘start’ January 1st and be published in July 2017. I’m sure we’ll build in more details in the near future, but the glove has been thrown down. Challenge accepted.

During this period of time I’ll be finishing edits to Exiles of Heaven and hopefully watching successful sales from Ascent of the Fallen. So I’m picking Map of the Stars as my book to complete. At this point, I have nothing more than the foolscap completed; I have not yet started on beats. My plan, somewhat preparatory, is to stop for a breath of air over Christmas to complete a separate project, namely, getting caught back up on my Outremer backgrounder/workbook that includes characters, background, places, etc., to keep the story straight. While I tried to be a good steward of the story in Exiles, I realize I need to capture details so I’m consistent between stories. No one wants to find my unintended Easter eggs like Hart having blue eyes in Ascent but green in Exiles. Right?

So Ken, here and now, publicly, I accept the challenge. Dear reader, stay tuned for Map of the Stars to be available this coming summer.

Will Fallondon lead the refugees of Ardglass safely to the convent at Athylford?

Who are these young women escaping from the library in Ardglass? And why is one so familiar to Fallon?

Will the demonic host find the Map of the Stars?

Find out this summer.

Photo credit: Ting Him Mak