About a week and a half ago, Paul announced, “I’m thinking about starting two more series…” Then he clarified that these weren’t new series but simply ones that he hadn’t been writing yet. Remember when he said Stars’ End would be a standalone? Big surprise (not!): it’s going to be a five-book series instead. The other “new” series is the one beginning with Fimbulwinter, which I’ve mentioned here recently.
However… He hasn’t been able to do a lot of writing lately, because he’s so busy with his day job. (That’s the problem with being good at everything: people expect you to do everything, because anyone else who can do it — and most can’t — would take longer and probably not do it as well.) Just when the ad campaign for two of his novels is going quite well (making more from sales than is spent on advertising), thus increasing his motivation to write more, he’s too busy to get much done.
But… He has finished his turn at editing Riders on the Storm and will hand that manuscript back to me this afternoon for a final pass. (This book is due out on August 1.) He has also written a new description for Project Brimstone that better reflects the book as a whole, not only the first part of it.
Now, if he can just find the time to make that timeline graphic for all of his books, showing when and where there’s connection/crossover between series…
In the early planning stages right now is an anthology of short stories. This, we think, would be a good way to introduce readers to whichever series they’re currently not reading. Some of these short stories will fill in gaps between books within a series, and some may show glimpses into the lives of secondary characters. Nothing carved in stone nor even painted on it, but I think we’ll be able to come up with enough short stories to fill a good-sized book. As of this afternoon, Paul says he intends the anthology to contain around a dozen stories of various lengths. “Solitude” will be one of those stories. So will the prequel we wrote and then decided not to use for “that novel.” Add the story of how Jon Livingston first met Dr. Brygida Hakubi — this story was in my brain when I woke up this morning — and that’ll be three stories containing words by me.
Also… Paul told me that he wrote a bit of Fimbulwinter today. I don’t know if it’s at the ‘share with others’ (others meaning Grace and me) stage yet, but I suppose I’ll find out later this afternoon.