Doug BrotherofCats Dandridge

Working under a deadline is a new thing for this author, even when it’s one that’s self imposed. I really didn’t expect the Exodus series to take off like it has. Oh, I expected it to be successful, after some advertising and promotion. Instead, it just took off on its own, and now is being advertised on websites all over the net. It came at just the right time, as the day job was literally killing me. Its success allows this author to turn to full time writing. In the past there was no deadline for my writing. I wrote when I felt like it. Some years I was very productive. 2010 is an example, when I wrote Aura, Daemon and Afterlife, as well as the manuscripts for Refuge and Exodus that later became the first two novel in each series. 2011 I started seven books and never completed a one. 2012 I finished three of those 2011 books and also wrote To Well and Back. But again, I wrote when I felt like it. Now I have an obligation to get third books out on three different series. I hope to do that and more this year, possibly three books on Exodus (2 in the main series line and one spin off). Exodus is doing the best of all my books, Book 1 outselling The Deep Dark Well by a three to one margin, despite being out for a shorter time. It is outselling Refuge 5:1. The smart business decision would be to hitch my wagon to Exodus and just let the others sit, for the moment. I actually did jump Exodus up in the writing queue, before the planned third book of Refuge. However, I feel obligated to continue those other series as well. People are sending emails wanting to know when those books will be finished (or leaving hints in reviews). So they will be finished this year. I will also be putting out a book called The Last Invasion of Sol that was written last year and just needs some polishing. People may howl, wondering why I am putting out a stand alone when the series they love still needs continuation. The thing is Sol is ready for a couple of rewrites, and as I will explain below, it fits into the process of how I write, or how I have always written, something I don’t see changing in the near future.
Exodus, and Refuge as well, are very hard novels to write. A story with a main storyline and only enough branches to encompass some of the other action and background to complete the tale; well that is easy. A story with multiple characters in parallel storylines; that’s quite a bit more difficult. I always loved the Harry Turtledove books that used that technique, and first started doing it as a challenge. But it is a challenge to remember everything that’s going on. I normally work on a couple of books at the same time, but an Exodus or Refuge style of book takes too much concentration. With two books I can write up to six thousand words a day. With one book I might hit five thousand some days, but on most three thousand is the limit, or things start getting really sloppy. I also like to put a book away for a year before working on the second and subsequent drafts, and I won’t be able to do that and still deliver a book this year in each of the series. Rest assured that Exodus III, which is a much longer book than its predecessors, also by request, will be out before summer. I hope to get it out by the end of April. Hope being the word here. I have decided to keep writing along in the story for another month, past what I need for book 3, so that a good bit of book 4 will be ready so I can complete it by fall. So from my readers I ask for a little patience. Hopefully, with going full time as a writer, I can get the production line cranked up and get the books out that everyone seems to want.