On Monday I put the first draft Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3 to bed. I normally put a first draft to bed for a year, but things have changed. I have been getting requests through posts to this blog, emails, and reviews on Amazon for book 3. It weighs in at 198,000 words, and will probably finish at 210,000 or more. For reference, Books 1 & 2 were both in the 110K range. I had hoped to do a much better job on book 3, and it will be as good as I can make it, but there will probably be some errors in there, even with other eyes looking at it. Probably no more than the other books though. I think the seven thousand fans who have bought both books 1 and 2 will enjoy this one, and the spinoff tale I am planning for the Fall. Also, I did some things a little different with this novel, writing each character’s story separately, then piecing them together at the end into one tale. I kind of liked that approach, and may do it in the future with other books. I am planning on pulling Exodus out again on April 1st, and will work long days on it to get it ready for publication.
In the meantime I am jumping on some other projects, including Refuge: Book 3 (Doppelganger is not really considered part of the storyline, yet. That novel was written seven years ago when I was still trying to attract a traditional publisher.) Refuge has done well, not as well as Exodus, and I think will do better with some more marketing. I love Exodus, but Refuge feels like an old friend, as I have been developing the world and the story for 15 years. What may put some people off is that it is a genre bender, combining high fantasy and military technofiction. With book 3 it will be leaning more toward fantasy, as the modern weapons are no longer of any use on Refuge. I have eight thousand words done so far on what I hope will be a 150,000 word novel. I am aiming to finish the first 50K words before the major Exodus rewrites start, and then I can take it from there when Exodus is out.
Refuge is my daytime project, and another book I finished the first draft of last year is my nighttime project. Working title is The Last Invasion of Sol, and I call it my Anti-Independence Day. Now I liked a lot of things about Independence Day, and hated just as many. In Invasion I have an alien race who has invaded another human colony and killed all the inhabitants before moving on Earth. Their ships are more advanced than humanity’s, though only capable of slower than light travel (the same tech the human race uses) and the human race knows they are coming. We can prepare for war. Still a daunting task and a close thing.
For the Summer I am planning to write the third novel of The Deep Dark Well Trilogy, titled Deeper and Darker, as well as a novel in the Exodus Universe about the criminal investigation of the deaths of members of Parliament in the Capital, as told in Exodus 1 and 2. That should keep me busy for the year I think. There are other first drafts on the hard drive. Some will come out next year as stand alones, though one, Theocracy, will be the first book of the second Deep Dark Well Trilogy. There is one whic is the first book of a fantasy trilogy that I wrote five years ago, but I don’t have time for another trilogy right now. And some people have suggested that Aura would be a good series, and I might consider it if I can get sales going for the book. Another book, Soulless (and I know there are other books with that name, so I will eventually come up with another) is a kind of Scifi/Horror mix.
I have found that having a number of books out there have made it possible for me to quit my day job next week. Exodus is making a lot of money, Refuge and Deep Dark Well not as much, but still good, and the other books just add a little bit to the pot. I am hoping to work more on publicizing the books that aren’t doing as well. I believe they are as good as the ones that are selling in gobs. But the great thing about the digital bookshelf is they can stay out there as long as I want, hopefully gathering fans.
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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.
Doug BrotherofCats Dandridge 