Hive First Draft Completely Finished (2nd Longest Book in Series, Barely Shorter than Iris) + Lots of New Announcements

Hive is done! At least, the first draft is. And despite being the fastest one written, it’s one of the longest ones. The final draft comes in at 145,764 wordcount and 248 pages in Microsoft Word.

Obviously wordcounts change from a first draft to a final draft. That makes sense. For instance, the first draft of Iris was 170,812 words at 305 pages. The first draft of Kholvaria was  137,068 words and 246 pages. Now in their final iterations, Iris is closer to 160K and Kholvaria is closer to 140K. So the point is, this is all subject to change. But one thing that I am fairly confident will be consistent is: Hive will be a long book and it will likely remain the second-longest in the series.

I finished the final chapter the other day and worked on the epilogue today and yesterday. Writing the epilogue was exciting and I’m proud to say I’m finishing the series on a good note. Sometimes when a series goes on for a long time, the plot can grow too big to have a nice resolution or the story gets too muddled and there are thousands of unfished plotlines dangling. But The Color of Water and Sky wraps up nicely and ends where it should. It’s not like a comic series that stretches on and on and never ends. There is a proper ending.

Hive is the last book in the series, but of course, that’s not to rule out the possibility of something else in the future. Prequels or spin-offs are always possible and I did tease the idea of a short story collection set in the world of Water and Sky months ago. That is still very much an idea I am toying with. But as far as the main plot goes, it is done. This was intended to be four books and four books it is.

The next step for Hive is going to be editing, formatting and cover art. That’s a fun time.

You’re probably wondering what’s next after that. With the series over, I’m sure you’re hankering for more. Well, do not despair! I have more news!

If you follow this blog regularly, you know that I recently wrote about the idea of putting my comedy short stories together and releasing it as a collection. Well, it just so happens that I’ve written a few more comedy short stories in the last couple of days. First I wrote a story about fraternity brothers in space, then I wrote a story about a shy man living on an asteroid and then I wrote a story about an intergalactic post office. They’re all pretty funny, or at least they make me laugh. They’re all three pretty short too, around 5,000 words each, but combined with the two stories I did for the Pew! Pew! collections, that gives me five good comedy stories to work with at a total wordcount of 44,516. In other words, I have enough content to put together a small book!

None of this is abstract or theoretical. I’ve decided that this collection will happen. In fact, work is already underway on designing cover art for the collection, which might be released as early as November. I’m still working out details like pricing, but I think having a collection of comedy stories will be a good addition to my repertoire and will provide an alternative to people who don’t want any of that dark and gritty stuff.

So that’s two book releases in the next couple of months. What more could you ask for?

Well… Since I’m dropping news bombs, here is a list of ideas I have planned in my head for projects that may or may not happen after Hive is released. I haven’t written anything yet, but these are just things floating around:

Atlantia (A Color of Water and Sky Anthology)

This would be the aforementioned short story collection with stories set in the world of Water and Sky


Battle Planet: The Champion of Earth

The first book in a series about humans being abducted and taken to a faraway gladiator fighting ring on an alien planet. I’m also thinking of making it set during the 1980s


Battle Planet: Escape from [insert cool place or name here]

The second book in the series mentioned above, but I’m toying with the idea of having it be a prequel to the first one set during ancient times


Apex Predator

Set in WWII, a fighter pilot or a boat captain or someone like that crashes on an island in the south pacific and hides in a dark cave that leads to a cavern where sightless monsters live. Think King Kong but the whole thing is in the dark

Those are the ideas I have in my head. Maybe all of them will happen, maybe some of them will happen, maybe none of them will happen. Who knows? I don’t. Right now I’m just focusing on getting through the current projects I have going on. Then, after that, I’ll see where my crazy mind takes me.

Somewhere eventually along the line, a long-delayed project that I’m not aloud to talk about is going to get released too. I’ve written something in collaboration with a pretty big name that I can’t talk about yet that’s been done and ready to go for well over a year now. I’ve been paid upfront for writing it already, which is great, but it’s still not released, which is a bit frustrating. Making money is wonderful and all, don’t get me wrong, but I’d still like to see this special project out on the market. I can’t say anything else about it since it is a secret, but know that there is something else floating around that may or may not come out at any time (the last update I heard was that it might be released around January).

Sorry if that was a bit cryptic, but I bring it up to let you know that there are a lot of things happening and that just because The Color of Water and Sky series is finishing up, it does not mean I am finished releasing books. You’ll see a lot more.

I know that was a lot of news at once, but there will always be more announcements to come. As always, check back here for the latest.

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