What Next?

I’m not that close to finishing Boiling Seas 3, but it’s getting there.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve been doubling back and streamlining what I’ve already written before I push on into the grand finale – an approach which has already paid massive dividends even before I get to the bits that really need cutting down. I think I’ve cut about 10,000 words or so already, though I’ve been adding plenty back in to fill in the gaps and make things more coherent. The problem I always end up having, whether or not I have a proper outline for a book, is that I think of really cool ideas halfway through which I should have introduced much earlier – which means I end up half-arsedly introducing them too late in the narrative and then having to scramble to edit them in earlier on when I go back. But with this new ‘editing-halfway-through’ approach, it’s a lot easier to do that reworking of ideas. As a result, my proper villain now takes shape; characters are moving around the massive board of the Boiling Seas on a tighter schedule, and once I’ve cut down the accidentally and absolutely mammoth Chapter 37, I should be in a much better place to blaze on and write Part 3, which is something I’ve been looking forward to writing for a long time indeed.

(And then I need to do the boring things like ‘come up with a title’ and ‘make the cover’, but that’s all a future Hûw problem.)

But drawing towards the end of this trilogy has got me thinking: what am I going to do next?

I’ve been on a rough schedule of publishing a book once a year since I properly started self-publishing, and I’d like to keep that schedule up. Boiling Seas 3 will be this year’s book, all being well, but then after that… what am I going to write? I have a beefy fantasy manuscript that I started editing down a while ago (but quickly fell off) – I definitely want to put that book out at some point, but it’s a pretty dark one. Lots of desperation and despair, which I’m not sure is the vibe I’m after right now. Though it would be a good contrast to the optimism and adventure of the Boiling Seas.

I also, of course, have a kids’ book series that isn’t really a series yet. I wrote ‘Book 1’ on The Fire Within’s cover for a reason: in my head it’s at least a 5-book series, if not more, though typically while I’ve got a good idea for book 5, the intervening books 2-4 are very light on… anything. Maybe that should be the next big project – I say ‘big’, but they’re only very short books so far, which at least means they don’t take quite as long to write.

Though it does take a while for Laura Wingrove to create these excellent covers

Or maybe it’s time for something completely different. A totally new world, a totally new cast of characters. Maybe it’s short, maybe it’s long; maybe I do some long-form SF for the first time in a while; maybe I stick to fantasy and take on a different style.

I’ve got options. I just need to pick one.

Any ideas?