Update: WHEW FINISHED

Which means, of course, finished until I get comments back. But I sent the full draft of HEDESA to the earliest readers this past Friday, and let me tell you, I was glad to let it go.

I mean, of course: Let it go for now. As soon as I get back comments, I will –>

A) Pick a preorder date for Amazon, allowing a minimum of two weeks’ lead time so I can release it at my Patreon first. Three or four weeks would be better. And,

B) Begin secondary revision. And the preorder date actually depends A LOT on early feedback, because obviously if I realize I’m going to need to do a ton of secondary revision, then the preorder date will have to move back, whereas if secondary revision looks like it will be basically quick and simple, then I can plan to release the book earlier.

This is why I can’t set up the preorder date that far in advance. Unless I’m really, really confident about a book, and then I don’t worry about it. I was extremely confident about Marag, less confident about Rihasi, and again I’m less confident about Hedesa. That is, I’m confident about the entire front half and part of the back half, but, well, we’ll see, that’s all.

AND

Because I’m confident about the front half, I’ve scheduled chapters to go live at my Patreon every Tuesday until the middle of June, meaning June 17th because that’s a Tuesday. At that point, I’ll either release more chapters OR, and I hope this is where I am at that point, I’ll release the book itself. In the meantime, I have very much enjoyed releasing chapters there! It’s fun to think of readers hitting bits I particularly enjoyed writing.

Those early chapters are going to be revised, I’m sure, but I think the changes will be minimal. That’s my prediction. We’ll all find out soon enough!

MEANWHILE

Ironically, I sent off the Hedesa draft on the last day of the spring semester. I’m off this week and next week, and OBVIOUSLY what I ought to do is write … it’s fourteen days … half a book or AT LEAST make major progress on a book. However, what I’m actually going to do is take a break and read two or three of the books I’ve been wanting to read for the past age, and then we’ll see.

Things I need to do soon-ish, not including Hedesa in any way:

A) I have two more chapters of This Hour that I can put into my newsletter, after which I will need something new. What will it be? I don’t want to start putting chapters of Sekaran into the newsletter until I have more of it written. Maybe I should write more of that? Or a couple short stories that stand alone? Not sure.

B) I have a complete fantasy novel sitting on my computer that I wrote back in, I think 2017 or so and haven’t looked at since. I liked the first part, but not the last part, and I don’t really remember why. I should pull it out and read it and revise it and then send it to a couple of you and see what you think. Should I do that next, like over the next couple weeks? Because I could probably do essential revision pretty briskly, so that makes sense?

C) OBVIOUSLY I need to start the sequel for No Foreign Sky. Should I set everything else aside and do that? Even if I don’t mean to finish it right now, if I start it, that would help me go on with it later.

And it’s not that I’m asking for advice here or taking a vote. I’m just not sure what I’ll be doing this week or next week. Also, obviously I’ll get comments back for Hedesa fairly soon and then everything else will wait for that. This kind of suggests not trying to tackle anything too huge, as whatever I’m doing, I’ll probably switch back to revision.

I will hope to send the revised draft to the second round of readers by the end of May, BUT WE’LL SEE. Like the preorder date, I really need to see the first set of comments before I can tell about that.

MEANWHILE: I hope you’re all enjoying spring, unless you’re in Australia, and then I guess it’s probably winter. Here, it’s early summer and the roses are blooming —

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