The Super Summer Of Finishing Things And What’s Next

As I mentioned earlier, I intended that Summer 2025 would be my Super Summer Of Finishing Things.

I am pleased to report that I was successful! THE SHIELD WAR, STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE, and GHOST ARMOR are all finished. The three series are complete. So if you’re one of the people who emails me every time I publish a book to tell me that you only read completed series, well, I have three new completed series for you.

But now that those three series are complete, what is next?

My main project right now is BLADE OF FLAMES, which will be the first book in my new BLADES OF RUIN epic fantasy series. BLADES OF RUIN will be set in the realm of Owyllain from SEVENFOLD SWORD, and it will take place about a hundred years after the end of SHIELD OF POWER. Currently I’m about 36,000 words into BLADE OF FLAMES, which puts me on Chapter 9 of 23.

I will post more about that later. So far all I will say is that the main character has a dog. People like dogs, right?

My secondary project is, at long last, CLOAK OF WORLDS, and I am 2,500 words into it. I am hoping to publish BLADE OF FLAMES toward the end of September, with CLOAK OF WORLDS coming out in October.

After that I will write the next Rivah book, ELVEN-ASSASSIN.

So that means for the next year or two, if all goes well and God wills it, my writing schedule will look like this:

Month #1: BLADES OF RUIN book.

Month #2: Nadia book.

Month #3: BLADES OF RUIN book.

Month #4: Rivah book.

And I will just repeat this schedule over and over until I conclude one of those three series.

I’m going to limit myself to three unfinished series at any one time going forward. Through all of 2024 and the first two-thirds of 2025, I had five unfinished series. I concluded this was too many, because 1.) it was complicated for me to keep track of everything, 2.) it wasn’t fair to the readers, since the gap between individual entries in the series was getting longer, and 3.) it was actually bad for sales because the gap between books in the series was getting too long.

So, three series at a time.

And, as always, thanks for reading and I hope to have something new to read soon!

It is exciting to work on something new. We’ve been to Owyllain before in the FROSTBORN/SEVENFOLD SWORD books, but a lot has changed there in the hundred years since the end of SEVENFOLD SWORD: SOVEREIGN…

-JM