Eyes of Infistar word count: 91341
Despite all kinds of craziness around this place (installing wood floors, kids throwing up, car dying) I made my quota for the week.
Yay!
I'm getting pretty close to finishing the rough draft of Eyes. Which realization has set me to thinking of new projects — although that's not as obvious a connection as it might sound, because I already have the next three projects lined up, but I like to plan a long way in advance, and then make changes as necessary. After I draft Eyes, I polish Winds. After I polish Winds, I draft Pavanne. Then on to Asolde II and Ice Wolf II. I want to do two in each setting, because if I sell, I will then have a sequel ready to push right away, I will easily have time to get a third book done before the second one comes out, and I will have given my career the best possible start with three books in a single series coming out at (hopefully) six month intervals.
But if by the time I have finished the second Ice Wolf book I have not sold Cantata, Winds or Eyes, what then? I won't be able to convince myself to go for a book three without some indication that someone would actually be interested in buying the series, I don't think.
So, if this should come to pass, I have decided to take six months away from writing novels, and do an illustrated web-serial or a comic strip of some kind instead. “Starblast in Space” probably. And then I'll pick one of my “Tolsequo” stories to do. (Which don't all take place in Tolsequo but I have to call them something, and calling them my “Shakespeare Stories” might be a bit misleading. These will be on the same world as Cantata, but I don't consider them the same set because they have a very different mood, and they take place on the other side of the continent.) And then I guess I try out the YA series in the Cultivator universe. Why not?
There, that should keep me busy until 2010 or so.