At the end of Blood of the Green Children, I may have promised I would have my next book published by the end of this year. That may have been a bit optimistic. I mean, it’s not like we didn’t know Elisabeth was pregnant.
In February we had our third child, who is doing awesome: a smiling little bundle of joy that refuses to be put down or sleep with any kind of reliability. His older sisters are gaga for him, and rare is the morning that doesn’t contain the phrase, “Aw, he’s so cuuuuute.” This happy event was followed far too closely by packing up all our worldly possessions and relocating to a neighboring city. We’re very happy with our new place, although moving with a newborn was a far from pleasant challenge. Somewhere in all of this I found time to finish what I thought was the first draft of book 3. If I’m being honest with myself, when I put a bow on it, I knew it wasn’t up to snuff, but, hey, that’s what first drafts are for.
However, I may have slightly misjudged how not up to snuff it was. Elisabeth, always the first to read anything of mine, devoured the first draft and loved it right up until the last five pages where it suddenly ended. After apologizing for staying up most of the night reading it, she told me “You need about fifty more pages and a better ending.” And of course she was right.
And so that’s what I’ve been working on in whatever scraps of spare time I’m able to salvage from parenting three children. (In three years and twenty-four days they’ll all be in school and then I’ll be able to write in peace and quiet. Not that I’m counting.) I’m very excited about the new material going into this book. It’s shaping up to be my longest book yet, and I’m looking forward to everyone seeing all the weird new stuff I’ve come up with to fill in the Unseen world in Seattle. You get to visit the Shadow Bazaar again. There’s more about the Wardens and the Sem’ya. And the unfortunate rise of MRA types in our society might make this book feel a little more relevant than you might be expecting. I mean, I didn’t really set out to write urban fantasy about vampires and stuff because I thought I had an important message to share, but that’s the world we live in now. Also there’s gross details about how autopsies work, so that will be fun.
So all of that is a longwinded way of saying that, barring a miracle, the book is not coming out this year. I’m not going to commit to another date because I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to complete the third book, but I’m also not going to release it until it’s ready. Until then, I’ll be working as hard as I can to wrap it up…in between diaper changes and packing lunches.