Progress report on book 18, Repercussions…

It’s been a while since I gave a progress update on Repercussions, so I thought I’d throw one out there for anyone who’s interested.

I just finished chapter 13 this morning, which means I have three more chapters to go.  Progress on this book has been slow for several reasons.  First and foremost, I’ve had a lot of personal issues going on in my private life that I’ve been dealing with.  Second, this book is really all over the place, but in a workable way that makes sense.  What do I mean by that?  Well…

The series is coming to an end.  Will this be the final book?  I’m not sure yet.  I do have a few other ideas floating around up there in that gray matter of mine, but I’m not sure yet if I’m going to do anything with any of it.  For instance, I have an idea for a book that would be a prequel of sorts to book 17 that would follow the adventures of Jake and Lana from before they first meet until the beginning of book 17.  There’s also something the characters came across in Repercussions that I could turn into a story line if I wanted to.  I gave up on the idea of writing Jack Wilson’s story, because I don’t think I could fill a whole book with it and even if I could, the story wouldn’t hold up.  I’ve also considered writing a companion book to the series that details out the different races they’ve encountered, as well as the dimensions they live in.  In any case, I wanted to write this book in a way that would make sense if it were to end up being the final book, which means I’ve checked in with some characters who haven’t been in it much lately and revisited a lot of things that happened in the past in order to take a look at the consequences of those events.

I’m also considering just taking a break from the series, so I can come back to it with a fresh perspective later on.  In the interim, I would write and publish the first book of another potential series about a girl who goes to work for a private investigator and ends up helping him with a paranormal case that comes creeping through his door.  That one may end up being a stand alone, because I really do need to get some stand alone books out there in addition to the regular series, so we’ll see how that one ends up.  If the ending feels like I can turn it into a series, then that’s what I’ll do.  If not, then it’ll just be a standalone.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on.  Repercussions is going to be…I don’t want to say disjointed, but there are some very distinct sections to it where various things happen that involve different characters.  There’s also some really deep, conceptual stuff in this one, so that’s slowing me down as well.  It’s far more involved writing stuff like that than it is to just write normal story elements.

As for when it’ll be done, I’m not sure.  Like I said, I still have three more chapters to write, and then I have to edit it, so it’s at least a few weeks out yet I suppose.  It’ll be done when it’s done.  That’s the best answer I can give you at this point.