At 3:30am this morning I finished the 2nd edition re-edit of the 16th book, Transition. I have six more books to go, and then I have to all the after work on them. New covers, new synopses, print versions, etc… Once I’m done with the entire rest of the series and have everything ready, I’ll republish books 7-22 all at once. Books 1-6 are currently available. The reason I stopped after book 6 was because I changed the way I was doing the re-edits. Rather than going through each book twice, I went through the entire series, with the idea of doing a full run for the first pass, and then another full run for the second pass.
Well, I finished the first passes up through book 21, which was supposed to be the final book in the series, and then I got the itch. I decided the series needed an epilog of sorts, so I wrote Aftermath, which picks up right after the end of book 21. It’s more of a slice of life type of a book for the characters, and wraps up a lot of things that didn’t get wrapped up in the rest of the series. I had a lot of fun writing it. It’s been seven years since I wrote Genesis, but after doing the first pass on all the edits, I was able to slip right back into the story and the characters like a comfortable old shoe, and it seemed as though no time had passed at all. Will Aftermath actually be the final book in the series? No guarantees, but as of right now, the answer is yes. Unless I get some inspiration for another book, then Aftermath is the final book in the series, and it’s written as such. That’s why it ended up being eighteen chapters instead of the usual sixteen. I wanted to make sure I got everything in there that I wanted to get in, and wrapped up everything that I needed to.
So, I’m just about to get started on the 2nd editing pass of the Travelers 2nd edition. Travelers was always one of my favorite books in the series, for a variety of reasons. First, it gave me a chance to create a whole new set of characters, in a different environment, with no special powers other than their wits and their bravado to see them through. Two of those characters, Jake and Lana, became personal favorites of mine, simply because they were so much fun to write. I’m sad that they weren’t able to be introduced earlier, but I did involve them quite a bit in the books that followed.
I’ve mentioned it before, but Travelers was originally intended to be the start of a whole new series that took place in the Unseen Things universe. The series was going to be called Wasteland Earth, and was going to follow the characters of Travelers as they tried to survive in the aftermath of the Echnid invasion of Earth. I wrote it because I wanted a break from the regular series, but I didn’t want to actually write anything that was outside of the Unseen Things universe, so that’s why I figured I’d write something that was related to the events at the end of the 16th book.
Well, it never did become its own series, for the simple reason that I didn’t have it in me to branch off into a whole new series when the main series wasn’t even close to being done yet, so at the end of Travelers, I worked it so that they would meet up with the main characters of the series, and become a part of their storyline going forward, rather than pushing forward with a whole separate series, as I’d originally planned.
Anyway, I just realized how long this post has become, so I’ll end it here for now. I purposely haven’t done anything to promote the series during these re-edits, because I want to get everything republished and ready to go before I start with a major advertising blitz. These second edition re-edits are greatly enhanced versions of the original editions, and only something I could have done once the series as a whole had been completed. It’s been incredibly time consuming, but it’s also a labor of love, and I won’t stop until it’s all been completed.
That’s it for now. I’ll post another update when I have something new to talk about. 🙂
Where have I been, and some news…
Where have I been? My right hand has been having some bad problems. I can’t make a fist, and my fingers are numb, which as you can imagine makes it incredibly hard to type without making constant typos. It set my work schedule back by months already, because I didn’t want to do any work on republishing the series when there was a higher than normal chance I’d have typos in it and end up screwing things up without even realizing it. That does bring me to my news though. I’m almost ready to republish book seven, Trackers. I finished the new print cover today after some hangups I had in re-rendering the cover, but I finally managed to get a close approximation of the original, so we’re good to go. I’ll probably get it published this evening at some point, and then I’ll start working on the print version of the 8th book.
I have an appointment on Monday for a nerve conductivity test, so they can find out where the problem is with my hand, and then I have a follow up at the hand doctor in mid-March. Hopefully we’ll get this thing resolved so I can start playing bass again. I haven’t been able to play since this whole thing started. 🙁
By Duane • Uncategorized