I had an enjoyable break for… the last week of the year, watching my girls fire up the new PS4, catching a couple of movies and getting in some reading (currently, BROKEN MONSTERS, by Lauren Beukes). Also, all of the contracts are (finally) signed and in place, so I’m starting off 2015 as an official Penguin-Putnam author!
BAD LAND is due to Putnam by the end of this month. There will be copy edits and such after that, but the “book in chief” is scheduled for delivery before February. I’ve enjoyed the editing process to date, and can clearly see how the nips and tucks have strengthened the overall story and tightened the pacing. There are some paragraphs hitting the cutting room floor that I can definitely remember agonizing over – searching desperately for that perfect word or phrase – but each cut has been for the better. It’s been great to have feedback and to watch the book take shape in its final form.
I’ve also started researching and plotting out the sequel. The day after BAD LAND is off my desk, I’ll turn my full attention to that. I’ve got a completion schedule already set up that’s pretty aggressive, since it’s deliverable by the beginning of next year. The reality is that for the rest of this year and well into the next, I’m going to be living these two books exclusively.
While I’d like to think I can work on multiple different projects at one, I don’t hold out a lot of hope for that. There aren’t enough hours in the day, or my day, anyway. And although I’d love to finish off the book I was well into when I heard the news about BAD LAND, as well as start my long gestating horror book and then my (even longer percolating) urban fantasy, I now have professional commitments and deadlines – again, a huge change from only a month ago, where the only deadlines I had were self-imposed (although, in my mind at least, no less serious).
So that’s where I’m starting off 2015.
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