The Next Big Thing

So let's talk about my next book!

What-- too soon?

I do plan to return to Eleven Names within the next six months. But before that, I'd like to get a rough draft for the other series I've mind-playing with. This decision is partly practical (if I don't get anywhere querying TOB, I can refocus my energies on developing a story in a different world/genre) and partly visceral (I'm just more jazzed to work on it than EN).

I've blogged about this project before. The pieces of it had been floating around my subconscious for years, and finally coalesced into a story last fall: Fantasy meets Alternate History meets polyamorous Romance. Set in an alternate New England c.1850, with magic. A four-part series... so, a tetralogy, I guess, but what an awkward word.

I worked on it for six weeks in late 2014 and got:

*fairly detailed character profiles for my quartet of main characters
*the beginnings of the alternate Bible stories I need-- basically, just Genesis and Jesus
*a phase outline of the first quarter or so of the first book
*a broad strokes sketch of the series
*some preliminary research: read a few comps, gathered some info on New England native peoples

My plan (which I will talk about in great and gory detail in a later post) is to begin official storybuilding/prep work on Sept. 1. Until then, I'll work on completing my submission packet for TOB, and farting around with whatever I feel like doing on the new project. I probably have a minimum of ten books to read for research to even write a first draft, so I should get hopping on that, too.

Series name: The Sacred Talents
Title of the first book: Mender