This is a behind-the-scenes look at why it took me so long to finish my newest novel:

Some of you are familiar with my fourth novel, Vast, a far-future, slower-than-light, space-based story that is probably not like most other novels you’ve read. At the time, I felt it was the best thing I’d ever written–basically the fulfillment of the reason I’d started writing science fiction. It took everything I had and then some to write it, and when it was done, I remember thinking Never again! I had no intention of ever writing anything else in that story world. It was just too exhausting, and the market for it wasn’t there.

For years, when people asked about a follow-up to Vast, the easy answer was some version of Nope! But as time passed, I started to think “Well, maybe…”

Oh, the folly of forgetting!

A few years ago, I realized — should I ever want to write a follow-up novel — I knew how to start it and what the basic plot would be.

With that in mind, I suddenly had this great idea, an actual publishing SCHEME…

I decided that before beginning another near-future, high-tech novel along the lines of the Red trilogy or The Last Good Man, I would go “back to the (far)future” and write that novel I said I’d never write.

The structure I had in mind meant this book could become the first of an open-ended series. So with that in mind, I resolved I was going to write two novels, but I would write them fast. After all, I didn’t have to spend time inventing a new story world, and I was planning to keep them short. I wanted both to be around 75,000 words, which is close to the length of my Puzzleland novel Hepen the Watcher. In this business, it’s critical to get new work out, and this scheme would give me a chance to get two books out in 2018.

This was a really good plan, at least on paper. But there was one major drawback — for a long time, my heart just wasn’t in it. In recent years I’ve been far more interested in exploring this world we actually live in, rather than far-future space opera. As a result, book 1 took me ages to write. Hours at the computer often produced only a few hundred words. But I kept at it, and by last March I finally had a first draft and it was close to the 75,000-word length I’d been aiming for! Hooray!

I started on book 2 right away, hoping to get a draft of that done before sending the first volume to my freelance editor. Progress was better on book 2, but I was still only partly done when I sent book 1 out for editing in late May. I wanted to publish the first volume in September 2018, with book 2 following a month or two later, so I contracted for cover art.

The cover art came in on time. Due to a series of truly unfortunate circumstances the editing took longer than expected and when I did get my editorial letter and in-line comments, well… “Harsh, but true” was the phrase I used at the time.

I knew the novel had issues, but this edit forced me to acknowledge how deep those issues ran. My heart hadn’t been in it, and that was quite obvious to my editor.

So I put the partial draft of book 2 aside and went back to work on book 1. I outlined the major changes I wanted to make, and understood that even though the basic plot would stay the same, I needed to do a complete rewrite. The cool part is that the more I wrote, the more my heart was into it. I was eager to get up at five in the morning and get to work, which is a terrific feeling. And I think all that work paid off.

Yes, my plan had failed. Neither novel was published in 2018 and book 1 grew far beyond the 75,000 words I’d planned. In the end, it turned out to be 120,000 words. Oh well! It’s done. The first beta reader to get back to me opened his comments with “Now this is science fiction! …an amazing book.” 🙂

If you’ve never read Vast, hey, now’s a good time! 🙂

That said, it isn’t necessary. The new book is meant as a new entry point into the Nanotech Succession story world.

I’ll be posting title, book description, and cover art later this weekend…

And I’m already back to work on book 2!

Posted on: Saturday, January 5th, 2019 at 6:48 am
Categories: Writing, Writing Life.