Feast Upon Release Date News! Feast Upon It, I Say!

The observant among you may have noticed that I did not post last week. There were a few reasons for this: first, I was away working hard on City of Light. Second, I wanted to leave the Tower of Winter post up as long as I could, so that as many people saw it as possible. Third, I am a shiftless vagabond.

City of Light is underway, and I can now tell you that I am aiming for a February or March release date. I'm planning on getting the first draft finished by early January, spend the month of January editing, and release it in February when I think it's finished. The plan, after that, is to start my new series in Summer 2014.

My, how time flies when a chronomancer curses you and your descendants unto the seventh generation.

I will emphasize that this is my target. I might miss it. But I'm leaving it vague intentionally so that I have a little room for squirming, in the undesirable event that squirming should become necessary.

What's my next series, you ask? I'm not sure yet. I've been working on a few things, but it won't be Traveler's Gate related. I need a break before I come back to this universe (multiverse?). I have one idea that I like, featuring epic fantasy with slightly less fighting and slightly more...inventive combat avoidance, I suppose you'd call it. Currently, the title of the first book is The Ghost and the Spider.

I've got another idea for a post-apocalyptic style of novel, in which a modern-technology world becomes more and more magical until civilization breaks down, and a new world order arises. This series would center around magical experimentation (nobody knows how magic works, because it's new) and world-conquering. It's a fun concept, but it seems difficult to write, so I might hold off on that for a while.

I also have two stories with little more than titles: The House on Silver Hill and The Seven Lives of Solomon Priest.

I thought those titles sounded cool, and I'd like to write stories around them. This is often how I work: I come up with tons of random ideas at different times, and then when I'm trying to assemble a story, I reach into my grab bag and find pieces that fit together.

For instance, for the Traveler's Gate Trilogy, I thought of the "un-prophesied hero" dynamic: the friend of the One True Hero who would rather save the world himself. Another time, I came up with the idea of themed pocket dimensions from which wizards could draw power. On yet another occasion, I thought of a different magic system based around places called "Territories."

Now you know how I work. Ideas go into a big, jumbled mess, and when I'm trying to put a new story or world together, I fish around for ideas and fit them together like puzzle pieces.

The more you know!

-Will