As Wings of Twilight moves into the final stages of production, I have to start planning my next move. Right now, I’m waiting on cover art, after that I just need to format the manuscript and put it up for sale. I’m already nearly 50,000 words into my the sequel (Iron Fist of the Oroqs), so when I get it up for sale, the wait for the sequel won’t be terribly long; maybe next spring (I’ll probably have to save up money for cover art & editing).
Fortunately, for you readers, Wings of Twilight is a stand-alone novel, so you won’t be stuck with a cliffhanger ending. If I’m still writing Iron Fist of the Oroqs by the time Wings of Twilight hits the stores, I’ll probably send my superhero novel (The neXt Generation — in need of a better title, perhaps) to an editor. My goal is to have at least three books available for sale by August 2012. Two of them are already past the first draft stage, so this should be possible.
After Iron Fist of the Oroqs goes to an editor, I’ll need to decide what to work on next. I have two partially completed manuscripts (both of these were being written when I had a family member die, so they got de-railed). The first, Clockwork Cowboy is a steampunk-horror-western that tells the story of John Slade, a former member of the London Metro Police, recruited into the League of Victoria in 1877. The League of Victoria is challenged with whatever tasks the Queen feel are too morally damaging for the police or the military to handle, particularly when it comes to the supernatural. Along with his succubus sidekick, Slade is tasked with tracking down the Whitehall Killer, better known as Jack the Ripper, as he flees England to seek refuge (and new victims, perhaps) in the American West. The world of Clockwork Cowboy is not simply a steampunk version of the Victorian Age, but one in which the Fae World exists underneath the world which we are familiar with. I did a lot of research into the Whitehall killings while writing this, and it was going alone so well when my first wife died, I feel it would be a shame to consign it to oblivion.
The second is Sky Pirates of Andelosia, set in the World of Calliome shortly after The Sundering (a cataclysmic event you’ll learn about in Wings of Twilight), when the world was still broken and the Fae Realms and Mortal Realms were separated from one another, about 750 years prior to Wings of Twilight. It tells the story of Xanos Malavera, a mighty pirate (at least, that what he wants people to think) and his quest for fortune and glory that leads him to discover the way to heal the world and bring the pieces back together, reuniting the Fae and Mortal Realms. My father died while I wrote this, so I never did really finish it, though I was about 2/3rds of the way done.
Of course, I could always work on one of the sci-fi novel ideas I have rattled around in my bonebox. Part of me feels I owe it to myself to finish the other stories first, but I’ll have to go where my muse directs me.