A Long-Overdue Update: Where I’ve Been, Where Retribution Is, and What Comes Next

Whoa, it has been way too long since I’ve taken the time to post an update over here.

I have no real excuses, save to say that I’ve been up to my eyeballs in editing work—which is the bread and butter of my life right now—and I got pretty hyper-focused on it. I kept forgetting to update over here until, before I knew it, over a year had passed.

That was totally on me. Oops.

That said, I figured it was about time I sat down and actually, you know, gave you guys an update on what’s going on over here with the upcoming production schedule so you’ll have an idea of what to expect and when.

So the primary thing to talk about is, obviously, Retribution, book seven in The Becoming Series.

I have started and stopped and started over on this book so many times over the past year, it’s ridiculous. I’d usually get about 15,000 words into it—struggling through the slog for a couple of months just to hit that—then end up dissatisfied because I knew where I wanted the story to go but was struggling to figure out how to get there.

Eventually, I figured out the problem: I wasn’t putting in enough of the hard work before I sat down to write.

So I did a super-quick outline like I usually do, but then I did something different: I took that outline and built out what I’m calling a “draft zero.” Basically, I sketched out the bare skeleton of every scene, including occasional bits of dialogue or dialogue inspiration, notes about things I needed to remember, foreshadowing I needed to work in, ideas for later books, that sort of thing.

That draft zero ended up being about 75,000 words long.

Yikes.

Granted, that includes a bunch of reminders, notes, and things to keep in mind for the eventual book eight, but still. It ended up way longer than I expected.

The whole process took about a month, maybe a little less, and it was weirdly freeing because I didn’t have to worry about writing a clean first draft. I was just figuring out the story and leaving myself all the breadcrumbs I’d need when it was time to actually write the thing.

Once that was done, I broke everything out into individual scenes (not chapters—I never do that at this stage, believe it or not).

Then, at this point, I made another huge change.

Instead of setting a word-count goal for myself every day (which I almost never managed to hit, and I think that was what was messing up my brain because I was unnecessarily stressing myself out), I told myself I only had to write the first draft of one scene a day, and I was only going to write five days a week.

That’s it. That’s the biggest change I made.

I started working on Retribution’s first draft on Monday, September 7.

As I’m writing this blog post, it’s September 26, and I’m almost 50,000 words into the manuscript and about to hit the halfway point.

You have no idea how exciting that is for me. In roughly two weeks of actual writing days—not calendar days, because I’m largely only writing five days a week—I’ve drafted almost the entire first half of a novel.

I haven’t written like this in years. The last time I drafted a book this quickly was way back in 2012, when I was writing Revelations, and that’s a distant memory at this point.

Clearly, I’ve finally stumbled onto a process that genuinely works for me and my brain while still letting me get my editing work done. Other than whatever refinements I make along the way, I’m grabbing ahold of this process with both hands and absolutely sticking with it, because holy shit, it’s working.

I have some theories about why it’s working so well. A lot of it, I think, comes down to executive dysfunction (unmedicated ADHDer over here!), and the process is eliminating some of the friction I was encountering between the way my brain works and the actual process of writing—which involves a shit-ton of decision-making. By doing the outline and draft zero first, I’m making most of the difficult decisions ahead of time. I can iron out plot problems, figure out how to get from one major story point to another, and leave myself notes about all those tiny things I’d otherwise have to stop and think about while doing the actual drafting.

But there’s still plenty of room to be creative once I’m actually writing. I don’t use my draft zero as a script that I have to follow word for word—it’s just my roadmap. It gives me the guide on where I’m going, how I’m going to get there, and I don’t end up spending half my energy every day trying to figure out what the crap I’m doing next in the book.

So what does all this mean for you guys?

Well, my writing productivity has gone up—dramatically—and I’m currently on schedule to finish the first draft of Retribution near the end of October, probably around the twenty-fourth, as long as I keep up my current pace. And so far, keeping up that pace hasn’t been a problem.

Once the draft is finished, I’m going to hit pause on Retribution and shift over to book eight. I’ll do the outline and draft zero for that book before coming back to Retribution for revisions, which will let me see the entire remaining story and figure out whether there’s anything I need to add to or adjust in book seven before I lock it down. After that, it’s revisions, rewrites, and all the prep work involved in actually getting the book into your hot little hands.

Right now, I’m hoping and aiming to have Retribution out sometime in January, give or take a bit. I’ll have a firmer release date once I’m at least halfway through revisions and rewrites. By then, I should have a much better idea of how long each stage of this new process takes me—and, hopefully, that’ll also let me start planning things like preorders for book eight.

Speaking of book eight…

For those of you who don’t follow me on Facebook—or who do follow me on but haven’t seen the post because Facebook is terrible about showing anyone anything that isn’t an ad or a post from somebody you don’t actually follow—yes, there will be a book eight.

Which I’m sure you’ve already gathered.

And book eight already has a title, even:

Dominion.

It’s going to be an absolute roller coaster. And it will likely be the last book in the core series, assuming things don’t get too nuts in regards to book length.

And yes, you read that right: core series.

Because I’m already sketching out ideas for an offshoot series that I think you guys are going to love.

It’ll take place in the same universe and will probably be a trilogy. I’m not ready to say much more about it yet, because it’s still very much in the playing-around-with-ideas stage and focusing on finishing said core series first, but considering what I’ve come up with so far…

I am going to have SO much fun with it.

And I think you guys will enjoy it, too.

So now that I’ve gotten my metaphorical shit straightened out and am actually producing again properly, you can expect to find me over here posting MUCH more often that I have in the past year. So keep your eyes open and make sure you subscribe by putting your email address into the little box on the right of the screen that says “subscribe to blog via email.” It’ll basically just email you whenever I update, Substack-style, which, as you can see, doesn’t happen very often anyway! But it’s the best way to keep updated on what’s coming out when and what’s up next in my writing and publishing world!