State of Play

The observant among you will note that the word counter for 'Tip of the Spear' has gone up, and 'Sword of the Serpent' has remained at zero...well, I've decided that the fantasy piece just isn't – quite – ready yet. I need to spend a little more time thinking about it, but I need to write something, so I'm pushing ahead with Alamo 4. This one directly follows on from Alamo 3 in a way the previous books didn't, so I think it only fair to get it out there next – also, there is something else in the works which is rather dependant on Alamo 4 being produced.

I've been rather remiss of late in, well, writing. The first three Alamo books have done well, well enough that I am falling victim to not a little bit of, well, self-doubt. I'm telling this as a cautionary tale; I have spent too long 'thinking' and not enough time 'writing'. I think I perhaps needed a short break after Alamo 3, but it's getting on to two and a half months now, and I'm tangling myself up in knots. I need to get back into the routine again; my original plan was to try and write a book every month, maintaining a steady release schedule, and this is something I must get back to again.

Going back to Alamo has been a lot easier than I'd feared, I must say; the characters are like a well-worn pair of shoes to me, and I'm not having any difficulties in switching back to them again – it's like I'd never been away. There are a couple of arcs I want to tie up in this one that I opened up in the last book, and I'm getting some progress on that; three chapters written, twenty-five or so to go. Fingers crossed I'll have it completed in a couple of weeks, release sometime next month.

Then, I can concentrate on fantasy. I still badly want to write that book, that trilogy, really, but I know I need a little more time to put everything in order, and more to the point – I want to be able to sit down and write the whole thing, one after another, just as I did with Alamo. It just makes things so much easier if I can do it that way, and there is the not insignificant aspect that the readers won't have to wait too long to find out what happens. Writing a contained piece as opposed to Alamo – which I have in mind still as an ongoing series, rather than anything with a set 'ending' (Well, I have a last novel in mind, but that's a long way off yet) – should be an interesting experience as well.

So, that's the state of play as it stands.