As you may be able to tell (if you’ve visited this site more than once before), I am currently in the process of shuffling things around here: setting up a static front page and slowly paring away some of the unnecessary clutter that has hung around far too long.
There are two reasons for this, and in a way they are not unrelated:
Firstly, I am entering that period of the semester when I expect to have a negative amount of time to do anything constructive over here, so I feel a static home page would simply look better than having some outdated post from weeks of yore greet those who stumble upon my site. I do not expect to have time to dedicate fully to writing reviews again (bar one which I hope to have up this week) or to recording podcasts until the solstice, at least, by which time I’ll have submitted my final grades, and so forth.
Secondly, after many months of battling against time management skills that would make a college freshman blush (and I know because I teach them!), I am nearing a new release. This is not something I’ve made public yet, so now is as good a time as any:
When I first began writing The Scion of Abacus, I was planning it as the first volume of a duology, which was simply a story I had planned to break in two because it was far too long for one volume, I felt. Well, because of some problem’s I’ve had, I’ve not progressed as far as I’d hoped, but I’d also begun to realize that splitting the book in two was simply an arbitrary way to deal with an enormous story, and so I could easily rethink my scheme.
And rethink it I did. I decided I’d make the books slightly smaller and go with a trilogy in the Lord of the Rings mould, you know, each book simply a devision of what is actually a single novel; i.e. this would not be three standalone volumes. But this presented problems as well, as there was a very uneven division as far as I could anticipate, and so I arrived at what will be the final form of publication: the serial novel.
Charles Dickens did it. So did Stephen King. Some indies have recently done so to great effect as well. And now your humble author will be doing so also. The Scion of Abacus (now the full story’s title as opposed to the title of the first of two volumes) will be released in six (possibly seven) parts of between 30,000 and 40,000 words (that’s anywhere from 90 to 160 pages depending on one’s page settings in Word!). Those are good, weighty chunks, I believe, and the story has some natural stopping points that serve to create a few intriguing cliffhangers.
The first two parts are done. Part three is now in the works. And once the school semester is over and grading is done, I should be able to type like a demon and perhaps get to the beginning of part five by mid-January, when I have to start thinking about teaching again.
I’m planning on a release schedule of one volume a month, and when the whole shebang is finished, there will also be a single-volume edition.
You will still be able to read the early draft version of the entire first part here on the website for free, but the version that will go up for sale will be heavily edited and–in some places–even unrecognizable. I always find it fascinating to look at early drafts of an author’s works, so perhaps you’ll get a kick out of these early chapters too.
Well, there you are. The cat’s out the bag. But I haven’t played all my cards yet, as I still have one particular duck to add to this row in the form of a brand new cover design for the new book.
And look at that: I’ve thrown in a mixed-metaphor-salad for you, free of charge!
