All Done (Except for the Parts that Aren’t)

I just finished writing the main segment of Burned Lands, a twelve part serial story for Dark Futures.

The idea was simple enough: write three chapters of around 2.5k words each. Each chapter would be told from a first person point of view, but after three chapters the viewpoint would change to a different character. Then, after all is said and done, compile the whole shebang and put it out there for sale.

What could be easier?

Oh sure, if I’d gone in with an actual plan it would probably have been easier, but I’m terrible at planning. So instead, I sent the editor a rough sketch with the first few stories laid out with a note that I’d figure out the rest soon enough.

Yeah.

The final story was still rendering in my head this week, and then it became a matter of sitting down and banging it out on the laptop.

This wasn’t my first apocalyptic story, not by a long shot, but it is the first long form project I’ve finished in way too many years. For the record, Nails, who shows up in the last quarter of the series, did make a cameo in a previous story I wrote (“A Message to Deliver”) which is included in the Dark Futures Annual that came out last year.

I’m not quite done with the setting, however. I still have a prologue and epilogue to write, plus three interstitial pieces, all of which are going to be exclusive to the collection. Plus, I think I’ll try and get out one more short stand alone as a promotion piece for the entire collection.

So then, I guess, the question becomes “What’s next?” Because having finished writing something is great, but it is no excuse not to write.

Well then here’s what I’ve got:

• Milieux, a cosmopolitan fantasy story about the ongoing war between the queen of the Fae and her brother.
• Liam the Black, a darker fantasy story about an exile far from home
• the Hellbeast novel Continuity, the story of an assassin and his apprentice traversing the multiverse (written, needs me to nail my ass to a chair and edit it)
• the assorted short stories I’ve written over the years that I would dearly like to compile into one volume and make available for download, if not purhcase
• Nightshades, my urban fantasy/horror ensemble story that I’ve written a lot for, but haven’t tied together at all.

So what are you excited to see*?

*Commenters opinions are welcome, but are no guarantee as to dictate what the author will work on next.