If you’ve followed me for a while now, you already know that I usually spend the month of November working on a new novel as part of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. This year marks the fifth time I’ve participated during the “official” period, and the sixteenth overall book I’ve crafted since 2019. I quite honestly look forward to those thirty days of intensive writing and the community that coalesces around the activity each November; without the support of those fellow writers, I’m not certain I would have followed through on the very first book I completed back in 2019 — the manuscript that became Blindsided.
This year’s project was a new Vasily novel, tentatively titled Masks. I cheated slightly and began work on it in late October, mostly because I knew I was traveling for work and would therefore be losing a chunk of writing time. I’ve also discovered over the years that my novels naturally run longer than the 50k word goal that is part of NaNoWriMo; starting a bit early allows me to try and get to that higher word count while still being able to complete the majority of the work in November. I didn’t quite make my quota this year, but I am more than halfway through:
I expect I’ll be able to complete the first draft well in advance of Christmas, and then will turn my attention to the final edit of the next book being released (in this case, Vengeance). Once that is complete, I’m going to turn my attention back to my urban fantasy novel I started as part of NaNoWriMo 2022. As much as I love my two current main characters, I have this strange creative itch that this particular story seems to be scratching; even after ignoring it for more than a year, it’s still calling out to me to be finished, so I’m going to take the plunge and work on something completely different for a bit.
I think it’s a cool idea, one that adds a little bit of magic, a dash of superhero mythos and a liberal dose of slow burn romance to my usual mystery, which of course features complex but realistic characters. The challenge of combining a few genres that I don’t typically work in is quite attractive, allowing me to flex creatively while also adding a new kind of story to my catalog. It’s also the first time that I’ve written in the third person style, something necessitated by how I want to bounce between the two “leads” in this new series. Honestly, I can’t wait to get started.
Now before you panic — I’m not abandoning my other two series; far from it. My overarching plan is to continue to release up to three novels each year; if I pull off this new series, that will mean I’ll have three distinct sets of characters I’ll be writing. I cannot tell you how cool it will be to be able to bounce between such different characters over the next year or so; assuming, of course, that I don’t weaken and shelve this new project again in favor of the next burning Sean or Vasily story.
We’ll see. 😊
In other news, Requiem had an outstanding debut this week — by the end of its second day, it was the number one new release in LGBTQ+ Mysteries. I cannot thank my loyal readers enough for this — I am overwhelmed by the support and continuing interest in Vasily Korsokovach. As I write this, it remains in the top five for new releases and top fifty overall. Writing is a strange business, with strangely closed feedback loops but the message in this case seems quite clear: folks like Vasily and truly enjoy reading his adventures.
That means more to me than you can possibly know. 🥰