News Roundup

Light's Bane, the second installment in the Daughters of the People series, will be released next week. The target date is 13 June; however, both the print and e-book editions may be available slightly before then.

To celebrate the release of LB, I'm having a small sale. The Prophecy (Daughters of the People, Book 1) will be available for $.99 through September and A Higher Purpose (Witches of Cullowhee #1) will be free for five days only beginning on or about 13 June.

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A couple of days ago, I made the mistake of telling Richard I needed to get home so I could "power through a sex scene." He's been laughing ever since.

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I am very bad. Yes, I'm changing my writing schedule around so I can work on Hawthorne's story, tentatively titled Tempered. I've found it's best to work on the ideas when they're fresh and, er, hot. Don't worry. This small change in my writing schedule will not affect the publication schedule, unless I go totally hog-wild writing Tempered.

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Long before I began writing the Daughters of the People series, I decided on the titles for each book and outlined, in one or two sentences, what I thought should happen in each one. This DoP series was intended to be finite and I knew that going in; seven books, that's all there were supposed to be. (And then, of course, I thought of two really cool tie-in stories and added those as extras, but that's another story.)

I've been thinking for a while about what I'm going to do once the DoP series is written and published. At first, I thought I might do a vampire series, and I still might at some point. I thought I might be tired of the world of the People by the time I finished the seventh (*ahem* ninth) DoP book and that readers might be as well. 

On the other hand, what if people wanted more?

I'd already toyed with adding Margaret's story as the start of a new series set in the world of the People, but taking place after the events of the DoP series. (Margaret is a daughter of Rebecca Upton; she'll be introduced in Light's Bane and plays a fairly significant role in The Enemy Within.) I started with a bunch of what if questions and things just sort of snow-balled from there. Now, though, my son has helped me brainstorm an idea for a different series that will actually put Margaret's struggles into a better context for readers than the idea I'd originally played with.

Even though it will take me until at least November 2015 to finish writing the DoP series, I need to begin developing a new series now. Bear in mind that I first conceived of the idea for the DoP series in about 2009-2010, but didn't start writing it until November 2013. I did a lot of thinking, planning, and development between those two points, and know I'll need to put the same kind of effort into any new series I write, no matter which direction I go. Hopefully, readers will enjoy the original series enough that I can actually afford to keep writing and publishing. If not, then this is all a moot discussion, but if so, well, the possibilities for new stories set in the world of the People are staggering.