It’s been a cool, wet spring on the mountain. The blackberries are going to be insane this year, and I’m putting the finishing touches on Book 17 of the Spellmonger Series, Practical Adept.
I’ve worked hard on this book. Part of that was channeling my grief over my mother and other recent losses, and part of that was a determination to get the book done so that I could enjoy my summer this year. But that meant I didn’t get to enjoy most of my spring. Since about March 1st, I’ve been putting in a full day’s work of 8 to 14 hours every day in order to finish this one. This weekend I finished it off and sent it to my editor.
It’s a good book, I feel. I’m still a little close to it to give it an objective read, but it feels like a good book. It’s tightly plotted, character-focused, and has an insane amount of world-building. I’m happy with the pacing, I’m happy with the plot progression, and I think I’ve woven in ties to the other books in gracious plenty. But there’s a sense of doubt that creeps in after an author finishes a book. It contends with the sense of elation that you feel when you’ve finally completed a project, and it elicits a kind of anxiety that remains until it’s released and you start seeing the reviews.
Sure, it gets easier over time. It starts with your second novel because you’re usually so shocked and overjoyed at your first (“OMG! I WROTE A BOOK!”) that considerations of quality are generally pushed to the side.
But that second book? That’s when you start to worry that you really suck. The doubt diminishes over time, but it never truly dissipates, or at least it hasn’t for me, yet. And I am not a novice at this anymore. I figured out how many books I’ve written last night, including works under pseudonyms, and I was shocked to realize that Practical Adept is number 50, give or take. It will be the 27th associated with Spellmonger.
I suppose I should be more confident, by now, but I’m not, and that’s a good thing. It means that I’m still self-conscious enough as a writer to care whether I’m putting out a good product. Is it entertaining? Is it readable? Does it advance the series? Is it going to make the reader laugh, cry, and stare into space thoughtfully until someone honks at them because the light has turned green? Do your characters grow, or are they static?
Worry, worry, worry. But that’s a good thing.
The thing is, finishing a book is exhausting by its nature. As a writer, you have to take the reader on a specific kind of journey, and that requires a lot of deep thinking on your part. By the time you get to the end of it, you feel as if you’ve not just lived through your novel, but you’ve also lived through all of the possibilities and alternatives you considered and rejected in favor of what you wrote.
But in the first hours or days after completing it, you have a kind of post-novel clarity that requires an intense amount of critical introspection. Taking a break from the keyboard and doing something completely unrelated helps. But you really do try to appreciate and understand what you’ve written and put it into context with your other works.
Practical Adept is a good book. I’m satisfied with that. It deals with a lot of stuff, from PTSD to local economics to political turmoil. It’s also a different sort of fantasy novel in many ways. It takes place in a subtropical climate, its focus isn’t on .body count, and it’s deeply psychological in a number of ways. (It is also, I believe, the first goblin-free Spellmonger book.) In Practical Adept, we see humans screwing up things without the benefit of the Alka Alon or the dwarves or the goblins getting involved.
But it’s still a solid fantasy book, and I’m very happy with it. It might suck, but that doesn’t make me less happy with it. And it will be out before George R. R. Martin’s Winds of Winter. Like my last 25 Spellmonger books. That is, the tentative release date for Audible and Kindle will be in late September of this year. Special thanks to my beta readers in the Garden Society (Dave, Dave, and Craig, who steadfastly refuses to change his name to Dave just because of peer pressure), who were instrumental in getting excellent feedback to me in a timely manner. This was the first time I’ve included beta readers in the process at an early stage, and the experiment was largely successful. They got to see how the sausage is made and learned about some of my process.
It’s also big, comparatively speaking: almost 300,000 words. That’s more than thirty hours of listening time. That’s for all of you who complain that the books are too short. You’re welcome.
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