writing & publishing update

It’s been a while since I did one of these.

It may not look it from my blog posts of late, but I have been a busy worker bee behind the scenes.

I just finished the final copyedits on Quartz, Book One of the The Sunless World (yes, the series finally has a title!). Copyediting requires a different kind of mindset from writing/revising, and honestly, I spent way too long dithering over things like when to capitalize a person’s title (in this case, Ambassador) and how I really, really felt about the Oxford comma.

Not to mention having to continually resist the desire to rearrange sentences and add new little details.

I was able to break out of the endless tinkering mode last night and email the manuscript to my Most Excellent Spouse, aka the Formatting and Layout Guy. In July, I’ll be working with a cover designer for the book.

I haven’t decided when I will publish. Usually, I upload as soon as a book is done, but I’ve heard summer tends to be sluggish in terms of sales. I’m thinking of utilizing my pre-order options (and, yes, part of me wants to do it just because :D) and spending some time getting the word out before publishing early fall.

Any opinions on this would be gratefully considered.

On the writing side of things, I’m working on The Sunless World 1.5, a novella set in the gap year between when Quartz ends and its sequel, Flare, begins. The novella is set in another part of Rafe’s world, which I’m thrilled to play in, and told from the POV of a character who, sadly, isn’t slated to get much (if any) scene time in Flare.

I’ve also written some shorter stories. I’m still plugging away at the Planets Project: I just finished the Uranus fic. Two more–Neptune and Mercury–to go!

I’ve decided to make Friday Fiction a regular feature of this blog. On the second Friday of every month, I will post a for-fun flashfic. These days, I’m breaking classic children’s picture books (revenge for all those times I read them out loud over and over and OVER again? Hmmm!). The first two are The Feline in the Fedora and Goodnight, Celestial Object. Should be obvious from the titles which stories I’m alluding to!

How about you? What are you writing these days? Published anything recently?