The release of A Flame Among the Stars went swimmingly, which is always a good thing. Reviews are popping up on Amazon and Goodreads, and they’re largely favorable. As of right this second, I don’t have any additional promotional events coming up, but that can always change!
As the saying goes, however, there is no rest for the weary. In addition to wrapping up AFAtS and promoting it, I’ve been working on finishing up the Geneva/Searching the Skies series. Book 4, Chasing the Skies, kind of went slowly, probably because I was promoting a bunch of other things while trying to write. There were a few times I questioned whether I still liked the plot I’d come up with, and one night I even debated scrapping the whole thing, but it worked out, it’s done, and I’m satisfied with the results.
So, here we are at the end with Book 5, Conquering the Skies. I had a better mental outline going in than with Book 4, though there are still some details in the middle I need to flesh out. By my calculations, I estimate I’m roughly about a third of the way through, but since this is the final book, I won’t mind if it goes a little longer.
It’s funny – after spending so long with these characters, there are points where it almost feels like the book is writing itself. I know what they’re going to say, how they’re going to feel in any given situation. There have been times when I’ve had an idea for the plot, thought “no, that can’t happen because of XYZ”, and then actually included one of the characters pointing out that something can’t happen because of XYZ. In fact, for the first plan I had for wrapping up one of the plot lines, I finally realized it would be out of character for our gruff but lovable space heroine and I have to do something different. (At least I realized before writing it out!) A lot has happened in five books, and I want everything to make sense and be satisfying for readers.
I still have a fair amount to write. As I’ve said before about other projects, I’m not quite at the point where I can say “the end is in sight!”, but that point of being able to say that may be in sight. And really, it feels like a significant place to be, near the end of a five-book series that I wasn’t sure was ever going to happen. I have no idea what I’m going to write once I’m done with Geneva & Co., but I think I’ll finally take a bit of a writing break and play some games and catch up with Netflix. But first, to the finish line!