Two Books in Motion
I am getting close to the end of my author edits on Starlight Event, the sequel to Chaos Terrain. At the same time, I am about halfway through writing Code Name: Rising Shadow, the next book in the Nathan Kang series.
It has been a busy stretch.
The kind where I keep looking at the calendar and wondering how another week disappeared. Between business projects, client work, and the usual collection of things that seem to need attention at exactly the same time, writing has had to fight for its place more than I would have liked.
Still, the books are moving.
I am getting close to the end of my author edits on Starlight Event, the sequel to Chaos Terrain.
At the same time, I am about halfway through writing Code Name: Rising Shadow, the next book in the Nathan Kang series.
Progress on both has been slower than I would have liked. A number of business projects have demanded more of my attention over the past few months, and writing has had to compete for time with everything else that needed to get done.
That is the reality of writing while also running businesses. Sometimes the work moves quickly. Sometimes you spend a week thinking you will get several chapters finished and discover that the week had other plans.
But Starlight Event is very much moving toward the finish line.
The author-edit stage is where I tend to slow down anyway. I am not just looking for typos or awkward sentences. I am looking at whether scenes earn their place, whether characters behave consistently, whether information arrives when it should, and whether the story works the way I intended it to work.
That matters especially with Starlight Event. There are a lot of moving pieces in this book, and much of the story depends on different people trying to understand events with incomplete information. I want those pieces to fit together cleanly without making the machinery visible to the reader.
So I am resisting the temptation to rush the last part simply because I want the book released. That said, I also do not intend to let perfectionism become an excuse for delay. I am committed to getting Starlight Event finished and out as soon as I can.
Meanwhile, Code Name: Rising Shadow continues to grow in the background. Being roughly halfway through that manuscript means I am already spending a fair amount of time with the next story even while I am finishing this one.
It is a strange part of the process. One book is being tightened, questioned, and polished while another is still expanding and surprising me.
And for now, that is the update from the desk.