Alastair Mayer’s T-Space Blog

I keep promising that the next book is coming Real Soon Now, and it is, so I though folks might be interested in just how it is progressing. I keep track of my writing time and word count in a spreadsheet (this is valuable, especially if you’re doing something on a deadline like NaNoWriMo). Below is a chart from the current spreadsheet.

The dates along the bottom should be self-explanatory. The horizontal lines mark increments of 10,000 words. The dark blue line, which just crossed the 70,000 mark, is for Kakuloa: A Rising Tide. The orange line is for The Pavonis Insurgence.

You’ll notice a sharp dip in the blue line just before 09/08/18. That’s when I realized that a couple of chapters I’d already written more properly belonged in a later book, so I took them out. That’s the yellow line (incomplete because I’m not tracking it at the moment), which will be Kakuloa: A Downward Slide when it’s done.

The wavery bits in the September/October time-frame are where I’m doing some editing and revising, and October looks relatively flat because I’ve been removing outline notes to myself (which I embed in the text as I go along) and replacing them with actual story. Also incorporating edit fixes from my alpha readers. (Also dealing with some non-writing crap, like replacing my car.) Pavonis is mostly horizontal recently because I’m focused on finishing Kakuloa; it will climb rapidly once that one is done.

My pace this year has been slower than last, partly because of life interfering, but also because I’m having to do more extensive research and world-building (and keeping track of it all) than for the first Alpha Centauri trilogy. Next year should go faster.

So. I’m not forecasting a release date yet (still aiming for this year though), but my editor/beta readers should have it by Thanksgiving. For which I, for one, will be truly thankful.

P.S. There’s another chapter I pulled out because it was more of a sidebar that just didn’t fit. It’s relevant background, though, so I’ll probably make it available to my newsletter subscribers. You can go here to sign up. No spam, I promise.