I’ve got book 3 of the Lucky Lexie series, which I believe I’m going to call Mystery of the Drowned Driver, more or less done. I need to do a good editing pass to make sure I’m using all the right words in the right order, and then there’s proofreading. I’m aiming for a January release date, but that will depend on when I can have a cover done. I guess that’s next on my list. Aside from that editing, I’m done with the bulk of my work for the year, unless I pick up more freelance projects. I don’t yet know how busy they’re going to keep me.

I’ll talk more about this next book as we get closer to release day, but it’s very loosely based on something that actually happened in my city, though the circumstances surrounding the event are very different. The book includes a scene that puts the “fun” in funeral.

Now I get to really dive in to creating that new world for fantasy stories. I’ve always wanted to write a classic-style traditional fantasy — that fairytale type of pre-industrial imaginary world. That was what I fell in love with reading, and my first (very bad) attempts at writing fantasy fell into that genre. But I haven’t published anything like that, aside from the parts of Spindled that take place in the other world.

Now, I’m going to let myself play with creating a world and telling stories within it. The characters for the first book in that series have started coming to life in my mind, and the world is gradually developing. I’ve reached the point where I need to start coming up with specifics and filling in the gaps so that I can create an actual plot.

I’m trying to create for myself the feeling I had when I first started reading fantasy and the main thing I liked was that feeling of desperately wanting to visit those other worlds. I was homesick for places that never existed. If I do this right, I’ll create a world that I’ll want to spend time in and that will give readers that same sense of homesickness for an imaginary place.

So, no pressure at all.