First we’ll have the update on the writing and next books, because that’s the most important thing, yes?
The writing has been chugging along much smoother this year than last, with the discipline and schedule I fell into the last half of 2017 continuing.
That’s my words-per-day spreadsheet, because I’m a data-geek.The timechange messed with my morning schedule, so it’s not as smooth the last couple weeks (I’m a morning person and wake up best just at dawn), but I’m still averaging 1000 words per day, typically for the last 7-days, 30-days, and, most recently, the previous 365 days, which is huge.
Right now, most of those words are going into Alexis Carew #6, The Queen’s Pardon, and if I stay on this 1000-words a day path, then Pardon should be words-complete in early May. All the usual caveats apply — that assumes my word-count estimate of 125,000, which the story could come out +/- 20%, which would affect the words-complete date. After which, there’s the editing — a round of me, a round of my partner, and a round of my other editor, followed by me again (so I can introduce those last-minute typos that are no one’s fault but my own).
I’ve changed the rest of this year’s planned production schedule around in order to work on Smuggler, next after Spacer in Avrel Dansby’s story, followed by next in the Dark Artifice series (more on what happened to that in a future blog post), second (or fourth, depending on how I release the first [three]) in the still unnamed Rocks series, and I might try my hand at litRPG with a title called Godgame, a bit of which has been written already, just to get the bits out of my head.
“Wait!” I can hear people yelling. “There’s no Carew #7 on that list and the bloody thing goes out to next-buggering-February! What in the Dark are you playing at, man!”
Have no fear. Carew #7 will get stuck into the list whenever the story gels to the point where I can start writing it, pushing all else to the right. Alexis’ story is my priority and the writing plan is fluid. Those are projections, not deadlines, since I have no publisher to worry about. So AC7 will get on the list when it’s ready to be written.
The writing itself is going so much smoother — compare this year’s graph to last year’s …
2018’s right on the 1000 words a day trendline, while 2017 was … sad and erratic.
So that’s the current status of the writing, on to the plan to dump the day job and write full time, turning that 1000-words per day into three, four, or more.
We are still in the very early stages of that plan. Closing on the house is still sometime in May, and the plan is still to then live off of the income from writing, while throwing all of the day-job income at the mortgage and and savings to facilitate that eventual thing. It’s a moving target, though, as things do come up unexpectedly.
I’m also looking into buying some land or a cabin, and possibly an RV, as part of this, because I do write better with travel and solitude. Ideally, this would be a situation where the house would be a sort of home-base I rent out while travelling, providing both another income stream and a place for that eventual old-age thing.
How it all eventually plays out is still very much in flux — much to my partner’s irritation. She likes to know a solid plan, and having conversations like this:
“What are you looking at there?”
“Class C RVs.”
“The big ones?”
“Yeah, the space would be nice.”
“What are you looking at there?”
“North Carolina cabins.”
“What are you looking at there?”
“You know, you can get a big hunk of land in Colorado for not much money, but it’s all either scrub desert or a vertical cliff …”
“What are you looking at there?”
“Class B RVs … they’re really just vans, but you can park them anywhere and they’re easier to drive.”
“What are you looking at there?”
“Did you know you can by, like, three-quarters of Texas for $399 down and $100 a month? I mean, it’s mostly sand, but …”
“What are you looking at there?”
“Vacation rentals. Some good deals on a full month, off-season … maybe this and just a big SUV to travel from place to place. I mean, we’d like to stay in one place for a few weeks at a time, so …”
And all this is during one Netflix session, so, really, she’s being a very patient person …
[Update: Oh, crap, I just found this … she’s going to kill me.]
In the meantime, here are a couple books I’ve read recently by indie authors and can recommend:
The Roam experience looks interesting, but adds up expensive with nothing tangible after. I like your buying a cabin somewhere where you can enjoy the local area. Of course, having bought a home on 5 acres in the North Cascades, just 8 miles from the wilderness of a National Park, I’d recommend doing similar, but of course there are other beautiful places around.
That sounds really nice. I’m leaning towards the Class B right now, because it’s small enough to get around in. A combo of that and rentals. Or maybe just buy a few acres in several places and move from one to another with the RV. Or I could find a bunch of other authors who want to do something similar, and we timeshare our places. DAMN IT BRAIN!
Oh, it’s nice here, plus I work in the summer as a dispatcher for the wilderness rangers. As a former Army medic, EMT, and also being a retired nurse, it’s a plum way to retire. Our property, as with much of the local area, is heavily wooded temperate rain forest. It sounds like being an author is well paid 🙂 [the exact opposite of what any other author has told me]. Please keep the books, especially Alexis, coming.
lol I have a pretty good day-job as a computer programmer, which is what makes going full-time more difficult, as I have to replace that income *plus* freakin’ health insurance. 🙁 But it’s why my plan is to get these big ticket items I want and paid off before going full-time.
As a hard-core traveller may I recommend you consider a travel trailer.
You can get any size that appeals, but the main advantage is that after you park the trailer at a camp ground or RV park and hook up all your utilities, you then mosey around in the pickup or SUV you use to tow the trailer. If you go with the class B, you’ll always be messing with the utilities any time you want to go anywhere.
A trailer would be especially nice if you want to camp long term. You can get them as large as a modest cabin (check out my favorite, the Montana 3711FL).
Then you can have your “cabin” anywhere on the continent you want, wherever your muse takes you … from the vertical Colorado mountains to the sands of Texas.
Those were an option I looked at, but I do like the idea of pulling over and being “inside” without having to go out. Maybe it makes me feel like I have a spaceship? Also with my partner, a 90# husky, and a bullmastiff who’ll likely hit 120# … need the elbow room while driving. 😀
I hadn’t considered the hookups when I want to go somewhere, though … that’s a good point. :/
Just forget about your day j9b. Forget about class anything RVs, whatever they are. Just find a shoebox, lock yourself up, and get writing those future Carew adventures. I have serious withdrawal symptoms.
I gotta eat, man! And a new granddaughter coming — do you have any idea how much it’s going to cost me to spoil that kid properly? 😉
If you’re going to be traveling constantly a motorhome is nice. They are more expensive to maintain and insure than a travel trailer, however. If you get a larger one you’ll want to tow a car, and then what you’ve done is bought two expensive power trains you have to maintain.
And you, your partner and a huge dog in a tiny class B all day every day? Yikes! Not to mention trips with those future grandkids.
Contemplate the following… a small motor home with a slider or two (like something based on a Sprinter chassis) has the interior volume of a modest bedroom. All of you, living entirely in that volume for weeks or months at a time, cooking, sleeping, WRITING!!! (more important than sleeping), using a frighteningly minuscule bathroom ….
My preferred method of travel is to pick an area I want to explore, find a nice place to plant the trailer for several days or longer and then take day trips to the interesting stuff using the trailer as a base. With a little bit of planning you can even locate in a place with decent mass transit and explore on the cheap.
Or just find a nice RV park on the beach somewhere and veg out for a while.
Then unplug, pack up and hook up and lumber down the road to invade the next unsuspecting cool place.
(Look out! Here comes the balding barbarian horde with their annoyingly slow driving and disposable income!)
Hi
Try this little place in Cedar Lake , Nova Scotia , Canada it just a little place all dirt road no big highway ,low traffic but guess we have high speed internet here
Plenty of room for your dog to run freely as my have never been tie
And please keep up the good work on the Alexis Carew
Thanks! I’ve looked into some of the areas in Canada (my partner is Canadian) and they’re beautiful.
Hi J.
Just reread your writing plan and it sounds very exciting from a reader’s perspective, but I do have one big question. What is going on with Dubious Intent? I got the news letter, marked my calendar and before I could get an order in, Amazon said the book was sold out. Will there be a Kindle or Audiobook release?
Of Dubious Intent turned out to be a bit darker than I thought it was and didn’t get such a good response from Carew readers. I can sort of see that — it’s like if Stephen King started his career writing middle-grade and then released Carrie …
So Intent’s been rereleased under a pen name (https://www.amazon.com/Dubious-Intent-Dark-Artifice-Book-ebook/dp/B07B8X8RHW?tag=carew-20) to avoid that sort of conflict. Elizabeth’s done with the audio of it, but I have to get it switched over via Amazon to the new title.
Here’s hoping that you are able to comfortably shift writing viewpoints between Alexis and Dubious Intent, as both are great reads.
When can we expect to see the next Carew book out?
Hi,
Reference TV’s – ly wife and I live in our 35 foot 5th wheel with 3 slide outs full time while we build our house. But, it takes a one ton pickup to pull it (17,000 pounds)…
Every RV owner I have ever met pulls something – either the RV trailer or a “dinghy” car behind a motor home or a trailer with either a golf cart or motorcycles or an atv…
We have solar panels and 4ea deep cycle batteries and a large inverter so we can “drycamp.” This allows us to stop at a test stop overnight if necessary or use the last available campsite (that doesn’t have power) temporarily. If you are careful about the floor plan (you need to be able to get to the bathroom without opening a slide out) you can do a lot with a good RV.
I recommend going to several RV shows (we went to 5 I think before we bought ours). There is a big one in Tampa Florida every January.
If you buy a trailer (5th wheel or travel trailer)- but a bigger truck or SUV than you think you need. 5th wheel trailers have more stability when being towed. Diesel engine trucks or SUV’s have more towing power.
I have lots more RV advice to share if you want it…
I really enjoy your Alexis Carew novels. I served 28 years in the army and I felt you captured the military ethos and leadership. I normally don’t re-read books, but I re-read this entire series and probably will again. Tolkien’s Lord of th Rings trilogy is the only other series i can remember reading twice, and that was over 40 years ago :->
Keep up the great work, but write faster…
May God bless you and your family.
V/R
LTCSpareParts
TV’s not TV’s and my wife not my wife… Autocorrect spell check is not my friend :-<
RV’s not TV’S – this may also be a chair to keyboard interface issue…
Greetings! New to the list. I’ve been going through some health stuff, and to help the time go by picked up the Alexis Carew series on a recommendation from a friend. I ended up buying all five and devouring them. It reminds me of the classic Hornblower series by C.S. Forrester – which even in the light of the Aubrey/Maturin series I still regard as the definitive age of sail series. I eagerly await further stories.
I am amused by the fact that your name, Sutherland, is the same as Capt. Hornblower’s first ship of the line command 🙂