Hi Everyone! Can you believe it’s March already?! Time is just flying by in a blur this year! I hope that you’re all doing well over there and are ready for an early spring – I for one am very ready to finally have some warm weather coming our way again! Here’s to hoping that it comes soon! Until then though, we’ll have to keep warm with this month’s writing update, so here we go starting off with our word count updates on all the projects on deck.
So, as we see first off here, the anthology short story is done! Woo! This took the majority of the month for me to knock out this month, but I am super happy that it’s done and sorted out! Right now it’s in the post production stage of editing, and I’ll likely circle back to it sometime later this month to polish it off. In either case, I don’t expect it to take too long and it’ll be another thing off my plate! (Yaaaay) At the moment, I don’t have any details to share on when exactly the anthology it’s attached to will be released, but as soon as I do, I will definitely share! Because of my focus on this short story this month, I haven’t really made all that much progress on Scion of Magic until these last few days, but I am hoping to get back into the swing of things and get a solid writing month under my belt this month!
Past that, sharp eyes will notice that there’s been some trimming on AsO: Threads of Fate. I’ve been slowly combing over the words I’ve already written and cleaning up stuff that’s no longer relevant to the story and I’ve also begun outlining the new story structure for the book. It’s still a while yet until I’ll be able to devote my full attention to the book, but I’m allowing myself to start thinking more about it now. Hopefully, once Scion of Magic is done and out of my hands, I’ll be able to hit the ground running with it quickly.
On a cowriting level all of the projects are just flying along! We’ve made great strides on every single project this month and should have a better sense of when each book is going to be finished come the April update. So be sure to stay tuned for that!
In exciting news regarding Savage Dominion, I am very happy to announce that the audiobook will be narrated by none other than the amazing Luke Daniels with a tentative late May release planned for the book. Hopefully we will be able to get a date firmly locked in and a pre-order up sooner than later so I can share it with all of you! In the spirit of building up some excitement there, I am happy to share a tiny snippet from Book 2 that we’re working on:
An arrow shot along the forest path and passed between our faces.
I dropped Seren, and we had both jerked back into combat readiness before we heard Mercy braying. “No making out in the forest! That’s how you get woodlice.”
Exciting stuff, right? Hah, I am super looking forward to having this book done, and being able to share it with you all!
And last but not least, beyond this already somewhat exhaustive list…I’ve been able to add in two more secret projects as well that I am not quite ready to talk about just yet, but I hopefully will be soon. So stay tuned for some more even exciting information coming down the pipe next month!
Okay, and that’s all I got! I hope that you all have a safe and happy month! We’ll be back again when it’s time to hype up Stormweaver: Iron Prince’s audio launch towards the end of the month! (Which you can pre-order here if you haven’t already!)
See you then!
Luke
A search for Luke Daniel’s audiobooks brought me to Ascend online and curiosity for release dates brought me to these updates. In a time where major projects seem to be hitting a wall you sir are a beacon of light in the dark. I wish all writers could look at your relationship with readers and see what the gold standard of respect for fans looks like. Simply because of these amazing updates (as well as great content) I will be purchasing and reading/ listening to every project your name is attached to. Thank you for all you do.
I am glad that you’ve enjoyed all the book so far! And I try to be as transparent as possible with my work and deadlines! Hopefully I can keep the words flying and get all of these projects out into the world for you all to enjoy! Thank you so much for the kind words! They are the kind that keep me going!
Hey Luke,
I hadn’t come across you until just recently, and wanted to say I really enjoyed Iron Prince. I was on the fence for a bit deciding if I wanted to read it but the rec from Will Wight put me over the top, and I’m glad it did. I’ll be taking a look at some of your other stuff, and will offer only the humble suggestion that you move the Iron Prince sequel up in priority. A lot of people are seeing your stuff for the first time now, and launching a sequel sooner rather than later might see you top out the KU charts and get advertising support from Amazon. Also, I just want to read the next one. And the one after. So, good luck, and thanks for a great read!
Apologies in advance for the mini interrogation, but I love your work and I had some burning questions. If it’s too time-consuming, or even if you just don’t feel like it, there’s absolutely no need for you to answer them.
Quite a while back you mentioned that your plan for the Ascend Online series was for “The next story arc past GttB to be 4-6 books (3-4 main entries with Lyrian, and 1-2 side story with Lazarus)”. Is that still the plan? And what about the other things that you’re working on? How long do you and you’re respective co-authors envision current series like Savage Dominion, Warformed: Stormweaver, and The Shattered Reigns ending up? What about your guys’ upcoming series?
Anyway questions aside, thank you for writing fantastic books!
Couple questions, sorry if you’ve gotten these before.
What’s your average weekly word count? How many drafts do your books go through on average (because obviously some time has to go to revising instead of writing)? Are you a full-time writer? If so, how has that all worked out?
Sorry if that’s too much for one comment!
Hi there! I am happy to hear that you’ve enjoyed the book and rest assured Bryce and I have moved it ahead as far as we’ve been able to get it written and out into the world! We’re hoping to get it finished ASAP!
Definitely not time consuming at all! I’m happy to answer everything I can!
Right now the series plan for AsO will be at least a main series entry, a Lazarus Side Story, and one more main series entry. Anything after that will largely depend on where the story and readership interest is at that point in time. I have an end I’m working towards for this current story arc, and my plan is to finish that, then take stock of things there.
As for the other series – we generally think in sets of threes to tell the most complete story we can first and foremost, and have overarching plans to go beyond that. So both SD and SR will definitely get at least three books to close out their current story arcs and see what the readership thinks and we’ll go from there. As for Stormweaver – we’ll definitely be going beyond three books, though that will depend largely on what Bryce and I are plan to do from there story wise.
It’s a little tricky to put a number to word counts since I’m so variable and have so many things on the go. But generally I try and shoot for a minimum of 1000 words a day. Most times I can hit that and more, or sometimes I’m just too busy with other stuff, I end up falling far below it. It just really depends on the week! As for drafts, I usually have about 3-4 drafts, though very little rewriting. Most of my drafts are just layers of editing, trimming, and detail work, rather than something more extensive. And yes! I am a full time writer now for the past three years, and it is fantastic! I am very lucky to be able to do this full time and I hope to be able to make it work for years and years to come!
That’s really cool! Do you find yourself working every day, or do you take weekends and holidays off like a normal 9-5 (which amounts to about 250 work days a year)? I like writing, but I could imagine that if I was doing it full time I might feel a weight over me to finish projects, and relaxing would be harder.
I generally like to work at least a little bit everyday when possible – though that depends on where I am in projects. If things are flying along, then I definitely want to keep things going without any hiccups. Missing a day could easily pull me out of my focus and have me lose the mental thread I was on. But beyond that I also really enjoy writing. It’s something that I’d just do in my downtime anyway, so just not doing it for a day feels a little weird. That said though there is the pressure to always be producing and it takes a bit of a mental effort to separate the worlds and actually ‘relax’, but I’m getting better at it. I swear!
I was also just hunting for news of the next Iron Prince book and was glad to see that another is scheduled, even if 9 months + is a loooong time. 😉
But I see you are very busy with all the other series.
I also took a look at the Ascend series, but the Iron Prince remains my favorite by far.
I’m glad that you’ve enjoyed it and I hope you like my other books if you give them a shot! There’ll be plenty more of everything coming soon!