The Blessed and the Damned is Almost in the Bag

I just sent back the edits of book #4 of The Righteous series to my edit for a second round of editing. Based on my experience with the first three books, the second round should go quickly, with only a handful of changes. It will then go to Thomas & Mercer's proofreaders. I've had two different proofreaders. They are both very good, but one might be a little bit more stylistically flexible.

I've had three readers so far, including my editor, my beta reader, and my agent. All three told me independently that it's the best book of the series. I sensed this while writing the first draft, and again during the rewrites, when I would sometimes catch myself going back to read favorite passages and get sucked back into the story.

Meanwhile, I crossed the 70,000 word threshold of the first draft of book #5, Destroying Angel. I've slowed down a bit in March, having to turn my attention to edits of The Blessed and the Damned, but am at that point where I want to sit and crank out the last seventy or eighty pages.

I thought I'd be burned out on this series, especially since I only started The Wicked twelve months ago, which, given my estimated completion date of #5, means I'll have written three books in the series in fourteen months. But I'm not. The main story arc is coming to an end with book #5, but I've roughly sketched out a second arc of three books.

I'm only under contract for five, but the first releases are doing well, so I'm hopeful they'll be interested.

But with two books in production, I'll take a break to work on something else. I have a third book in the Devil's Deep series I want to write, another WWII thriller that is eating away at me, and another fantasy novel for my Dark Citadel series.

I think I'm more excited about writing than I've ever been.