Starting out a new year, I’m happy to report that I’ve made considerable progress on my next book, tentatively titled Lost Command.

I can’t believe I’ve been working on it for as long as I have. Last year I set out with a simple goal at the end of January of writing at least 500 words per day on the manuscript. And I’m happy to report… it worked! I had a first draft completed by about May.

Revisions, Revisions, Revisions…

Then came the revisions. As I’ve mentioned previously, in my process, the polish comes through editing. Once a you have a completed first draft of a novel you can’t just publish. (Or at least I can’t.) I set out on the process of revisions. For me there are at least two more major revisions that come after the first draft, plus many minor revisions, before it goes out to an external editor.

By the summer I had a draft I was happy with… and then it was off to my amazing editor Adria. It’s important to me that all books that come out of Megavoltage Publishing are professionally edited. Lots of people refer to “self-published” books, but I’ve always preferred the term independently published. The work that I put out into the world goes through the same process it would get from other small publishers, and my readers ultimately get to enjoy a story that is just as polished.

When Lost Command came back, I had some work cut out for me. I didn’t plan for it to take the entire fall to address them, but the thing with day jobs is that you can’t always control how much time you have to put into your writing. They’re done, addressed, and the manuscript has had another couple of passes. Currently it’s back with my editor for the second pass.

What I Can Say… Without Spoilers…

Like many third books, in Lost Command we’ll see a return of all of major characters, and we’ll introduce several new ones. The book continues with themes of leadership and perseverance, and elements from both book I and book II will re-emerge. It will include hostile aliens, suspenseful technical challenges, the heart-pounding combat sequences that have come to characterize the series.

Looking Forward…

When the second round of edits come back, I’ll triage the damage and come up with a plan of attack for the revisions. I’m not expecting those to take too long this cycle. One those are done, I do a “backward” edit, where I essentially go through the manuscript backwards because reading it that way helps to catch errors. Then the book goes out to my advanced copy team of readers–for whose efforts I am extremely grateful. In parallel, I’ll contract my cover designer and get started on that process.

With all of that said, I’m aiming to launch Lost Command in Early spring 2025.

Also, I am planning to write at least one more book in the series.

Stay tuned.