May 2015 Wrap-up and What's Ahead in June

Well, what do you know, it's a week into June already and I still haven't done the monthly wrap-up and look ahead. Basically, most of what I'm doing is still working on edits of To the Gap, book 4 of Daughter of the Wildings. It's going really well, and so far everything's on track for a release in the first part of July. I know I've blogged about this before, but here's a rundown of my writing/editing workflow:

1. first draft
2. deep, major revision
3. out to test readers
4. 2nd major revision
5. refine dialogue, descriptions, action, pacing, flow
6. fix mistakes, awkward sentences
7. proofread on paper
8. proofread on Kindle

A lot of times, if the manuscript is really a mess, I do a second copy edit between steps 6 and 7. But so far, on step 5 on To the Gap, I'm not finding a whole lot of changes to make. So hopefully I won't have to do that extra step.

On days when I finish my editing quote on time, I've been working on outlining the Healing Tree, a novel set in my world of Estelend. Should be ready to start writing soon. I found the perfect soundtrack for it, the new album Haven by Kamelot. Here's a video of one of the songs from the album:

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I'm still reading from A to Z. Up to V now; the end is in sight! For a while there I kept finding books that I couldn't finish. I'm not going to say what they are; this indie author gig is tough, and taste is subjective, and I don't want to be the one putting down a fellow author. Instead I'll just focus on the books I do read all the way through. I've been discovering some amazing reads; watch for another roundup soon!

I keep telling myself I need to start thinking about what comes after Daughter of the Wildings. At the moment I have three novels in draft awaiting revision, a fourth about ready to be written, and a binder full of short stories related to Chosen of Azara and The Source-fixer. And I've started developing ideas for a follow-up series to Daughter of the Wildings; I know the basic series conflict and the basic plot of the first book. I've been so deeply absorbed in Daughter of the Wildings it's hard to focus on anything else. But at least I know I won't be running out of things to work on any time soon!