So I don't like to make too many bold predictions, but if I have a good week, I think I can wrap up the first draft of Lich Queen over the weekend. A good week means consistent writing every day and not having to leave the house (except maybe for food) all weekend. It could happen!
I've loved writing this book, but two things have nagged at me as I work. The first is when to submit it. My original plan was to write/submit Imperial Demons first, but obviously that's not what's happened. The two stories take place concurrently, and I feel fairly sure you don't need to read Imperial Demons to understand anything in Lich Queen, but I'm still wrestling over which story I want out in the world first. Probably it doesn't really matter. Imperial Demons isn't going to be completed for another couple of months, and there's not much point sitting on a book that's ready for submission out of some arbitrary feeling of favouritism on my part.
The other thing that's nagged me is the Villain Problem. I like my villains in Lich Queen, but only one of them has really been on stage. The other has been a phantom figure, always on people's minds but not showing up. She'll be there for the big climax, but...then what? I don't feel she's hit her peak as a bad guy yet, and I don't want her defeated, but I also don't want her to escape, because that would be three books in a row in Blood Canticles where that happened.
So I've been to-ing and fro-ing on how to handle her (having already planned a gruesome fate for her fellow bad guy), and finally hit on a solution this morning. Amazing what you can come up with when the alternative is combing through six months' worth of invoices to find a cake order. Huzzahs! My solution stops her escaping, but also gives me something to work with in future books. And Dawn will definitely have at least one more book of her own in this series, in which my villainess can really start to show her potential.
So wish me luck, and tune in tomorrow for your last snippet of Lich Queen!
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