A Cold Glass of Pepsi

I sat down tonight and put the finishing touches on the manuscript of Blood & Steel. It's finished. Completely. Now it's just a matter of getting it formatted and shipping it off.

A former editor of mine once told me that these were the moments that red wine was made for. Personally, I'm happy with an ice cold glass of Pepsi, but I digress. The important thing is that the hard work is done. This novel has been through three editors, four drafts and a year of writing. I'm ready to move on to something else.

I don't yet know what that something else will be. I'm knee deep in heavy revisions to The Sixth Sword, but all the tough sledding on that project is about to be behind me. It has been challenging to return to that world and writing style after penning two simple, intimate tales that are minuscule in scope compared to The Sixth Sword, but I've found my sea legs, so to speak.

I guess I'm sitting here and wondering what my next big project will be. I had much the same feeling after finishing The Crownless King. I once told people that everyone had at least one good novel in them and that may well have been mine. Blood & Steel surprised me when it came around and I'm proud of how it turned out. I did something a little unexpected with it and I think it's a big step for me as a writer. Now that it's finished, I'm free to look toward another project.

Being at loose ends isn't as much of a difficulty as you might think, at least at first. True, I have no idea what I'm going to write next, but I'm sure it'll come to me. I've toyed with enough ideas in the past to know that something will pop up and want to be written. I'm as curious as you are to see what's coming next.

In the meantime, I'm working on reading the complete Wheel of Time. The last book is due out in the late fall and I'm halfway through the eleventh book in the fourteen book series. If you haven't read it, you should stop reading this blog immediately and start the series. Be warned, the series is long and incredibly complex, but it seems to be paying off in spades. I'm excited to see how it all plays out.

The countdown to the fall DVD releases is underway as well. Sure, we could get them off Netflix, but it's neat to have those discs tucked away for those long winter evenings when the sun sets at 5 p.m. and there's nothing for it except to huddle on the couch under a blanket thick enough to ward off the intense cold of Old Man Winter. Mid-September through Christmas Day is absolutely my favorite time of the year.

Enough with the heat already. Bring on the cool weather.