The next book, an update

Hello everybody! Summer is over (where did it go?) and we’re heading into the heady days of autumn. I thought it would be a good time to make a public update about how the next book in the Henchman series is coming along. There’s a small cadre of folks who are waiting patiently to go back to my silly little world, and this update is for y’all.

The long and short of it is that the book’s first manuscript is about %80 complete. After the manuscript is complete I’ll compare it to the outline and see where I went so horribly wrong. Spoiler alert: there’s going to be several Themises, and I’m not sorry. After I’ve rolled the manuscript against the outline and tweaked the flow and story I’ll send it out to the beta reader for initial feedback. From that point the feedback is incorporated, I do another quick pass, then ship it off to the editor. Once I get the editor’s notes I’ll fix all the glaring problems (after soaking my pillow with tears, naturally) and subtle plot holes. Once the first professional edit is done, I send it back to the editor for a copy edit to nail down the grammar and punctuation. After the copy edit I do a polish pass (I often add more errors when fixing errors, it’s a never-ending process.). Then I format the print and e-books. Then, PUBLISH TIME OH YEAH. Also, at some point I commission a cover design and some character designs for the next installment of the bestiary.\

Simple, right?

So, the next natural question is: when is all that going to be over with so I can read the darn story? At the earliest it would be around the end of the year, but due to scheduling all the moving parts, it will likely be in January or February of 2020. This news will likely irritate the more impatient among my readership, but I have to produce something of quality if it’s to bear my name. That means a lot of tweaking and fine-tuning before it’ll see anyone’s bookshelves, including mine. Trust me, the refinement is worth the wait; as it is now the story is very raw, and needs to have all the sharp edges filed down smooth.

At this point I anticipate the next question being; what the heck is this new book about? The short answer is; earthquakes.

The next book is called Epicenter and it follows Mira through the longest week of her life (so far, lol). Mira, the demifiend, is a monster of my own fashion. While I’ve taken cues from the Japanese oni, there were many things I wanted to explore about their fundamental nature. Where does a fiend’s power come from? How do different breeds of fiends regard each other? What’s the best topping for ice cream? These are all very import questions to me.

In the story contained in Epicenter I unfold the inner workings of an original monster mythology, with a humorous bent, of course. Of course, in this kind of story one demifiend isn’t enough, so we get to meet another variation of natural disaster, the ice demifiend. You can safely bet that Mira won’t be getting along with this frozen fiend.

So, on top of all these questions we have the normal vicissitudes of how her and Hector are handling their young relationship. Some very salient and difficult questions are raised about how man and monster can have a successful long-term relationship. And, ultimately both Mira and Hector have to find out what they want out of their union.

All of these things are cut with an undercurrent of tectonic activity. The book isn’t called Epicenter without reason, after all. The overarching plot is my take on a disaster novel, where Mira and her unique abilities have to try and handle a massive earthquake the likes which boggle the imagination. I had to do a ton of research on the physics of seismic activity, and I used a lot of the data from the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. You might learn something about how earthquakes work, and how scary they are.

In closing I’d like to thank you handful of fan who are waiting for another entry back into the henchman’s world. I’m sorry I couldn’t get the next book out any sooner, but I have a day job and all the other little responsibility that come with adulting.

Since you went through all the trouble of reading this I’ll reward you with a fantastic portrait of everyone’s favorite director of housing, Themis, drawn by the wonderful Lia Henson. I told her Themis is all about the glamor, and she ran with the concept to create another terrific illustration to capture her character. I really can’t say enough good things about Lia and her work.