{"id":3477,"date":"2022-02-06T12:26:59","date_gmt":"2022-02-06T12:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/?p=3477"},"modified":"2022-02-06T13:44:54","modified_gmt":"2022-02-06T13:44:54","slug":"so-whatever-happened-to-the-return-of-the-mages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/02\/so-whatever-happened-to-the-return-of-the-mages\/","title":{"rendered":"So whatever happened to The Return of the Mages?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Good question! The 9th book in the Brightmoon series, The Dragon Caller, was published on 13th December 2017. And the 10th book, The Return of the Mages, is… still in my head. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I always intended to write it. I even had the cover made for it, as you can see. Pretty, isn’t it? Yes, that is a volcano erupting. So now you know what chapter 1 is about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But books 7, 8 and 9 in the series didn’t sell very well, and in the meantime, I’d got distracted by a shiny new genre – Regency romance – which DID sell, and so gradually the impetus died away. Book 10 was always going to be the difficult, pulling-everything-together book, and it meant rereading all the previous 9 and somehow, I never quite worked up the energy. So here we are, several years later and still no book 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But every once in a while, someone prods me and asks: when is it coming? So, consider me prodded. And actually, I’d really like to know how it all ends myself (no, I don’t know!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what do I have to do to get this book written, without abandoning my Regency romance readers along the way? I have to have a Plan, that’s what – a way of working on this book alongside the Regencies. And in order to keep me chugging along the Plan, there has to be Accountability. So that’s where you can help, the small number of you who are still waiting patiently for this book. Keep prodding. And in return, I’ll post my progress here, hopefully on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s the Plan:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reread all 9 existing books, make notes (because everything was in my head before, and there’s no series bible, sadly). That will take me about 5 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mull over some rough ideas for the plot. I’m not a detailed plotter, but I like to have the first few chapters in my head before I start, then I just see where that takes me. Maybe a month for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing. I reckon I can write maybe 10K words a month on this, without impingeing too much on the Regencies. So maybe 10-12 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then editing, beta reading, more editing and… publish. 2-3 months for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total 18-21 months, which means that The Return of the Mages should\/could\/might be published late in 2023, a mere 6 years after book 9. Wish me luck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good question! The 9th book in the Brightmoon series, The Dragon Caller, was published on 13th December 2017. And the 10th book, The Return of the Mages, is… still in my head. I always intended to write it. I even had the cover made for it, as you can see. Pretty, isn’t it? Yes, that is a volcano erupting. So now you know what chapter 1 is about. But books 7, 8 and 9 in the series didn’t sell very well, and in the meantime, I’d got distracted by a shiny new genre – Regency romance – which DID sell, and so gradually the impetus died away. Book 10 was always going to be the difficult, pulling-everything-together book, and it meant rereading all the previous 9 and somehow, I never quite worked up the energy. So here we are, several years later and still no book 10. But every once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,7,251],"tags":[249],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3477"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3489,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3477\/revisions\/3489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}