Almost Big News

 When you're staring down the short end of 150k, people, it's time to celebrate.  That's right.  I'm at 145k, and that's not the only good news.  I've got three chapters and an epilogue left!!!  That's it!  Then I will do a rough draft editing pass before I send this sucker off to my beta readers.

I am feeling all kinds of good right now, about that.  I will also post the final cover for your enjoyment in an upcoming post (have to have something to look forward to!).

So, yes, good news.  Each chapter has three perspectives, and each perspective is a chapter length in itself, so I'm guessing it will take another couple of weeks to put that part in the bag, and it will probably be a month before the rough edit is done.  I have a lot of clean up work to do and I have to check everything to make sure it fits overall with the previous novels.  But I am seriously hoping for an end of the year publish date.  (I don't want to say earlier and totally fail, but who knows, it could happen!)

Hope you are all well and happy reading!

-Kate

I used to write so often...

 Oh life.  How unexpected you are in ruining all my plans.  Or not.  

Hello, all.  Those of you lingering few that have read my books and thought to yourselves... I wonder what Kate is up to these days, since she hasn't written a single entry in a year.  A freaking year.

Well, Kate has been busy.  Not writing.  Oh no!  She's been homeschooling her children, because of Corona and school closures.  So unfortunately, Universis has taken a back-burner to that mess.  But I did brush it off and look it over and the half of the book that IS written is stuff I like.  So I'll keep it.  There was a bunch of stuff I didn't like, and I cut it all out and started over.  I wrote more stuff that fit better, and now I'm back up to half and spilling over into finishing.  Yes, I can see the end in sight friends.  I'm not sure what sort of ending it will be, but it will be the END.  Because writing a series is hard, y'all.  

Not a fan, if I'm going to be honest.  The planning and the designing and the note taking so I don't mess everything up is exhausting.  On the other hand, watching these characters learn and grow over the past 10 years has been some of the best work of my life.  I will MISS them so much: Nikka, Luka, Zyander, Alea, Surgal, Alys, and the Vixen.  They've been such good friends to me, and I hope they go on to live good lives when I'm not there chronicling them.  I'll guess we'll see what the chances are by the time the book ends, huh?

I've got about 40k words left, but as long as I stick to my goal of 1000 words per day, I should finish this sucker up (barring sickness or major life events) in a couple of months.  So exciting!

In the meantime, I've been planning what I'll do next, and I think it will be very different.  It's only alive in Scrivener for now, because I'm not writing another word that isn't about the Five Tribes.  

Hope all is well with you and your families,

Kate:)

Ooops! Didn't even realize!

Yeah, so apparently the last time I update was last year.  I can't believe how long I've been writing this book. T.T

Look, I'm at the halfway mark!  Yay!  It's gonna be a long one, judging by my wordcount, which is about 90k.  But I am determined that this will be the last one, as I planned, so I'm working hard to wrap things up.

Nothing more than that for now, just getting over the flu, so I'm off to drink some tea and try to write another chapter.

Happy New Year and sorry I haven't updated recently.

Timeline Shenanigans

I basically had two books in limbo for about a month.  One was at 40k and the other at about 37k.  I'm sure you're wondering which one was Universis.  Well, it was the one with the lower wordcount.  Sorry!

Man, how do I get myself into these situations?  Like, what am I doing?  I am great at sitting down and writing.  NaNoWriMo taught me that I can just write, write, write when I need to.  But then, inevitably, something comes to bar my path.

In one of the books I got stuck on a certain scene and I couldn't figure out how to fix it.  I would rewrite it a dozen different ways in my mind and none of them seemed right.  In the end, I knew what I wanted to happen in the scene, when it was all over, so I ended up sort of starting backwards and working my way up to the end result.

In the case of Universis, it was all the timeline switching that was doing me in.  When moving back and forth between three timelines is too much for the AUTHOR to keep track of, you have to wonder what the reader is going to think of all of it.  That's what beta readers are for, right?  Will they be able to keep up?  Only time will tell.

I'm happy to report that I am past my limbo and I've got my mojo back.  All it required was having 4 free hours to just sit down and pull on all my tangled threads.  Now I'm even more excited for what's coming up in the last Five Tribe's book, so I guess it was a good thing?

That's what I tell myself, anyway.

So yeah, I'm currently at 53,000ish words and while it's not as far as I wanted to be by April, at least I'm not lost in a mess of tangled timelines anymore.  I can't believe I'm almost halfway through, guys!!!  Let's pray I can get the latter half done a wee bit faster, huh?

Plodding Away

Well, hello.  Here is my obligatory "Yes, I'm still writing," post.  It's been more than a month, but you won't hold that against me, will you?  Especially since I've been plugging away over here with such determination.

This is about how I feel my skill level is sometimes...

But it's all good news!  I've tripled my word count.  Currently, the book is weighing in at 32,000ish words.  And pretty much all my spare time is carefully, CAREFULLY, working out plotting details.  Just because I have the overall story doesn't mean every detail has been worked out yet.  I mean, even though there are only 3 character perspectives, I've got about 9 people with separate plots and motivations and storylines that have to be touched on and played out.  As I keep telling my writing friend in a whiny voice, "Series are so HARD."  And long series are harder.  I don't know what I was thinking.

So yeah, that's me.  Sitting over here, thinking about how I want to end this book.  Unlike JK Rowling, I didn't write the epilogue before I finished the whole series.  It's funny when I think back on what I was planning for the overall series... IT'S COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than that now.  Like, not even close to the shadowy plot in my mind at the beginning of the first book.

The characters have mostly done what I wanted, but the world they live in has insisted on changing all over the place.  Of course, the more things get messed up, the more fun it is to write.  Now I know why Pierce Brown insists on breaking apart all his plotlines in a spectacular way. :D

Next update I'll talk more about my Word Of The Year, but if I keep going this post will be waaaaaaaay too long.

Happy Reading!

Happy New Year!

Well, despite my doubts, I started writing in December.  I know! 

There was a lot of stuff going on up here in Norcal what with the #Campfire and all.  I think I just needed a way to pour out my emotions.

Anyway, that's all good news for you.  As with all my books, I start with the strongest voice in my head first.  Imagine my surprise that it wasn't Luka this time.  Instead, it was Alea.  That's right, people.  She's back.  Her character is going really interesting places in this next book and I wanted you to have a front seat in observing it.  I think she's the only new perspective we'll be getting, though.  I promise I'm not going to be like GRRM and shove a bunch of new characters into my books.

I'm about 12k into Universis (in case you missed it, that's the name of the last book).  I wasn't meaning to be epic with that last title, but it's meaning is what I feel about finishing up this series.  I mean, guys, I've been writing this series for almost 10 years.  My son was a toddler when it started and he'll be in middle school next year.  Holy Hannah.

Universis is my own word, but sort of derived from the Latin word for "All Together", which is what these books will be when it's finished.  It's also what the Five Tribes will be once things settle and Nikka's changes go into affect. 

That's all I'm going to let slip for now, but I will be coming on here to update my wordcount occasionally (hopefully once a month).

Happy Reading!

Casual Update

So, here I am again.  I've gotten enough subtle digs from readers that I felt compelled to come here and let you know what's going on with the book.

To be frank, not any writing, as yet.

I know, I know!  Don't hit me.  I read on one review that I was potentially alienating readers because I can't write books fast enough.  Well, I'm sorry!  I am!  If I could write 8 hours a day, then I would be popping out these suckers right and left but I only get 1.  That's right.  I get 1 hour a day if I'm lucky and if I feel like getting up at 5 on that particular morning and if the entire universe lines up perfectly.  Which it rarely does.

That being said, I have started PLOTTING the last book.  Guys, this book is epic.  I mean, it has to wrap everything up in a pretty little bow, right?  (hahahahahahahaha)  It has to make sense.  It has to make sense for the characters and the world that I've spent 9 (good god, nine????) years building.

So, yes, it's going to take time.  I'm hopeful that I'll be writing by the new year, but until then, I have a lot of careful considerations to make before I go off putting a bunch of sentences together.

So, those of you who are left, thank you for your patience.  Thank you for your reviews.  Thank you for your faith in me.  As always, you are the reason I put in the effort day after freaking day.

Happy Reading!
Kate:)