The official website of Seattle sci-fi/fantasy author and geek Michael G. Munz
Gone at the end of the month.
On Friday I received some disheartening news: Booktrope, my publisher for the past two years, will be going out of business on May 31st. The news hit me and the rest of my fellow Booktropian authors pretty hard. While there were recent signs of problems, I hadn’t expected things to take this particular turn. [Read more…]
Yes, okay, so there will be more work done on it. My editor will surely have things to say, and I’m waiting to hear back from a beta-reader or two with some input, but it’s now in a state where I consider it ready to move on to the publishing phase. Note the use of the word “phase” in there. It’s not instantaneous. Along with the final editing, there’s also layout, setting things up regarding at least a little bit of marketing, and oh, gee, it still needs a cover!
Still not the actual cover!
And since I mentioned the cover, I’m really excited to be working with Amalia Chitulescu again to come up with another great cover that matches the style of the first two in the series–both of which are her work. I’m not yet sure when we’ll have the cover finalized, but you can bet I’ll be doing a reveal here.
“Yes, Michael,” I hear you asking, “that’s all well and good, but when do we get to READ the damn thing?!” Dates are still in flux, but once I and the editor/designer/publisher peoples get all of our ducks in a row, it’s likely to be late summer or early autumn. Hopefully very early autumn, if it does take that long. I don’t want to keep you all waiting too much longer. Then again, maybe I should keep pushing it back because given some of the events in book 3, I do wonder if some of you will wish to kill me. 😀
But now, I’ve got a little more free time than I used to! I’ll be diving back into Percy Jackson (more on that soon), hopefully getting some more general geek content on this site, and, at long last, start to make some real headway on the Zeus Is Dead sequel. I can’t tell you how many times something funny occurred to me as I was finishing up ADATG that I couldn’t put into the book because it’s not actually a comedy. Well, I mean, except for Felix’s sense of humor. But he can’t say everything I want him to.
Nearly named a fictional motorcycle model a “Thunder” until I realized it will be stolen, & I don’t want unintentional humor at that point.
— Michael G. Munz (@TheWriteMunz) March 23, 2016
…And maybe there’s an unpublished fantasy novel that I’ve already written that might be making an appearance. But that’s for another time…
And this is still just a temporary cover.
This post is coming to you from one of those crowded, caffeine-fueled generators of books known as a café. (Yes, I often write in cafés. I’m a human cliché.) I’m closing in on the point where I can finally put the words “The End” on A Dragon at the Gate, the third and final book in the New Aeneid Cycle. Of course, this particular writing session is going about as well as a rowboat made of sugar, so I’m shifting my focus to the blog so as to best procrastinate and hide from my problems.
So here’s the skinny. (The “skinny”? Who talks like that?) I’m currently on day 3 of a 6-day forced writing march. (The fact that it’s also taking place IN March–and that I’m writing this on March 6th, come to think of it–is pure coincidence. But it is kinda neat, isn’t it?) I’ve taken off of my day job. I’ve (mostly) avoided my social media. I’ve shunned my friends. My goal in this is to finally finish the book by March 9th. There will still need to be rewrites, polishing, and a smattering of unwritten scenes, of course. Those I’ll be finishing up by the end of March, at which time I’ll be handing it over to my editor and entering the final stages of getting the book into published form, which will come in paperback and ebook forms.
Except for this afternoon’s troubles, it’s going pretty well. I’m pushing myself, but it’s paying off. I have a clear path to the end of the book, and I’m confident that I’m going to make it. As a certain psychopathic, delusional man-boy recently said, “I know the words. I have the best words.” 😉 A Dragon at the Gate is going to be a wild ride, and I want to make it the best of the series.
As for when you’ll finally be able to read it, things still need to be worked out on that front, but assuming I can stay on schedule, we’re looking at very late spring or early summer. And then you’ll get to know just what happens, who survives, and just what the heck is going on up there on the Moon, because even if you’ve read A Shadow in the Flames and A Memory in the Black, there’s a very key element missing.
Writing a story never quite goes the way you think it will.
Something always changes along the way, even if you plan ahead of time. Things occur to you while writing, characters take control in your head, and sometimes just the act of getting an idea on paper brings out its negative points that didn’t seem nearly so problematic beforehand. And that’s not a bad thing; often this leads to something better in the end.
Coming in 2015?
Yet that voyage of discovery takes time, especially when you–and here when I say “you” I mean “me”–are not the fastest writer in the world. How I long for the prolific rate of Stephen King, but that’s just not how my mind works. (Also, Stephen King doesn’t have a non-writing day job taking up his time.) And all that is my lead-in to saying that A Dragon at the Gate is not progressing as quickly as I’d like. [Read more…]
It’s been a little while since I checked in with you folks to give a status update on A Dragon at the Gate. For those of you who’ve only come here for my Farscape rewatching or Percy Jackson reading, A Dragon at the Gate is the third and final book in my cyberpunk series known as The New Aeneid Cycle. Don’t let the “dragon” in the title fool you: this is sci-fi set in the mid-21st century.
The dragon may be a metaphor.
Or it may not be…
No one still really knows WHAT is in that ship.
That will change.
My writing on A Dragon at the Gate, the third and final book in The New Aeneid Cycle cyberpunk series, proceeds apace.
Wait, am I using that word correctly? *looks up “apace”* Hmm. “With speed?” “Quickly?” Let me start this over:
My writing on A Dragon at the Gate, the third and final book in The New Aeneid Cycle cyberpunk series, proceeds semi-apace! [Read more…]
With all the work I’ve had to do amid the launch of Zeus Is Dead, it feels like it’s been months since I’ve been able to get any real work done on writing my current work-in-progress, the third and final installment of my sci-fi series The New Aeneid Cycle, tentatively titled A Dragon at the Gate. Yet this weekend I’m finally plunging back into it.
My first step: reacquaint myself with the characters and what I’ve written so far. I’m in the midst of re-reading the eleven chapters I’ve written thus far, and as I read Chapter Four it occurred to me that I could share an excerpt with all of you. [Read more…]