Writing Update: A Dragon at the Gate

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.