(Current) Book Copy For SERPENT SWORD: BATTLE FOR THE WASTELANDS #2

Just submitted Ch. 9 of Serpent Sword, the sequel to my military fantasy novel Battle for the Wastelands to my writing group. Per my earlier blog post, I hope to get the novel completed and published before the end of 2021, and based on word counts I'm probably around halfway to finishing it. Running it through writing group, getting professional editing, etc. will take time so I imagine it'll be close, but it's still doable.

In the meantime, here's the current draft of the book copy. Spoilers for the first novel, so be ye warned.

“Killing a cannibal overlord was just the beginning. Now there’s a war to win, and the odds are getting worse.

For capturing a dirigible from the cannibalistic Flesh-Eating Legion and rescuing rebel chieftain Alonzo Merrill, Andrew Sutter earned a promotion. Now the rebel armies are carving a bloody swathe toward the old capital of Jacinto. Victory seems near as the man-eaters crumble before the Merrills’ salvaged Old World arsenal.

But Grendel, first lord of the Northlands, marches south to turn back the tide. Although he had planned to betray the Flesh-Eaters and replace them with his son by Alonzo’s captive sister Catalina, Grendel cannot let the rebels’ defeat of the Flesh-Eater ruler go unavenged. He brings with him hundreds of thousands of reinforcements and Catalina herself as bait.

With Jacinto under siege and enemy armies drawing ever-nearer, Andrew and his friends must descend into the occupied city of Long Branch to rescue Catalina and confront the dreaded first lord himself.”

The title is the operational name for the assault on the Long Branch citadel. Given how Grendel's personal dirigible is called the Nicor — a Norse word for "water-monster" — and bears a dragon-head on its prow, giving the mission to kill him that name seems appropriate.

(Look closely at the cover and that's the Nicor floating over Long Branch's citadel. Imagine a Viking longship updated for steampunk warfare.)

2021 Publication Plans: SERPENT SWORD (BATTLE FOR THE WASTELANDS #2)

Former member of my writing group Jeff Baker attended the Liberty Con convention a few years ago and brought back word from a self-publishing panel that the best way to self-publish is to "churn and burn"--put work out there quickly. Although independent publishing allows me to put out stuff faster than a traditional publisher (I put out Battle for the Wastelands in December 2019, "Son of Grendel" in May 2020, and The Atlanta Incursion in July 2020), I listen to a lot of writing podcasts and there are indie writers who put stuff out much faster. Heck, closer to home I have the example of current writing group Dave Schroeder, who puts out 1-2 books per year.

("SOG," TAI, and especially Battle had been written years in the past and had been sitting in my file, so 2019-2020 was not my usual production speed.)

Some of my slowness in comparison to others is hard to get around--the Wastelands books in particular are very research-intensive, I run the whole manuscript through my writing group and then heavily revise based on their suggestions, I hire a professional editor/formatter and cover designer rather than do it myself, and I commission illustrated cover art rather than using pre-made covers--but I also tend to dawdle and spend too much time on things like my blog, Twitter, etc. So I'm going to do my level best to make sure that Serpent Sword: Battle for the Wastelands #2 comes out sometime in 2021, the earlier the better. This involves committing in advance to have chapters for my writing group even if they're not finished when I make the reservation, which was a major reason I got The Thing in the Woods, Battle, and Little People, Big Guns finished as quickly as I did.

So far so good--I have the first six chapters completed out of around 33-34, and lots of chunks of future chapters already written. The total word count is around 37,000 words and if the expected final word count is around 90K, that's a great big chunk done. I also have the cover art already made, which will save even more time.

(If you like the cover, check out West Coast artist Matt Cowdery, who's illustrated a lot of my independent projects. The people you meet on the last day of DragonCon when tickets are only $30.)

I'd initially hoped to get it done sometime over the summer and potentially have room to finish and publish The Walking Worm, the second sequel to Thing. However, owing to the need to cycle that through writing group, the whole editing/publishing process, and whatever conventions I can scrounge up for the year, it seems very unlikely that I'd be able to get it out in 2021.