Hooo boy. I got two big monkeys off my back over the last week-and-a-half. With bleeding eyes, I made it through the final round of revisions to both The Mark of Cain and The Politics of Fear. It’s hard to let a manuscript go–especially a long one that you’ve been poking at for years. You can move commas around until the heat death of the universe, but at a certain point you just have to say done. I shipped those suckers off to the printer to avoid the temptation to tinker.

Amazon is virtually instantaneous, so both Ebook editions popped up quickly. The physical books take a little more time, and I still have some art to finalize with Zefanya for the Trade Paperback edition of The Mark of Cain. Both projects are more-or-less out of my hands, which means I can finally turn my attention to one short project that needs an edit and one long project that needs new prose.

“The Clouds, from Afar”: The first Tales of Ciel companion short story is sitting in draft form, awaiting my attention so I can have it ready in time for the upcoming March 17 release. That will be my main focus this week. The shorts will only be available in Ebook, so the time between completion and availability is much shorter. I can safely tinker with this one until about March 10 without risking the release date.

What Lies Between: The Divine Heretic Book 2 will command 100% of my focus once “The Clouds, from Afar” is off my desk. I’ve probably got about 40 pages of fiction left to write to wrap this draft up. The first chunk is already sitting with the developmental editor to help speed things along, but I don’t think he will withhold his feedback until he’s devoured the whole enchilada. I read through everything I’ve got on this one last week to start recalibrating my brain for Hebdomar. I was pleasantly surprised. For a first draft, everything’s working surprisingly well. It’s shaping up to be the follow-up Seven Days of Mercy deserves, but readers will be the real judge come May 19.