Meredith Mansfield, Author

Time to lay out my plan for next year.

First goal: Publish BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING.

The first draft is done and resting at the moment. What needs to be done starting in late January or February:

1. A couple of rounds of revisions. There are things I now know need to be established or foreshadowed. There are always things I need to flesh out–often description or improving blocks of dialog.
2. Send it out to my beta readers, hopefully in March.
3. Incorporate any revisions that come out of that.
4. Polishing edit.
5. Formatting.

This all indicates that the earliest I’m likely to be able to publish is May.

The only potential issue that could delay this significantly is the next goal. Either way, this one is getting published in 2018.

Second Goal: Finish and (hopefully) publish BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM.

Realistically, getting this all the way to publication in 2018 is a stretch goal. I’m slightly less than 10,000 words into it at the moment. Even if I keep up this pace, I won’t be to the half-way point before I need to turn back to revisions on BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING. And it’s probably doubtful that I’d be able to finish it during March (while the beta readers have the first book.)

That is, unless this story turns out to be shorter than I think it is. And I still don’t have a real good feel for that. If it’s going to be shorter than BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING (which is already on the short side for an epic fantasy), there’s a chance I may decide to delay publication of BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING and publish them together. That’s a decision for later, though.

Third Goal: (Re)Start the rewrite of MAGE STORM (which probably needs a new title, as well).

This is a story I wrote several years ago and one I still very much believe in. The problem with its current form is not the story or even the writing. It’ because the first version was essentially an upper middle grade story–for ages 10 – 12. And that’s just a really, really, rough market for several reasons.

But this story has plenty of potential and can easily become an epic fantasy for an adult or near-adult audience, which is a much, much better audience–and more where I want to position myself as an author.

So, what needs to be done:

• I need to add a couple of years to the characters’ ages. The difference between twelve and fifteen is more than just a couple of years, though. Some things about how they interact with their families, each other, and the world, and what their aims are–or would be if they didn’t have to deal with the big story problem–will also have to change.
• In the first version, I kept to only one character’s POV. That will also change. As an epic fantasy, there will be at least two and maybe as many as four more point-of-view characters.
• And, the big one. There is a major, world-sized problem that was more or less in the background of the middle grade version of this story. That has to come to the fore and be made more dire and immediate.
• I always intended this story to be the first of a potential four-book series of sequential stories that didn’t necessarily fit under a larger story arc. Some or all of those other stories may get more . . . sort of squashed together into a single arc. That’s something I’ll find out during the rewrite.

Fourth Goal: All the little, sometimes annoying, usually time-consuming, administrative-type things:

• Complete the migration off of Pronoun and either back to Kindle Select (the four or five books mentioned in my last post) or onto Draft 2 Digital for wide distribution.
• Finish setting up the x-ray option for selected books.
• Some semi-regular promotions.
• And whatever else comes up of this general type.

Fifth Goal: The perennial keep on learning.

• Figure out how to do a better job of marketing. Including how to market audiobooks, now that there’s an audiobook version of THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.
• Keep growing as a writer. Try things that scare me or are difficult (like BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING.

And, lastly, the back burner list (things I’m not likely to get to next year, but they’re still out there.

• Another story in the same world as DAUGHTER OF THE DISGRACED KING. Ailsa and Jathan’s story is complete (at least for now), but her homeland has not yet been saved. This series (MAGIC AND POWER) will have a succession of heroes and heroines, each taking their part in the greater story arc.
• A couple of fairy-tale retellings, one of which might fit in as the third book in the MAGIC AND POWER series–or not.
• My weird Oz story.
• The prequels to the DUAL MAGICS series.
• The third book in the CHIMERIA series.
• A secret-history-type story based, in part, on the Arthurian legend.
• There are several others that are, so far, just a line or two–the beginnings of an idea, but not there yet.