Posts Tagged ‘deadlines’

Three Books, No Waiting

Sometimes in the life of a freelance writer, all of one’s projects seem remote and abstract. Even if you are focused on the one you are currently drafting, you are half aware of the others lingering in various stages of completion.

At other times, everything collides.

For me, today is an example of the latter. Though I am in a mad scramble to finish my ms. for Star Trek Vanguard: Precipice by April 15 (having negotiated a deadline extension today with Madam Editor), I now must also review and return the copy edited ms. of The 4400: Promises Broken and the first-pass pages of my first original novel, The Calling, by March 25.

Write one novel while editing two others: this is the nature of the job. Oh, well — I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.

Back to work now. If I don’t return phone calls or e-mails in a timely fashion this month, now you know why….

Irons in and out of the fire…

DONE: The 75,000-word polished manuscript for The 4400: Promises Broken has been submitted to my editor.

NEXT: I have a couple of days before I pick up the copy edited pages of The Calling for final changes. Between now and then, I plan to read A Case of Conscience by James Blish.

If all goes well, I will have the copy edit of The Calling finished and returned to my editor by January 21.

THEN: I shall start drafting my next installment of the Star Trek Vanguard saga, Precipice.

I have until the end of March to finish that manuscript. Then it’s copy edits on Promises Broken, and on to the expansion of The Sorrows of Empire, due by the end of May.

After that … here there be monsters (but no paying gigs). Keep your fingers crossed, amigos. Rough sailing ahead.