Becca Spence Dobias lives in Southern California where she writes frantically as her children sleep....
Updates, Faoii! This is huge!
Happy September!
I just got back from a ten day trip to West Virginia, which was in many ways a fact-finding mission for the edit of Rock of Ages. I took pictures of details-- patterns of shelf lining and rugs, interviewed family members, and spent time at the local historical society looking at old papers and photos.
I’m 45,000 words into the rewrite now, and I’m particularly excited about the part of the novel that follows a woman who moves from WV to Washington DC in the 1940s to become a "government girl" and classify fingerprints for the FBI. I found lots of amazing sources on our trip, including internal newsletters from the Bureau, and I’m having so much fun incorporating some of the details into the book.
I’ll keep you updated as I move along with this process. I can’t wait for you to read it!
Ooh! I should make an update! That should happen!
A lot of you already know this, but in my excitement, I neglected to make an official update about it, so here I am, finally doing that.
WE MADE IT!
Proteus is now completely funded! We reached our goal of 750 pre-orders, and the whole project has shifted into production mode. I’ve already been congratulated by Inkshares staff, and they’ve sent me some of the paperwork I’ll need to do in order to launch the book into the production process. It’s really happening!
So what happens next, in terms of Proteus? Well, as any of you who have ordered Tantalus Depths are already painfully aware, the production process takes a very long time. Also, since Tantalus Depths was my first project and people have been waiting the longest for it, it is still going to take most of my attention from now until it launches, so Proteus is something I will have to be working on in the background as I prioritize Tantalus Depths.
My plan is to get Proteus into the editing process shortly before Tantalus Depths is released. The whole intent behind launching my Proteus campaign when I did was to ensure that my second published novel came out no more than a year or two after my first, and my goal is to try and release new books on a yearly or bi-yearly schedule, consistently. Inkshares has finally given me a tentative release date of winter 2019 for Tantalus Depths. It’s much later than I thought it would be, but the delay is necessary to accommodate some new ideas that Inkshares’ CEO has in mind for it. It should be a particularly strong release next year, and Inkshares is showing a lot of confidence in it, so the delay will be worth it.
In the meantime, I’m not going to be idle. I have a surprise project I’m working on that should come out later this fall, to tide everyone over as we wait for Tantalus Depths. I also plan on building myself a proper website, which I’ll be loading with all manner of content related to the universe I’ve created, the art of writing, and the community we’ve formed. Now that the burden of campaigning is over, hopefully for good, I finally feel free to devote more of my time and energy into the parts of this process I actually enjoy: the writing, the creativity, and sharing my work to the world.
For now, I’m taking a week off, ‘cause by golly, I’ve earned it. But after that, work starts anew. We’re going to do great things together.
Happy autumn! It is beautiful here in the Blue Ridge Mountains as the leaves start to shift and the morning and evening temperatures start to drop slightly. My writing lately has been taking place inside a fort of boxes, as my family and I prepare for a move at the beginning of October. We are still staying in the Ashville area, just moving up the street.
This will be a quick announcement, and then I will give everyone’s inbox a rest for a month or two.
It has been three weeks since The Seclusion hit shelves, and everything has been going swimmingly. The book is selling, reviews are piling up on Amazon and Goodreads, and the launch event was a big success! Thank you to everyone for all of your support and help along the way.
I had the pleasure of having two other Inkshares authors in attendance at the launch - Ferd Crotte, author of upcoming Mission 51 and Katherine Forrester, author of upcoming Curio Citizen. Both of their books are in production and should be coming out next year.
On October 7th, I will be a guest on a WordPlay Radio segment with Asheville FM (103.3) from 3pm until 4pm. Tune in to 103.3 if you are local to Western North Carolina.
I’m about 17k words into the first draft and hope to use National Novel Writing Month in November as a chance to burn through a large chunk of the project, and then wrap up the first draft by the end of the year.
There will likely be another Inkshares campaign for the book, but I will run it a bit differently than the last one and incorporate what I learned during the first go around. My goal is to have at least 300 followers on the Inkshares page for book 2 before beginning, so the campaign starts off strong and proceeds more quickly than the last one. Expect additional perks and prizes, and some free and unique content to accompany the campaign.
You can sign up to receive updates by following the Inkshares page for The Seclusion: Part 2.
I will also post updates in my newsletter, but will keep them to a minimum.
That’s it for today!
Until next time,
Jacqui