Corrupting Power
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Weekly Update - 3/26/25
🕑 Added 2025-03-26 22:27:17 +0000 UTCI'm behind and yet, I'm so far ahead, it's crazy. I still have to get next month's chapter of Pack to its commissioner (it's, like, most of the way there, so relax) and then I have to get through the next QT2 chapter, but, see, here's the thing...
This morning when I woke up, for the first time, I knew how Book Two ends. Writing serialized fiction is, as I've said before, like leaping out of an airplane with a load of string and really fast hands. You hope you can knit your parachute before you hit the ground. When I started Quaranteam Book Two, I knew some of the things I wanted to cover, some of the things I was going to do along the way, but I didn't have a clear stopping point mapped out, even if I said that I did.
But this morning, with my bedroom window open all night, I was half-awake, half-asleep, and had a vision of what the final scene of Book Two was, and how I needed to get there. It gave me plot points to work at and drop in for the next 13 chapters (although I still have intermissions to figure out) and while I don't know the contents of all the next 13 chapters, I do know some of the major highlights, touchstones and key points I need to put into play. I know the waypoints I'll be stopping at along the way. The main Quaranteam story will be a three-book trilogy, with a fourth book and final providing a 'coda' to the whole thing, that book told from Matty's (Andy's son) perspective, starting on his 18th birthday. Granted, I'm still months away from wrapping Book 2, but knowing where I'm landing makes it a little easier getting there.
I've also started writing the rough outline for Have Totem, Will Travel (HTWT), the second of the Druid Gunslinger books that I've been commissioned to write, and we will start in on that next month. I still need to get cover descriptions to my artist guy. Maybe I'll take a chunk out of tomorrow or Friday to do some compositional photographs for him to use as references. Busy busy busy.
I'm still hoping to pipe out QT2:38, QTUM, QTPT, BP and get a new QTSS off to its commissioner before Monday, but that's a lot of writing left to do, so we'll see if I can stumble towards the finish line without too much hassle or if I'm stumbling a bit shorthanded to get everything finished. We're also only like a dozen or two new subscriptions away from me having to do a newly updated Quaranteam Dream Casting / Visual Guide, so when that hits, that'll be fun to fill in. I'll try and cast basically everyone who's got a major part in the QT verse, at least my own characters. (So no visual reference for, say, Break's Greerson.) I'll also probably line up the next You Decide! poll for this week sometime, so I can slot it early into next month.
Anyway, I should be writing instead of rapping here with you lot, so let's wrap up with what's coming to public sites and then get outta here. Here's the upcoming public schedule for the next month or so: 3/29 - QT:UM 4; 4/5 - Smokeland Slumdance 1, QT:PT 21; 4/12 - Neon Stonehenge 10; 4/19 - QT2:30.
Comments
Corrupting Power
So, Book Two will most likely wrap up in November or December of this year, with a print/revised edition to follow around this time next year. It's also worth noting that Book One was 400k words, including all of Piper's Prelude [40k on its own], the first chapter of B2, the foreword and the afterword. Book Two is currently around 275k words by itself, with 13 chapters and two more intermissions to go. (At two chapters a month, that means we're wrapping up B2 near the end of the year.) The average book you can buy in paperback is 80k-90k words. Lee Child, one of the most profitable writers in the world, writes about 36k words a month. I'm more in the 50k-60k a month range, but I'm tempering that with trying not to burn out. The average Lee Child book is about 96k words. By that measuring stick, I'm wrapping up Book Eight of Quaranteam this fall. :P If I hold pace with what I've been at, Book 3 would be estimated at wrapping up in early 2028, and Book 4 by mid 2030. That's in addition to writing all the other stuff I'm working on, which includes doing a Druid Gunslinger book about every 18 months. (Holding in this tempo, books 2-5 of the Gunslinger books will also be complete by mid 2030.) This is the house that QT built, so that stuff will always take priority over everything else.
Admiral Ale
SO! The 1st book ended and was put on pdf in Feb 23. It's two l o n g years and you have 13 chapters to go for Book 2. At least another 1 1/2 or two years before that to come out on pdf and book edition. I guess I will have to be 150 years old to read Books 3 and 4. This is a great story line and the reason I am here, and will continue to be here. And as I have told you, I worried about you over doing it. I just looked back at the notifications. I saw comments on all the updates and the QT, but not much more. Does any one read NS stories? You will continue membership. And as always Stay Safe & Well. Transmitted from The USS Carnes.
Corrupting Power
Neon Stonehenge is the first Druid Gunslinger book. It was released as single chapters here, and I'll be doing both an commercial print-on-demand and E-store epub edition before the end of the year. The second book will be done in the same fashion - one chapter a month every month here until it's complete, and then a print version to follow.
Eric
Hi!! Sooo… you mentioned the “2nd Gunslinger book”. Is the first one basically the chapters you’ve posted here? Will the second be the same, or will it be released as an actual book?
Tammy Hoffman
I'm so excited to hear that quaranteam will have 3 basically 4 books. I look so forward to each new chapters. And I love all most all the other QT books done by you and other authors everything's i get a notification that a new chapter is of i start bouncing of the walls so excited. Thank you for sharing the stories that are in your head!
