Here I was, typing away at In Victrix, very focused on the emotional grand finale, when, last Thursday, just as my train pulled in to the last station, this happened:

That makes the official third volume of full-length Felix mysteries complete! Well, the first draft of which. I have quite a bit of notes in the margins with to-do items (perhaps not 137 as I might have claimed, but most of those actual 16 notes do imply a small sub-scene to be added or tweaked).

It was a funny feeling. I’ve been hammering the grand finale for a while, embroiled in the pathos of the story’s resolution, getting all the cross-references done to ensure all the questions are adequately answered, and then the aftermath was relatively quick and the word finis just popped on the page. I was as surprised as everyone, though not so surprised that I forgot to celebrate (went out with my lovely wife).

I’ve already started my first round of editing to deal with those. One of the biggest advantages of writing exactly the stories I love to read, is that I’m enjoying the process — I enjoy just reading through it. After that will come more technical passes, and then, hopefully before the end of the year, some beta reader feedback. Naturally followed by professional developmental & line editing, then professional copy-editing and proofing, cover, book-production…

All of which means that you can expect it to hit the bookshelves of discerning bookstores around a year from now. I hope you can bear with me. I’ll at least create a page on the site for it once I have the cover ready.

So what can you expect in the mean time? I might post snippets here and there, the ones that amuse me the most. My blogging buffer seems to run past Saturnalia at this point, so I might switch to posting on the blog twice a week — move some book reviews to the weekend, at least occasionally. That should give you more in-depth articles with my raving about good books getting in the way.

I also got a short story (unrelated to Felix) that’s almost completed, and that will go on the mailing list first so make sure you subscribe, if you haven’t already. Speaking of the mailing list, last time I asked who wants monthly rather than quarterly updates. Naturally only a fraction of the people responded and of those about 2/3 wanted more. It’s very encouraging, but not enough to start mass monthly emailing. At least I now have a group of hard-core fans and I can start sending you lovely gals and guys extra bonus material over the next few months. If, by chance, you want in on those super-special extra bonuses, join here.

Until next time, videas lumen!