End of 2025 Update
Hey everyone,
It’s been a while, and I thought I’d send an end-of-the-year update. The writing has been slow, which I’m sure people have noticed. Slower than at any point since I started publishing, and while I’m not exactly sure why that is, I have a guess.
I think it begins with the pain-in-the-ass that happens to be the book that I’ve been working on: book 5 of Instrument of Omens (tentatively titled Prophecy’s Demand). Not poor health, stress, or anything like that. Just this book, which has been so hard to write. As in the most difficult book I’ve ever written.
BTW why does that seem like a common refrain with my books these days? I wish I knew.
Anyway, I always knew this book would be a challenge, but I underestimated it. The book kicked me around just because it could. In essence, it required that I merge all the overlapping events from the William Wilde series with what happens in Prophecy’s Demand, and for those who have read both series, there is a ton of overlap, and trying to fit it all together without contradicting what has already happened was not easy.
In many ways, it was like building a puzzle box AND solving it at the same time… and I don’t like puzzles. Add in the fact that I struggled with rediscovering the necessary information about various aspects of the book (names, places, history, etc-there are so many unremembered details!), and it was just a slog. My motivation waned, and I’d go days without touching the book.
Sometimes, I felt like a squirrel. What’s this? A new video about my Cincinnati Bengals? Something about rockets? Music? Greatest NBA seasons of all time? Anything but sitting down and writing.
That easy distraction has never happened before, and for several reasons, I don’t think it will happen again. First, I’m past the overlap point, so I no longer have to worry about making sure the events from Instrument of Omens correctly overlaps with those from William Wilde. The puzzle-box nature is done, and I can write fresh material without concern about contradiction of another series. Yay!
Second, I discovered Notebook LM, an AI program that doesn’t harvest my books to train the AI (supposedly). Hopefully, all it does is use the PDFs from my books as source material that it can then interrogate at my direction.
I can’t tell you how helpful Notebook LM has been. It turns out I have over 150 named characters in William Wilde, and this doesn’t include geographical features or historical events. Instrument of Omens has over 220 named characters (and counting) with the same caveat about geography and history. Trying to recall all that information? Impossible… at least for me.
I often ask why my past self was so cruel to present me. I mean, honestly, why make it so complicated and hard? I wish I knew. Even my friends who write epic fantasy think it’s weird.
Back to Notebook LM. Rather than having to flip through two rather disorganized and massive book bibles, I can now simply ask the program for what I need. What’s the name of such-and-such character? What do they look like? When do they first interact with Cinder? The AI now does the heavy lifting by providing the answers I need, including linked footnotes to where it got the answer in the books.
This has been monumentally helpful, and I can’t express how much of a relief that has been, how much it has simplified my writing process and made me more efficient. I am cautiously hopeful that this will continue for book 6.
The end result: I’m done with the first draft of Prophecy’s Demand. Add in another 2-3 months of editing, and the book will head off to alpha readers and then the editors. I would also like to say that I love the book. In spite of what a pain it was to write, I love what happens. It also turns out that all my angst about book 3 was unnecessary. The events happened in the way they did and naturally led to what occurs in book 5. I like that.
For the release, I’m hoping to send Prophecy’s Demand out into the world in the summer of 2026.
Why the delay? Well, several reasons.
First, I want to shorten the difference between the release of the ebook/print versions and the audiobook version of Prophecy’s Demand. Nick Podehl is VERY busy, and he likely won’t be able to narrate the book until late 2026 with a release in early 2027. Nearly a year between the release of the ebook/print and audiobook versions isn’t ideal.
Second, I’m also going to do a Kickstarter for a limited edition leather bound version of A Testament of Steel, and I want the Kickstarter linked with the release of book 5 where the two are launched fairly close to one another. And the Kickstarter is something I’ve always had in mind for late summer 2026.
Third, and somewhat less important, I want the release to link to a book signing at my local Barnes and Noble, and that would also work out best from a scheduling POV in the summer of 2026.
So that’s it for 2025.
For 2026, I’ll edit Prophecy’s Demand and then jump straight into book 6 of Instrument of Omens. And if I finish that book more quickly than expected (unlikely, but who knows?), I’ll start book 4 of Eternal Ephemera, which should wrap up that series as well.
After that? Sometime in 2027 or 2028, I’ll move on to an unreleased book I wrote in the summer-fall of 2024. It’s a new series set in a new world and features new characters. Is it complex? Of course it is. Stupid me can’t have it any other way.
But going back to Prophecy’s Demand, just because everyone’s been so patient, here is a preview of the possible cover art. And here is also art from the Kickstarter. I’ll let you guess which is which.
It’s been a while, and I thought I’d send an end-of-the-year update. The writing has been slow, which I’m sure people have noticed. Slower than at any point since I started publishing, and while I’m not exactly sure why that is, I have a guess.
I think it begins with the pain-in-the-ass that happens to be the book that I’ve been working on: book 5 of Instrument of Omens (tentatively titled Prophecy’s Demand). Not poor health, stress, or anything like that. Just this book, which has been so hard to write. As in the most difficult book I’ve ever written.
BTW why does that seem like a common refrain with my books these days? I wish I knew.
Anyway, I always knew this book would be a challenge, but I underestimated it. The book kicked me around just because it could. In essence, it required that I merge all the overlapping events from the William Wilde series with what happens in Prophecy’s Demand, and for those who have read both series, there is a ton of overlap, and trying to fit it all together without contradicting what has already happened was not easy.
In many ways, it was like building a puzzle box AND solving it at the same time… and I don’t like puzzles. Add in the fact that I struggled with rediscovering the necessary information about various aspects of the book (names, places, history, etc-there are so many unremembered details!), and it was just a slog. My motivation waned, and I’d go days without touching the book.
Sometimes, I felt like a squirrel. What’s this? A new video about my Cincinnati Bengals? Something about rockets? Music? Greatest NBA seasons of all time? Anything but sitting down and writing.
That easy distraction has never happened before, and for several reasons, I don’t think it will happen again. First, I’m past the overlap point, so I no longer have to worry about making sure the events from Instrument of Omens correctly overlaps with those from William Wilde. The puzzle-box nature is done, and I can write fresh material without concern about contradiction of another series. Yay!
Second, I discovered Notebook LM, an AI program that doesn’t harvest my books to train the AI (supposedly). Hopefully, all it does is use the PDFs from my books as source material that it can then interrogate at my direction.
I can’t tell you how helpful Notebook LM has been. It turns out I have over 150 named characters in William Wilde, and this doesn’t include geographical features or historical events. Instrument of Omens has over 220 named characters (and counting) with the same caveat about geography and history. Trying to recall all that information? Impossible… at least for me.
I often ask why my past self was so cruel to present me. I mean, honestly, why make it so complicated and hard? I wish I knew. Even my friends who write epic fantasy think it’s weird.
Back to Notebook LM. Rather than having to flip through two rather disorganized and massive book bibles, I can now simply ask the program for what I need. What’s the name of such-and-such character? What do they look like? When do they first interact with Cinder? The AI now does the heavy lifting by providing the answers I need, including linked footnotes to where it got the answer in the books.
This has been monumentally helpful, and I can’t express how much of a relief that has been, how much it has simplified my writing process and made me more efficient. I am cautiously hopeful that this will continue for book 6.
The end result: I’m done with the first draft of Prophecy’s Demand. Add in another 2-3 months of editing, and the book will head off to alpha readers and then the editors. I would also like to say that I love the book. In spite of what a pain it was to write, I love what happens. It also turns out that all my angst about book 3 was unnecessary. The events happened in the way they did and naturally led to what occurs in book 5. I like that.
For the release, I’m hoping to send Prophecy’s Demand out into the world in the summer of 2026.
Why the delay? Well, several reasons.
First, I want to shorten the difference between the release of the ebook/print versions and the audiobook version of Prophecy’s Demand. Nick Podehl is VERY busy, and he likely won’t be able to narrate the book until late 2026 with a release in early 2027. Nearly a year between the release of the ebook/print and audiobook versions isn’t ideal.
Second, I’m also going to do a Kickstarter for a limited edition leather bound version of A Testament of Steel, and I want the Kickstarter linked with the release of book 5 where the two are launched fairly close to one another. And the Kickstarter is something I’ve always had in mind for late summer 2026.
Third, and somewhat less important, I want the release to link to a book signing at my local Barnes and Noble, and that would also work out best from a scheduling POV in the summer of 2026.
So that’s it for 2025.
For 2026, I’ll edit Prophecy’s Demand and then jump straight into book 6 of Instrument of Omens. And if I finish that book more quickly than expected (unlikely, but who knows?), I’ll start book 4 of Eternal Ephemera, which should wrap up that series as well.
After that? Sometime in 2027 or 2028, I’ll move on to an unreleased book I wrote in the summer-fall of 2024. It’s a new series set in a new world and features new characters. Is it complex? Of course it is. Stupid me can’t have it any other way.
But going back to Prophecy’s Demand, just because everyone’s been so patient, here is a preview of the possible cover art. And here is also art from the Kickstarter. I’ll let you guess which is which.
That’s all I got. Hope everyone had a fantastic 2025 and an even more fantastic 2026!
Davis
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