I'm over three months late, but I finally finished the first draft of Book 3 in the After Z-Day series. My initial goal was to complete the first draft by the end of 2022 so that I can release the book around the middle of 2023. Since the first draft is so late, I'm now targeting a late-summer or early-fall release.
There were two key reasons for the delay in finishing the first draft. The most obvious is that my day job has been crazy busy for the past year. It's been busy for years now, but the level of busyness reached new heights in the second half of 2022. It's been hard to find a consistent writing rhythm when I'm often working mornings before breakfast, evenings after dinner, and weekends, so I'm proud of the fact that I still managed to write the first draft, even if it took longer than expected.
More so than any first draft that I can remember, this book also went through a lot of changes as I wrote it. I ordinarily make a big deviation from my initial outline about a third of the way through a first draft, and then another pivot two-thirds of the way into the story. With this draft, I was constantly changing things as I wrote the back half of the book. I think each change made the story better (or I wouldn't have changed it), but I'm curious to see how coherently everything flows once I start editing.
I'm planning to take a short break from the manuscript to reset my brain, then start the revision process with what I hope will be a new set of eyes. I hope the revisions won't take longer than planned so that you all will get to read this book in a few months.
