and the rest of the news

Slightly more than a year ago, the phone rang at 8:30 in the morning and for no particular reason I thought, “Well, this is it.” And it was: it was the HR department calling to lay me off from my day job as a web designer.

If you had asked me then what my plan was, up until that day it had been to work the day job for another year, to get into a good financial position, and then to quit and pursue a full-time writing career. If you’d asked me what my plans as a writer were, I’d have said, humorfully but with a grain of truth, “Oh, you know, to take over the publishing world.”

What I would have meant by this is I would like to be writing four or five books a year, under as many different names as necessary, for four or five publishing houses, so I could make a living writing. There are other things involved in it, too, tangental goals: I want to write comic books, I want to write a screenplay here and there, pitch TV series, that sort of thing. But the guts of it was writing books.

By then I’d sold the first two Cate Dermody titles, and was writing fantasy under the C.E. Murphy byline. I had not expected that writing three or four books a year might happen under one publishing umbrella. Having the opportunity to work with Harlequin and their many lines was an extraordinary step toward achieving my goals that I just hadn’t anticipated.

If you’d asked me at the beginning of 2005 how many books I might sell that year, I would’ve said, realistically, five. In my dream world, as many as nine–those would’ve been 3 more Walker Papers, RIGHT ANGLES TO FAERYLAND, the Old Races trilogy, and maybe two Bombshells. It would’ve, in my dream world, taken four publishing houses to achieve this.

Well, Angles got turned down, shooting that whole lineup out of the water. To my complete surprise, Luna made an offer on the Old Races trilogy. By offering on the Old Races, and with Angles being turned down, what I expected to go to two new houses ended up staying in the fold, or not going out at all. Still, three books to my current publisher, with an implication of more Walker Papers to come. An excellent place to begin. Three fifths of the way to the realistic five book sales.

As far as the Bombshells were concerned, well, I thought they’d buy THE PHOENIX LAW. After all, it’d been titled, which had to bode well, and it completes Alisha’s trilogy, which I hoped they’d want to do. I thought they might buy the first book in the next trilogy, which would both more or less commit them to the whole of the next trilogy, and put me at my reasonably expected five books in 2005. That woulda been cool.

Instead, Del Rey made an offer on THE QUEEN’S BASTARD. By the time the offer came through, I wasn’t completely unprepared for it, since Betsy’d shown a lot of enthusiasm for the project. Still, it was so far outside what I’d have expected at the beginning of 2005 that it borders on ludicrous. I thought it’d probably be another year or two before I was able to start selling any of my big fat (sci)fantasy.

And voila! Five books! Two publishing houses! Five books! Three series under two names! I’d made my goal!

But what I’ve been sitting on since *before* the QUEEN’S BASTARD offer is this:

In early December, I got email from the Best Agent Ever. I’d written to her saying I’d had an anthology invitation and wanted her to look over the terms, and she wrote back with, “The terms look good, but don’t make any commitments on your time until you’ve read the rest of this email! *insert suspense here*”

Then she put in about forty lines of white space. *laughs out loud* I have a very excellent agent. *laugh*

At the end of forty lines of white space, there was an offer on THE PHOENIX LAW and the _entire_ next trilogy!

Buh!

Seven books with one house in one year. Nine books total. That was my pipe dream goal, and the lineup ended up *completely* different from what I’d thought were the likely sales. Luna, for example, has yet to make an offer on more Walker Papers, and I’m guessing they won’t until after COYOTE DREAMS is turned in (in fact, HEART OF STONE, COYOTE DREAMS and PHOENIX LAW may all very well be turned in before there’s a Walker Papers offer, because SEVEN BOOKS. I wouldn’t blame them for wanting some stuff off my plate before putting something else on it!)

For those keeping track at home, this puts me at 14 books (and one novella and one short story) sold since November 2003.

Earlier last fall, Jenn and I were looking at the possibility of all these sales (we were pretty much betting on a TQB sale at that point, though I’d been figuring in 3 Walker Papers and only 2 Bombshells) and working out a schedule. I wrote everything out, then told Jenn that if all of these sales went through, not to expect any more proposals for me for a while. Possibly years.

She said, “I should think not.” *laugh*

This schedule demands 11 books (because COYOTE DREAMS isn’t due until March) between February 2006 and February 2008 (and that includes the not-yet-contracted-for CAULDRON BORNE, the 4th book in the Walker Papers). On one hand, it really does sound appalling. On the other, HEART OF STONE and the proposal for HOUSE OF CARDS are already turned in. COYOTE DREAMS is two-thirds done, THE PHOENIX LAW is started, and THE QUEEN’S BASTARD is a third done. That means out of the books due this year, every single one of them has at least a start on it. I’m going to be very very busy, but not insurmountably so. Mind you, I do not intend to push myself any further than this. I can handle what I’ve got on my plate, but it’d be sheer insanity to ask for more. (Of course, Jenn says she’s nominating me for most insane author on her list, so maybe it’s too late. *laugh*)

*laugh* And Jenn, who really is the best agent, has been very good about making sure I can actually handle this workload (it behooves her as much as me to not burn me out!). I commented that because I know she reads my blog, I periodically wonder if going AUGH HATE WRITING TERRIBLE BOOK EVERYTHING’S AWFUL AUGH makes her worry. She said nah, as long as I continued to sound upbeat about my angst it was all good. *laugh*

I’ve allowed myself enough procrastination. Back on my head.

miles to Mount DOOOM: 362
ytd wordcount: 17,700