author weblog: notes on writing, process, research & craft.
This is the tenth novel I’ve finished and sent off to an editor, and every time it’s the same thing. I hover in limbo waiting to hear something.
I have quite a few beta readers, including my agent, and they have all been highly enthusiastic. But it’s the editor who really counts. So think good thoughts, please. When I know something, I’ll post here. In the meantime I hope to post something every couple days about GH. Tiddly bits, as the Girlchild said when she was little.
It has been a while since the sixth and last volume in the Wilderness series came out, but I still get email almost every day from readers who have very specific questions. At the top of the list is: you haven’t stopped writing, have you?!?
So here I am to say that I am working on a novel, and making some progress. This is not a prequel to the Wilderness series, and while I understand there is great interest in such a thing, I have no plans to write one. I hope that people won’t be too disappointed by this, especially as I have an alternative to offer. Specifically, I’m working on a novel which has the tentative title of The Gilded Hour.
This novel is set in 1883, primary in Manhattan, and the main characters include two young women whose names will be familiar to readers of the Wilderness series: Anna and Sophie Savard, who are distant cousins. The family tree below provides better background on exactly who they are and how they are related.
I’ll be posting now and then about the novel as it progresses, but let me anticipate a question: it may take me as much as a year to finish it, and then the whole technical/business end of things gets started. So please don’t hold your breath.