The Caein Legacy is Complete – Now What?

There’s a strange feeling I get when I complete a major writing project (and by major, I mean the completion of a series, not an individual book, although standalone books sometimes cause this feeling as well). On one level, there is elation, joy, excitement; I’ve just finished writing a series! On another level there is melancholy; I just spent the last year and a half with my imagination focused solely upon the characters in this series, their world, their lives, their struggles and triumphs. It’s not as though I am saying goodbye to those characters forever, but the series is complete… Now what?

The series I speak of is The Caein Legacy. I’ve posted a short excerpt from the first book, Exile, here on my blog, for those interested in reading it. I do not have plans to self-publish the series, and I have been in the process of querying literary agents since June. The trouble is it’s a slow process, I really want to share more of the series with all of you, but I know I have to be patient. Patience is not something I’ve ever excelled at… But believe me, when I do finally manage to capture the attention of an agent for this series, people will know.

As for the “Now what?” question, I have a couple ideas that I’m tossing around for my next project.

• There is a race mentioned in The Caein Legacy that lives in the deep sea (the Sevanni), and has some minimal interactions with the dragons at a time prior to what is known as the Mage Wars. That time period is somewhere around 1000 years before the events in The Caein Legacy take place. It would be in the same world, but with different characters. The premise of writing about a society that remains underwater is interesting to me, and it may just give me an excuse to book another scuba diving vacation for “research” purposes once the world finally starts to open back up.
• I have an idea for a sci-fi story that features an intergalactic bounty hunter as the main character. I’ve started and stopped writing various versions of this story probably 5-8 times now, but I keep returning to it. Maybe this time, something will stick.
• There is also the werewolf story that I’ve started and stopped a couple times, though the last version was working pretty well before I put it aside. I might revisit that one again, though I need to figure out where I was headed with it first. This was one of those cases where I had a good idea for the beginning of the story, but about mid-way through, I had no idea where I should head with it. That one was set aside for the sci-fi one mentioned above, which in turn was set aside when I began writing Exile.

As for other updates, unrelated to my works in progress and The Caein Legacy, there was another big thing that happened in the last week.

The eBook editions of Hunted went on pre-order through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play and Apple/iTunes. The paperback versions will not have pre-order available, but the book release is set for October 20. Paperbacks will be available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I am planning to host a virtual book launch party the Friday following release (October 23). I will send invites through facebook to those who are interested (it will be a public event).