Lots of fog planned for 2015

Posted on January 18, 2015 (Subscribe to Blog)

With the recent completion of the first novella in the Island of Fog Chronicles, Eye of the Manticore, things are falling into place for a foggy future filled with fabulous friends, fearsome foes, and fun! Here's what's planned:

ISLAND OF FOG CHRONICLES

Eye of the Manticore follows Thomas as he relives his childhood and tries to make a decision between manticores and humans. This 34,000-word novella (a third of the length of a book) will be published on February 15th, price $2.99.

Another novella will follow later in the year.

ISLAND OF FOG WEBISODES

Free webisodes! Yes, for real. These will start on February 15th with a monthly webisode series showing how the main characters underwent their first transformations into fabulous monsters. As you know, Thomas was first to change, but his story is fully detailed in Eye of the Manticore above. The rest of the characters are simpler, so Abigail's story will be the first webisode, about a chapter length. This be published for free on my website on February 15th.

A month later, on March 15th, Fenton will change. Then the next classmate on April 15th, and so on. I haven't decided whether or not to include Hal in this series, since his story is already fully told in Island of Fog (Book 1), but I might include an adaptation of his transformation chapter as a webisode for completeness. What do you think?

Once all their stories are told, I'll move on to other incidents and characters. Some stories are fairly quick and simple and can be told as short webisodes. I intend "hiding" these from public view, so you'll need to be logged in as a free subscriber to see them.

Other stories are more complex and will be written as full novellas for the Island of Fog Chronicles series (each $2.99).

ISLAND OF FOG SERIES

Announcement! I've had a lot of comments and requests suggesting that the series shouldn't end. I could argue that I'd rather end while it's "good" and avoid having it slide downhill. Plus, these books are 100,000 words each and take 4-5 months to write and edit, hence why I've not got any webisodes done. I "ended" the series because I wanted to take a break and explore some of the other characters and delve deeper into things we didn't get to witness firsthand.

I think 2015 will satisfy that itch and get me started on a routine of writing webisodes and novellas. Then, while continuing that trend, I can return to the main series with Book 10 in 2016. By then, Hal will be 13 going on 14, and he'll be traveling the land with Abigail by his side.

How does that sound? :-)

AND NOT FORGETTING THE ISLAND OF FOG AUDIOBOOK

I "signed the deal" today with Fed Wolinsky, my chosen narrator for the Island of Fog audiobook. He sent me some audio samples the other day so I could choose voices for Thomas, Miss Simone, and a few of the others. Emily will have a slight lisp! It's going to be a lot of fun. The first 15 minutes should be available in the next week or so, and I'll post it on this blog as a sampler.

2015 is set to be a very foggy year!

Comment by BRIAN B. on Sunday, January 18, 2015...

This is awesome. I love that IOF will continue. I always knew it would. ;-) How is the author/day job ratio?

Comment by KEITH ROBINSON on Sunday, January 18, 2015...

The ration is this:

Day job = way too much, very boring, is it the end of the day yet?
Writing = not nearly enough, where does all the time go?

I admit that I let writing get in the way of work on a regular basis, but hey, I'm my own boss, so there.

Comment by BRIAN B. on Sunday, January 18, 2015...

Day job? Ain't that the truth!

Comment by DADDEE on Sunday, January 18, 2015...

Day job. Thought you let Vanessa do that while you did the important stuff. :-)

Comment by HUNTER on Sunday, January 18, 2015...

sounds like a pretty good game plan to me! course, i would love to see IOF continue, so any game-plan involving more fog would be considered good to me!

Comment by JOSEPH on Monday, January 19, 2015...

My opinion is to not include Hal. As stated you've already told his story, and to retell it or add to it would take away from you're first book. It also has a risk of causing conflict or inconsistency in the story. I say leave Hal for the main books and these spin offs for the supporting characters.

Comment by MICHAEL BARRINGTON on Wednesday, January 21, 2015...

I'm wondering if you plan on continuing stories beyond Castle of Spells, might you do a story about Seth? I'd be interested in seeing what kind of life he tries to make for himself now, and if he tries to find new friends or a family for himself.

Comment by KEITH ROBINSON on Wednesday, January 21, 2015...

DaDDee, I keep telling Nessa to clock in twice at work and earn double the money, but she hasn't figured out how yet.

Thanks for the feedback, Joseph. I'm still on the fence, but even if I did include Hal's story, I can promise you it wouldn't cause conflict or inconsistency. While writing Eye of the Manticore, I was super careful about that. That book has a lot of crossover/overlap with Island of Fog, and I think everyone is going to get a kick out of it for that reason. :-)

Michael, it would be interesting to write about Seth. I'm kind of interested in what happened to him too!

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