What's Next...

Ok, so, I've got Spires of Infinity done and mailed off to my agent. He hasn't finished marking up Exile for cuts yet, and that leaves me with two choices for what to write next. The Path, which is the continuation of Spires of Infinity, or Splitplane Saga, which i've gotten a small start on, but still needs a lot of work in planning for the latter end of the story.

The Path is already all planned out and outlined, and I could start writing it today and probably finish it relatively quickly like I did the first one, barring horrible work hours and writer's block. It's a fun little story about pirates, seeking adventure in space and time, and rebellion against a godlike king that takes a very dark turn near the end, bringing the story closer to the ultimate goal of the end of time. The problem with starting work on this story is that at the moment the most important thing to me is getting my figurative foot in the figurative door, and if my agent can't sell Spires of Infinity, any time I spend on a sequel to it is basically lost time.

The War of Echos, Splitplane Saga book 1 is incredibly original in my agent's words, and it is a very complex story that is also very long. Plus I'm having a little trouble getting the ending outlined. It's missing something and I've yet to figure out what. If I start writing it now, i run the risk of needing massive rewrites once I do figure the ending out. Also, it is the first book of a series and the first book is unmistakably the first in a long epic, unlike previous books I've written where I try to make them stand alone so I can sell them to a publisher easier. A publisher would have to have a whole lot of faith in me if I were to take this book to them and say, I dunno how long the series is gonna be, but, yeah, more than 5 books, but less than 10, and I'm completely unknown, so my name on the cover isn't going to have much recognition value for readers.

I want to write both of these stories, and I'm not sure if I want to write one more than the other. The problem is that neither of them is really suited to getting me published if Spires of Infinity goes bust. I don't really have anything else that I've planned out as of yet to work on, and I need SOMETHING to work on, becuase I really don't know what to do with my free time when i don't have something to write. I'll just have to pick one of the stories I have ready to write and cross my fingers that Spires is recieved well by publishers.

I've got a couple other ideas that I could start working on, but I haven't really done much in the way of planning or outlining on any of them yet. I suppose I could finish the story I started a couple weeks ago called I Am Nobody, but I was basically making that up as I went along and I really hate to do that, and at the moment I'm not really in the mood to do more planning and outlining on another story.