Wow, first post in awhile! Lots of stuff has changed in the last eight years. First off, I became a bestselling author. The Legend of ZERO, Guardians of the First Realm, and Outer Bounds all became bestselling series. Find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kingfiction or www.facebook.com/sknovel to read all about it.
So I have a new Livejournal account, thanks to one of my editors showing me a heart-wrenching post by George R. R. Martin about writing not going according to Plan. (Yeah, I have so totally been there. Maybe mere mortals wouldn't cry after reading his post, but for us tender writers, it was like getting stabbed in the chest 'cause I have BEEN THERE, and I'm STILL working through it on this ZERO project.) Thus, check out my Livejournal at www.saraking.livejournal.com. I figure this is an easier place for a lot of non-Facebookians to check for updates on the novels, and I really enjoy the journal format to share news. (Ooooooor you could sign up for my mailing list at: http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.c
And now for the big reveal! About a week ago, I mentioned a breakthrough in ZERO4, and I'm finally ready to explain: In order to get ZERO4 off my plate, I first need to write about 8 novellas snowballing up to the events in the 4th book. I honestly don't give a crap if people rail at me for that and jump up and down and throw shit, because it's the only way I can get the storyline solidified in my head. I finally realized last week that it's either I do it this way, or ZERO4 never gets done. It's. Just. Too. Complex. In fact, part of what was bogging down ZERO4 was the fact that I was trying to pack all eight of these novellas in the beginning of it, essentially shoving Joe's first scene to the halfway point in a 200k-word book, with about 200k MORE that I needed to put into the beginning, before Joe, to make it work. My gut didn't like it, and my Muse said FU and rebelled, so in order to appease them, I'm doing things a little differently. (And keep in mind, this all started when I decided to 'edit' book 3 of my [then] 4-book series, and it spiraled out of control until I had a novel bigger than The Stand and I had to cut it in half and publish before I lost my mind and it became The Collected Works of Shakespeare). I WILL finish editing (and in this case, writing) this series and it WILL be absolutely amazing when I'm done. Count on it!
Now before you panic that the novellas will be somehow less worthy than the novels: if you've read my books, you know I don't half-ass my work. I tell a story because it needs to be told, and I do it with the reader's entertainment as my primary goal, and believe me when I tell you that these stories NEED to be told. (If you've sworn off short stories and novellas because they don't 'do' anything for you, I challenge you to read one of mine. I bet it'll change your mind.) Anyway, I've had some people question the brilliance of putting 9 novellas in between 2 consecutive books in a sci-fi series, but it IS brilliant, and I don't want to hear any crap. Either read the novellas, or wait until Book 4 comes out and hope you can keep up, but either way, this is what I'm doing. So there. It's the only way I'm going to be able to un-screw the mess that is one of my most awesome and favorite babies. By the end of it, it will blow your mind. It's probably going to total about 450-600k words of novellas featuring our favorite characters from the previous 3 books, and the first one's just about finished as of tonight, tentatively titled: The Legend of ZERO: The Rat, the Assassin, and the Scientist.
Stay tuned, and thanks for hanging in here with me. I honestly NEVER wanted to change book 3/4 of the ZERO series. It was (and still is) literally one of the best books I'd ever written, and to chop it up as I have was so physically painful for me that I went into a depressive spiral and really didn't want to look at it ever again. Unfortunately, it was written first out of any of the ZERO novels, and it didn't have as much of the world or depth as the others because I hadn't yet written anything off Earth, and I knew I needed to make it better. Part of why it's taken so long to get back in the groove was because, while it didn't quite fit with the first two books, ZERO3/4 was PERFECT as-was, and it burned me so badly that I was forced to destroy it in order to make it jive with the series.
But that's what I'm doing, because that's the only way ZERO will go on. Maybe someday I'll publish the original just for fun, because it is so totally different now it might as well be a different book, and a lot of people would probably find the progression from then to now interesting. And because it was GOOD, dammit, and it burns me I had to butcher it. Read separately, without knowing anything about ZERO, people really, really like it. I'll probably put it under a pen-name for uber-cheap, then tell Facebook fans who are interested where to find it. Because the thought of letting the original die hurts just as much as the idea of not getting it off my plate and finishing ZERO.
And thanks again for bearing with me. You guys are so utterly awesome. :)
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