So here’s what’s happening.

1. Reviewing. I’ve decided to press pause on the reviews-by-request for a while. I currently have a huge backlog of books I want to read, including some by several of my favourite authors, and some by people who could turn out to be new favourite authors. At the same time, review requests have been flooding in. Even though I turn down a lot of them, it’s becoming too much.

Also, I want to step down as a Kindle Book Review reviewer for a while, because…

2. Award Longlist. Realmgolds is on the longlist (they call it the “semifinalists”, but it’s a longlist) for the Kindle Book Review’s Best Indie Book Award. Even though any perception of conflict of interest would only be a perception, perceptions are important.

Being on the longlist means that I paid my $20 to enter and at least two out of three screeners liked the first few chapters enough to let it through. The shortlist, which is decided in September, is based on the whole book, is much shorter (five books in each category), and means a lot more.

Hugh Howey’s Wool won the sci-fi/fantasy category last year. I don’t seriously expect to win, but it’d be nice to get to the shortlist for my category.

It feels like Realmgolds is vanishing into the rearview mirror already, though, because…

3. Book Progress. I’ve written close to 70,000 words of Hope and the Clever Man. There’s still some more to go, between 10,000 and 20,000 words by my definitely unreliable estimate, but I think I have all the main plot threads teased out now. The hard work will be next: weaving all those threads together into a cohesive story with a beginning, a middle and (especially) a satisfying ending.

I’m seriously considering buying a piece of software called Aeon Timeline that will enable me to organize it visually in multiple arcs and by date, using my invented calendar. It’s slightly overpriced, I think (it costs as much as Scrivener, which is a lot more useful), but it may be what I need. Part of the challenge, since the timeline overlaps with that of Realmgolds, is to keep the two of them consistent.

And speaking of the new book…

4. Cover Reveal. If you’re on Google+ you’ve already seen this, but it’s so beautiful I want to show it to everyone as often as possible. Like the Realmgolds cover, it’s by the talented Chris Howard.

My art direction to Chris included the phrases “a man and a woman collaborating…on some kind of steampunk device”. I also described the characters in some detail, and he’s captured them wonderfully: the scruffy inventor and the beautiful magus.

Now, back to telling their story.

Mike Reeves-McMillan

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Mike Reeves-McMillan lives in Auckland, New Zealand, the setting of his Auckland Allies contemporary urban fantasy series; and also in his head, where the weather is more reliable, and there are a lot more wizards. He also writes the Gryphon Clerks series (steampunk/magepunk), the Hand of the Trickster series (sword-and-sorcery heist capers), and short stories which have appeared in venues such as Compelling Science Fiction and Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores.