Writing Update

Okay, haven’t done this for awhile, but people like to know where stuff is at.

Coming up next will be the eARC of Monster Hunter Vendetta. For those who don’t know, that is an Electronic Advanced Reader Copy.  Basically, Baen will put up an extremely early e-book.  You pay extra, (I think they are $15) but you get it several months in advance. I don’t have this date yet though.  As soon as I know anything I’ll post it here. The paper copy will release in October, (meaning it’ll ship in September) which means that the regular priced ($6) e-book will be out sometime right before that.

The Grimnoir Chronicles: Hard Magic will be out in Spring 2011. No idea which month, or if there will be an eARC for it. I’m guessing probably. After that will be Monster Hunter Alpha in the later half of 2011. (looking like there will be a MH novel toward the end of each year).  MHA is the book that I am currently working on, and the rough draft will be done this summer. Which makes it weird to write, since it takes place in winter, in a very cold and snowy place (the UP of Michigan).  MHA is the first MH novel written in the 3rd person, and it is primarily about Earl Harbinger.  Earl runs on sheer badassitude, so this has been a fun one to work on.   MHA is currently nearing 100,000 words, (expected 150,000 total).

I’ve taken a brief break from MHA though to work on getting a draft finished of Dead Six.  My co-author, Mike Kupari, returned from active duty this month, so we jumped on it.  I hurried and stuck it in front of Reader Force Alpha (and quickly had pointed out to me that we left some of our incoherant editing notes in place in the text and had forgotten to delete them before sending).  So, RFA, there is not actually a Deep Crow randomly living in Nevada.  Yes. We will edit that part out.  Mike was trying to make me laugh because he knows I hate editing. It still requires some clean-up, but we should be sending it off shortly.  Baen is interested, because they’ve had a few forays into the mil/thriller genre with Ringo’s Kildar series, and the new one, Countdown, from Kratman.  

After MHA goes out the door, I will start writing The Grimnoir Chronicles 2.  Which doesn’t have an actual title yet, though in my head it has been Spellbound and a .45   Though I don’t know if that is going to work or not.   TGC2 is set in 1933.  Remember in real life when someone tried to assasinate FDR right after the election? Yeah, now make that guy an Active.  (and you guys have only seen the 1st 7 chapters of Hard Magic, so you don’t even know how badly everything blows up in 1932)  If you think the goverment overracted a bit in real life by rounding up all the Japanese in 1942 to shove into places like Topaz, just imagine what they’d do to “undesirable” magicals.  I don’t know if you guys can tell, but I love me some alternative history.

Then comes MHI:4.  The 4th MH book goes back to Owen’s perspective.  Right now my working title is (drum roll please for the first time I’ve thrown this out on the interwebs) Monster Hunter Legion.  I will not elaborate on what the Legion is for… yet.  But it opens with a MHI vs. rival company fist fight at a fancy Las Vegas buffet.  The people who were with me one year at a certain SHOT Show know that this is loosely based on actual events involving two Jack Bauers, a bunch of uptight contractors, a SWAT sniper who got a little too involved with a cream-puff, and a talking moose.  Only MHI is far less diplomatic than the people I hang out with in real life. But I digress. 

MHL takes place between Las Vegas and the Dugway Proving Grounds.  Let’s just say that there are worse things buried in Dugway than the nerve gas.  It has been buried for a long time, and it is not happy.

In that same time frame, there are many other projects I want to work on as well, but those above mentioned items are ones that I’ve gotten sold. (except Dead Six).  So the timing is kind of variable. There is a sequel to Dead Six called Swords of Exodus, but I’m in luck there because I’ve already written most of my half of it.  Then I’ve got one sci-fi/thriller project that I’ve been calling the “Africa” book that is going to kick serious butt. It is about a reality TV show, where teams of contestants compete to overthrow a small country. I’m really proud of it.  Then I’ve got a straight up supernatural horror novel about a prison guard who volunteers to keep something really bad locked up for eternity.   The Africa book and the Prison project are both awesome, but I’ve got to squeeze them in between books for series that I’ve already sold.

There are many more MH books planned, including Monster Hunter Nemesis, about Agent Franks, as well as more TGC novels. The third D6 novel is called Project Blue, but I can’t start working on it until I get D6 sold.

So much to do, so few hours in the day.

Ask Correia 4 - Idea Management
CONduit schedule this weekend

23 thoughts on “Writing Update”

  1. jesus man, save some time for shootin’!
    seriously though, if you would just send me all the rough drafts I’d be more than happy to, um.. edit them, yea thats right…..damn publisher’s timelines, making me wait for Correia goodness.

  2. Dude… the “Africa Book:”… that simple one-sentence summary has already got me hooked on it! Holy crap I cannot wait for any of these (but especially “Africa Book”) to come out!!!

  3. Wow you sound worse than I do about multiple projects going on at the same time. Just don’t accidentally put the wrong character in the wrong book.

    Because if you didn you might end up with a Corriea cross over. MHI with some Actives, vs a small African dictatorship, and their Dead Six mercenaries! 😀

  4. “It is about a reality TV show, where teams of contestants compete to overthrow a small country.”

    I love you so hard right now.

    Hell, a team of reality show contestants couldn’t do worse running some of those places than the existing governments.

  5. Ahhhhh! Too. Much. Awesome. Head. Exploding.

    Here’s the thing. All of that sounds good. And I will be buying every book. But PLEASE for the love of all that is holy get to work on the “Africa” book. Oh and a Tom Stranger book. And ya know, while your at it just give up everything else and write 24/7.

    And eventually you’re going to have to create CorreiaTech and start sellings CCW’s.

  6. I check like every few hours to see if the MHN eArc is up yet…I really need a life, maybe I’ll go shoot in the morning to tide me over.

  7. Very excited for everything, cant wait. Loved MHI, I loved Welcome Back Mr. Nightcrawler and am loving reading the first 7 ch. of the GC. Looking at that post you are putting in work1 Keep it up. I just wanted to know how you keep track of all of these ideas. Or in other words, how do you organize it all. I love to write as well, but I suck at getting it all organized. In my head, everything works, but getting it onto my computer screen nice and tidy is tough. Its fun, but its tough. Do you have a set process for coming up with and incorporating new ideas?

    1. Mikey, answering that would take a whole post, so I flagged this for later. I’ll do another Ask Correia, because those are fun anyway. 🙂

  8. I’m looking forward to every one of these books! I may not know a lot about firearms but I know what I like.

    Does anybody know if there is an RPG version of the Monster Hunter universe in the works? I’d be willing to pay good money for something like that.

    1. Not yet. I have a friend down in Texas who has been working on something though, and the general idea would be to put out a “MHI Employees Handbook”, but nothing official on that yet.

  9. books are good. more books are better. i like idea for prison book. am tempting for earc but i like paper books too much. spend enough time looking at screens!

  10. I appreciate the workload you have in front of you, and fortunately for you I am willing to help out.

    Just send me all the writing you’ve finished so far on everything you have thought of, and I will start going through it. I will do this for free.

    😉

    Keep up the good work! I’ve set a deadline for myself to finish LOTR before MHV hits the shelves. I can’t wait!

    tweaker

  11. Talking moose at a buffet in Las Vegas? *shrug* Nothing much would surprise me coming out of Vegas anymore.

  12. I love your work man! That being said, I’m so damn antsy to get my hands on everything you just listed I think I could chew rail road spikes. I all honesty I had stopped reading for pleasure (grad school chooses what you read for you) but MHI dug me out of that rut. Thank you Mr. Correia.

  13. Please tell me we don’t have to wait for 3 more MHI books to find out more about Agent Franks.

    He has been the source of a few fun discussions with my son

  14. I wasn’t able to download the unzipped file, but the zip file works. Now to figure out how to get it on my iPod since Safari doesn’t like the zip file and the work network won’t let me get to my ftp sites…

  15. Dude
    I’ve been waiting for MHL and MHN
    I’ve literally read the other 3 books at least 5 times if not more
    Owen is awesome and Franks… Well, he’s just a badass

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