I still have the epilogue to write, but I have officially completed the first draft of the last book in the Hidden Series! For NaNoWriMo, I wanted to finish this draft and write over 32k words. This officially accomplishes both goals three days ahead of schedule.
Book four will now be set aside for a while so I can do a revision of Hidden Promise based on my alpha feedback. It took about three months for me to do this for Hidden Sanctuary, and I’m targeting having it for my alpha readers in April, my editor in May, and it is due out in June. The timing cuts it pretty close, so I will work to cut two or three weeks off of these deadlines.
Book Four: Then and Now
One of the greatest challenges with this one was that I could not really use any of my original writing. Years ago, I finished a draft of the complete series. I knew where the story was going and many of the stops it would make along the way. Most of the characters were at least rough outlines in my mind. I had over 72k words already written for this portion of the story.
Then, I built it out, starting with Hidden Memory. The world grew. The characters grew. I did it again with Hidden Sanctuary. With Hidden Promise, I had only scratched the surface of the fairy lands and people initially. So, I delved deeper and gave them more.
By the time I returned to the point of the final book, there were too many changes. People were not where they had been. The importance of some places and events shifted. It would have been more effort to squeeze the previous writing into the new form than to write it all from scratch. In the end, I used the former writing as an outline, trashed the writing itself, and the draft ends up at around 107k words.
If I can swing it, the series finale will be available before June 2024. This means going through all of the reviews and revisions. As always, if I can release early, I will.
Interested?
If you are interested in joining the team, know I have openings for ARC readers. The first two books are free on KU. Start with those and leave reviews. If you are still interested, reach out to me, and I can add you to the team for Hidden Promise coming out in 2023.
Happy holidays to all!
Tiffany Shearn 