Prepping the final draft now, at long last. Oh man. We had this book up to its final draft once before, in August. The plan was to publish at the end of September, in time for Halloween. Then the cowriter decided she didn't like part of it. Which part? "The middle 200 pages."
This was incredibly annoying, because she was absolutely right. The middle wasn't good enough. We'd dragged you readers through two volumes -- and it was going to be only to dump you into a volume 3 with a big, mushy center? That would be wrong.
So we pushed back our publication date to early December. Then early February. We kept writing and polishing, and disagreeing over what should even happen in the story. (Lots of arguing.) Finally, though, all that's in the past, and it's about to be done -- and I think this book is much better for all the rewrites and fights we put ourselves through. I'm hoping you find it a fitting conclusion to the Laurena & Zack story.
I can't commit to a publication date -- that's a downside to collaboration. Chalene and I have very different scheduling patterns. I like to set a hard deadline and then throw everything else in life overboard to make sure I hit it. It's a challenge, like a marathon (except I don't have to run). She finds this too stressful. She hates deadlines. Plus she has a kid and it's hard to throw those overboard. So I can't promise you (dear reader) "It will be up for sale on April 24," because what if her kid gets the flu? You never know. Heck, what if I get the flu? It could happen. Plus our genius cover artist, Steve Morris, is busy doing covers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics, which pays better than Midnight Rules; it's an honor to have him working on our covers too, so I'm happy to give him all the time he needs to finish up.
But around April 24, maybe a week-ish later, the world will get its next great vampire novel.