The Pressure is On

All right. I did my meeting with the Folks in London (my publishers for my work under my different name) and they're really keen to get a new book out the year after the book that I've just finished. That's because there's been sort of a long gap between the one I just finished (not published yet) and the one they published before that.

This was actually the publisher's fault, and they've acknowledged it, but it doesn't change the fact that it damages my career - and the publisher's prospects of selling lots of books - to have such a long gap. Readers forget quickly. Which means when I come back on the scene I need to make a really strong impression. Two books in two years does that. Therefore, I need to get to work on the new novel and I need to make it good.

What does any of this have to do with Alexi Silversmith, newbie writer of m/m fiction? Well, it means that m/m writing is going to have to go on the back burner. For a while. I don't know how long. Basically when I start any new project it takes me a while to really firmly get a grasp on it and I need to spend that time completely absorbed in the new characters, world etc. I can't do that if I'm working on something utterly different at the same time. Once I've embedded my brain in this new novel, I might be able to look at m/m stuff again as a hobby and do it for fun, but not until I'm totally confident in the other story.

So, right now...feeling a little depressed. Excited about my new novel, fired up, committed....but still, a part of me is depressed about Captain Space Bunny and all the other m/m characters teaming in my head.

But there's always the hope that the release of the m/m stories I've written will be staggered in such a way that my potential m/m readers won't even notice this hiatus. I don't have a pub date for And Is Never Shaken yet, and I haven't even started the editing process on the stories that were sold to Torquere Press. Which means that by the time the last of them comes out, I might have started work as Alexi Silversmith again. That's a comforting thought.