I have been doing a modest amount of writing for the past couple of days - almost nothing was done for 6 weeks due to circumstances beyond my control. We are still dealing with some fallout from that but at least I have some spare time back again.
On the topic of the books, as you can see from the post on 12th August, my third book is just a bit large; well it is 3 times the size of a normal longish novel. And it is part of a trilogy... and all of them are long. So, I will have to do some severe editing and revision work, but even that will not bring them down to 'normal' length, so I am considering a suggestion from the friend who backed the existing novels, and that involves splitting them into smaller publications.
On the surface that seems like a simple suggestion, but in actuality it adds to the complications as you do not want to leave readers hanging on a thread at the end of each book in a series. I have done some thinking about this and my current plan is to finish the first draft (very nearly there!) and then begin rereading all of the unpublished material. I need to find places where I can draw a line and say this section of book 4 is now 4a, and do the same for the rest of that and the final book.
Why are the books so long? They feature a multi-threaded story describing the conduct of a war on land and at sea with a host of characters and minor players (not all of them human).
The other element of the strategy will be to launch books4a, 4b, 4c etcetera all at the same time, followed later by 5a, 5b, 5c and 5d... (hopefully no 5e). The downside is that now I need more cover images, titles, maps and so forth.
No rest for the wicked in this house