In a Holding Pattern

I'm in a holding pattern for the moment.  I've given my comments about my publishing contract to the publisher and now I'm waiting to see the revisions.  In the meantime, I've been making progress on Book 3.  That work has been slow but steady.  The story is now turning to the main conflict and resolution so there's good stuff ahead it's just sometimes it is hard to find the right path to it.

And in the meantime, I've been giving a lot of thought to Book 2 and my entire fantasy series.  I need to make sure that Book 2 is as good, or better, than Book 1 and I'm not sure that is so.  At the same time, I've been reviewing the plot of Book 4 and found some issues with it.  I'm trying to sort them out on at a high level but so far, I'm stuck.  That's not a real concern.  Handling plots is nothing new to me.

Originally, the end of Book 4 was going to be an extended chase scene.  But I sorta did that in Book 1 and there are logistically problems with that approach.  So if I don't so that, I could have the characters find information they need to follow up on to achieve their goal.  So could have one of the characters use magic to point the way.  I'm still ruminating on these options.

Clearly I won't need to make a decision on this any time soon.  I expect to work on Book 3 through March (hopefully the draft will be complete by then) and see what revisions the publisher may want on Book 1.  Once all the revisions are complete, I can begin polishing Book 2 and getting it ready to go out into the world.  That should fill this year.  So I might start work on Book 4 next year.  It is really hard to say.  We'll see.  Whenever I start, I will nail down the plot then.

Other than that, I entered a short story in a writing contest and I have some poems being published next week I believe.

Time now to roll up sleeves and see what kind of mischief I can get into today.  Sometimes I think that if my characters were people, they'd really hate me.  I complicate their lives so.