Eight Novels

Thorn and Shadow is done except for the epilogue. Not sure if the ending is too abrupt or not, but I think it's a short enough novel that a lingering denouement would not help the pacing. The NaNoWriMo page says I will be done with the novel by December 4, but actually I should be done with the first draft by tomorrow night. That'll be one more novel completed.

As I tally it up, that means I've written eight novels in my lifetime. I probably shouldn't count the first one, as it was profoundly terrible, nay, vomitous. I don't even remember the name of the first one. I wrote it in my first year of college. It had something to do with two brothers finding a mysterious red crystal in a cave that turned out to be part of an alien's spaceship and had powers. Blah blah blah. Awful. Nauseating.

The second novel was called Deep Water. It was a very personal novel, written with a lot of emotion, in the year of our Lord two thousand and one, but it needed a lot more rewriting than I was willing to put into it at the time. It currently resides in a plastic box in the closet.

The third novel was called Dreaming of Shadows. It wasn't well thought out. A meandering plot with some interesting and disturbing scenes involving paper-skinned monsters called Teshogats, it ultimately added up to very little and ended in an unsatisfying way. I wrote it in 2004-2005 or thereabouts. No publisher loved it.

The fourth novel was Mary of the Aether.

The fifth novel was called The Klown Kroo. It is still looking for a publisher. It is my wife's favorite of all the things I've written. It is also disturbing enough to cause me some trouble, so it may never see the light of day. I mean, clowns and post-apocalypse and brain worms and zombie-like hordes, you can see how that might all add up to disturbing things.

The sixth novel was Mary of Shadows, which I have already signed the contract for. It comes out next summer.

The seventh novel was a rewrite of Deep Water. It wound up being over 200,000 words, so I split it into two volumes: Bloodstone and A Whisper in the Void. It is sitting at a publisher right now, being considered. I should hear something one way or the other by the end of this month.

And there you go. The novelistic history of Mr. Jeffrey Miller. I didn't even touch on all the unfinished novels. This blog entry is already too long, as it is.