The French poet Paul Valery famously said, "a poem is never finished, only abandoned." It's equally true of prose, I think. I put the finishing touches on Chapter 21 of Elevated tonight and shared it with my first readers and editor. Already I have a list of over 100 changes I want to make to the story before I release it as an eBook on Amazon. But for now, it's done. I'll fix whatever typos my sharp-eyed editor Mandrake LXIX catches between now and then, but the story is what it is. The last chapter should be available on or before February 14, 2014.
I hope it's a satisfying ending for all of you. Corvus, his friends, enemies, lovers, family, and slaves will be back in the next novel, which no longer has even a tentative title.
I'm going to take this week to decide what I'm writing next. Some possibilities include The Paphian Way (the origin of Lucretia Octavius/Tullius/Gallicus,) a series of short stories called The Truthspeaker and the Oracle set in the first century of New Rome including one called Saturnalia in Rio which is told from the perspective of Caesar Mauritius shortly after landfall in the New World.
There are other possibilities not from New Rome as well. I may need a break from exploring that world every week before I plunge back in. Watch this space for details.
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