Davids Current Schedule and Projects

David posted this on facebook and i thought i should cross post it here (Also Toni responded to my question saying she did indeed purchase The Gordian Protocol, i did promise that *I* woulkdn't start the Earc calls on the bar):
David Wrote:
I could swear I answered this earlier somewhere online, but I can't find that post anywhere. So, in response to people who asked about where I am on current projects and what's likely to be coming next.

UNCOMPROMISING HONOR is due out in October, and the first third of it has just been posted on my official site.

I have handed in the submission draft of THROUGH FIERY TRIALS, Safehold #10, which is due out in January. Originally, it had been scheduled for November, but Baen and Tor got together and rescheduled it so that it wouldn't be going head-to-head with UC. I thought it had been rescheduled for March; I only found out/realized it had been scheduled for January after I handed the book in. It took me a lot longer to write than I had anticipated because my original approach to the story simply wasn't working. Over half of it was turning into flashback, so I decided I had to tell the story that was being flashed back to instead of having so much reflection on the part of the characters. I think the second approach worked very well and I'm pleased with it, but there's no denying that I shorted Tor's production staff on the lead time they needed without realizing the extent to which that was true.

I have also finished three novellas/short stories (including the one that I recently handed into Larry Correia for his femme fatale anthology coming out sometime next year) and I have been generally clearing the decks for my next foray.

I've handed in a revised draft of a collaboration with Jacob Holowach, THE GORDIAN PROTOCOL, which Toni Weisskopff is reading now.

Tim Zahn, Tom, and I (and especially Tim and Tom, at this point) are working on A CALL TO INSURRECTION.

Eric Flint and I spent some time at Manticon talking about the next Anton and Victor book, and I need to get our story notes written up and emailed to him. I promise that I really am not going to let that fall through the cracks. (If I do, Eric will beat on me.)

I have pitched to Tor Books the notion of doing the sequel to OUT OF THE DARK as a collaboration with Chris Kennedy. I'd really like to get that book written because one of the major characters is suffering from a bit of in-universe . . . misperception that needs to be cleared up. I don't think I'm going to be able to fit it into my schedule without some help, however (see below).

My next solo project for Baen will be the sequel to SWORD OF THE SOUTH, and it's probable that the next solo project after THAT will be the sequel to THROUGH FIERY TRIALS, for Tor.

And as soon as Joelle and I can get our schedules to align (I've been really busy; she's working on her first solo novel; AND she's a new mother), we will be returning to the Multiverse and the sequel to THE ROAD TO HELL. We know exactly where that universe needs to go, but it actually requires a lot more preplanning and notetaking than most of my other literary universes for a lot of reasons.

Now, having said all of that, it is likely that I'm going to be doing more collaborative projects in that same timeframe and moving forward. There are several reasons for that. One is that I've realized that I need to cut down on my output. For years, I did somewhere around 750,000 words a year, but I'm not in my 30s or my 40s anymore. I'll be 66 this year, and I've come to the conclusion that if I'm going to edit myself as tightly as I really need to be editing, then I'm going to have to limit my production to something more like FIVE HUNDRED thousand words. One of the consequences of that is that it has been forcibly born in upon me that I am not going to have time to tell all the stories rattling around inside my brain. I may not be antediluvian, but I ain't no spring chicken anymore, either. So I have decided that I have to enlist help to get all (or, at least, as many as possible of) those stories told, and I've always been more comfortable working with collaborators than some writers. After all, the very first novel I sold was a collaboration with Steve White and, overall, I play pretty well with others.

Another reason is that come June or July of next year, it will be thirty years since I made my first professional sale has a novelist when Toni Weisskopff, speaking for Jim Baen, bought INSURRECTION from Steve and me. It's time I start paying it forward a little bit, and if I'm in a position to help people who I think are good, strong writers reach a wider readership by collaborating with me — whether it's in the Honorverse or in an entirely new literary universe(s) like the GORDIAN PROTOCOL — then I should.

I do have a few hard and fast rules about doing collaborations, however. For one thing, I won't do them just to increase output. I hate literary sharecropping. There is a difference between simply trying to get titles out there and looking for help to tell stories you wouldn't have time to tell otherwise, and that difference is a very clear distinction in my mind when I look at projects and potential co-writers. I also won't do a collaboration unless I'm convinced that the final product will be AT LEAST as good as either of the writing partners would have done writing solo. And I won't do a collaboration unless I expect to learn something or to teach something in the process. And I should point out that I have NEVER done a collaboration in which I didn't learn SOMETHING along the way.

Collaborating is far easier today than it used to be. As both Eric and I have commented elsewhere, the Internet means that writers can collaborate across state lines, across national borders, or even across oceans, as readily as they used to be able to collaborate if they lived in the same house or next door to each other. That means I can have multiple projects underway simultaneously and to be literally an email away from all of my writing partners at the same time. That doesn't mean I'm going to be able to make all of my schedules align, or that I will suddenly magically be able to undertake all of the writing projects I wish I could undertake. But I figure that for an old fart pushing 66, I ain't doing all that bad.

I'm not planning on shuffling off anytime soon, but there are stories that I really, really want to get told and there are people who I'd like to work with deeply enough so that if something happened to me (God forbid), series readers have invested decades in won't just stop in mid-sentence without someone else who knows and loves the characters and the universes being in a position to bring at least some closure to them.

So that's where I am.

A femme fatal, would that be Alicia DeVries?


BTW it was previously posted it on the board, but not as detailed.

I am glad that Mr Weber is smart enough to know his limits. Some people load to much weight on their shoulders and break under the weight.

In my company, my foreman died because of an heart attack, he was only 53 years old. Two co-workers of me are currently out of their job, also because of an (lighter) heart attack. To much stress isn´t good for anyone.

Seeing forward to read all the new books Mr Weber was talking about and wish for all of us, that he can and will write for us for a lond time.

Of all of these, the one I'm looking forward to is the next Anton and Victor novel. I'd like it to wrap up the Mesa arc, although whatever Eric and RFC do will, I'm sure, be excellent.

Very informative and I hope that David continues to look after his health, not only for his family's sake (and they are the most important factor), but also speaking personally that we can continue enjoying his stories for a very long while to come