Okay, okay, so I stumbled into another four-book trilogy.

I really thought it would be different this time, despite having been wrong more often than the Flat Earth Society.  I really did.  And it could have been a three-book series, but it would have been the same kind of trilogy as the original Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn—two long books and then a horrifyingly gigantic final volume that would just squeeze into one swollen hardcover, but then be broken into two for paperbacks. 

But even that technical “trilogy” is denied me.  My publishers won’t do it again.  Back in the day, it was very hard for them to publish To Green Angel Tower in hardcover, and they’re just not willing to go through all that again.  For one thing, I’m pretty sure the profit margins in print publication have shrunk since the late ’80s, and also it’s getting harder to find companies who make specialty paper for long books.  The stuff we used on TGAT was so fine you could slice amoebas in half with a page and not even dull the edge.  Finding the same quality paper nowadays might triple the cover price we’d have to charge.

So, instead of a single monstrous volume of The Navigator’s Children, we will now have two smaller (but still pretty darn long) books, Into The Narrowdark and then The Navigator’s Children.  And now I have to finish and edit them separately, because I’m submitting the first half (which means it’s then largely out of my hands) before I finish the second.  That means that no matter what changes I might want to make while working on Navigator’s ending, I can’t fix anything I calculated wrong or forgot about in Narrowdark. So I’m being very cautious before sending the first half off to start the publication process.

I won’t bore you with why this makes things difficult, but it does, and whatever else people may say about me (like, “He smells like a furniture showroom,” or “he always wears the wrong shoes”) I will never have them say, “He’s a sloppy writer.”  My books are woven together very carefully—it’s pretty much a requirement when you have as many plot-lines and characters as I use—and I won’t sacrifice that for anything.

Time is always in short supply, of course.  I wish I had more, but I pride myself on getting books written with some regularity, even long ones, and I don’t mind a challenge.  And the more I work on Osten Ard again, the more I love being back in the place.  In fact, there’s every chance that there will be more Osten Ard books after this, and I intend to make that clear at the end of Navigator: not in a cliffhanger-ish way, but as an indicator of what things in this four-book trilogy will still be hanging around, waiting to be resolved.  For instance, I have become very intrigued by the young but nasty Turia Ingadaris, just for instance, and would like to work with her (rather disturbing) character again.

And as far as I know, the two sundered volumes of what was meant to be a single book will be published fairly close together—publishers hope for six months between them.  We aim to make you wait as little as possible for the last half.

So now you have the update on my shame and embarrassment at having failed to deliver the trilogy I promised.  You may mock me at your leisure—I cannot pretend I don’t deserve it.  I just have too much to say (as anyone who has met me already knows) and I feel honor-bound to give all plot-lines and characters their full arc, which means I’m really writing about twenty separate stories all tangled together, and which makes it a bit hard to estimate the overall length of a book or series of books.

Oh, who am I kidding?  I’m just crap at writing actual three-book trilogies. But this doesn’t mean I’m utterly worthless.  I’m kind to strangers, and have never kicked a child or dog.  I hold doors for people.  I pick up after myself.  So when you see people saying, “This Williams dude can’t count, ha ha!” it might be nice to mention that though that is obviously true, I am also tidy and (generally) kind.

My reputation is in your hands, my friends.  I beg you—be gentle.