On January 4th I wrote a process post about the new Goddess’s Honor trilogy I plan to be working on during 2021. While high fantasy, it is going to be pretty darn political as it deals with a successor picking up the pieces of a failing empire in the face of a bigger threat.
Um.
I was working on worldbuilding the morning of January 6th, and not following the news or social media. I stopped a little bit before noon to start a Zoom meeting I was hosting for my local Soroptimist chapter. I was greeted with the blare of someone’s TV and the news that there was a violent assault happening on the US Capitol, apparently with the intent to stop the certification of the results of the 2020 election.
That put paid to doing any work on the trilogy for that day—and, to be honest, I still can’t get back to it. Writing the aftermath of necessary but horrendous regime change is still just a little bit raw.
But I wrote a long essay about Writing the Revolution, which is available over on my political Substack (https://joyce14d.substack.com/p/writing-the-revolution). I brought forward a project I’ve been musing about for some time now, which was to transcribe and post two term papers I wrote while working in politics and getting my Political Science degree. In addition, I have a pile of clippings and giveaway literature from the ‘80s and ‘90s that focus on the rise of the then-titled New Christian Right. The process of sorting and analyzing that literature, then writing about it, is going to be one of my side projects throughout 2021, along with republishing political work I wrote during the ‘90s.
For years I’ve been saying that we were going to have major political problems in the ‘20s. This material is the basis for those assertions.
But what about fiction?
Sooner or later I’ll get back to the new Goddess’s Honor trilogy, which still needs a title. I haven’t liked a lot of the suggestions but it may end up becoming Goddess’s Oath or Goddess’s Vow. Burden was suggested but it isn’t quite right. It should still be on track for release in late 2021 or early 2022, nonetheless. I just can’t focus on it until things settle down a bit on the political front.
That doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing fiction. I have…but the only character who’s speaking to me right now is Gabriel Martiniere. The Martiniere Legacy trilogy is Ruby’s story, just as The Heritage of Michael Martiniere is Mike’s—but Gabe has things to say, especially about those years between getting together with Ruby up to the opening of Inheritance.
It’s not going to be a big book (ha! I said that about Heritage as well. We shall see). First Christmas Together will be part of it, and between other pieces and the one I wrote about the birth of Gabe’s son Brandon this week, I’ve got about half the material I need already.
It will include what happened during Gabe and Ruby’s divorce. Early days at Moondance and Gabe’s relationship with his second wife Rachel. The formative elements which forged him into the man who could effectively stand up to Philip Martiniere, remarry Ruby, become the Martiniere, and speak out as an advocate for the elimination of indentured servitude.
I’m looking at a possible April/May publication date for Broken Angel: The Lost Years of Gabriel Martiniere. So yes, there will be a fifth Martiniere Legacy book.
Justine is slinking around scheming about her book as well, but we shall see how quickly she decides to speak up after Gabe’s book comes out. She may decide to stay silent.
We shall see.
