Friends,

I hope the New Year continues to go well for you in these first weeks, and that this post finds you in good health and spirits! What I write to you today is my reflection on the writing and publishing process of my newest book, Imminent.

The planning was first completed in the early fall of 2014 with the writing beginning in earnest in that December. I completed the Prologue and Epilogue first before moving to the body of the book; this was mostly because the story that takes place in these parts envelops the story that comprises the book’s body, so it made sense to write it this way. I completed these bookend story parts before New Years Day 2015.

Cover of Imminent, designed by Ilian Georgiev

I then spent time writing and re-planning, then rewriting, the main body of the book, where the meat of the story takes place. There were a few major changes that took place in the first 6-8 months of 2015, most of them the result of my attempts to refine the story that came from my initial planning. I wanted to make this one unique in its own right yet familiar and relatable to the others before it, in a way to link the stories together in an abstract manner. This is one of the primary challenges with each book because it’s something that I want to get right, but can at times seem rather difficult to accomplish.

Once July had come and gone – a month where no new writing had taken place – I found myself refreshed and recharged to continue chipping away at my desired word count. Keep in mind, I advise that it’s not good to let a desired word count dictate the creation of the story in the strictest sense, but that it’s good to have a word count for which to aim when writing. The books in the WWII historical fiction collection are considered novellas, so I want them to not exceed 50K words. As a point of reference, my first book (Resistant) was just shy of 38K words, my second book (Unguarded) came in at just under 48K words, and Imminent is just under 47K.

As the process drew to its closing in the late fall and early winter of 2015, I finalized the cover design based on ideas I had from 2014. Most of the final covers that you see are very close to my original design ideas, if not the actual designs themselves. After a handful of revisions, we landed on what you saw above in this post. There is reason behind how the cover was designed, which I’ll detail in another post in the near future. I then finalized my manuscript and submitted it to Amazon with a few days to spare before my pre-order deadline of December 28.

I’d like to give special mention to one of my writing friends who edited the story for me, and who also gave me some great insight into writing and editing, as well as some much needed tips. At her request, I came up with a ghost name for her: Bella Migliorare. Here’s a little fun fact – in Italian, bella means good or nice, and migliorare is the root form of the word improvement. Since she made a “good improvement” to the story, the name made itself. So to my editor, I thank you!

As of this post, the Kindle and print versions of the book are available, so if you’re interested in this story or in my work in general, I encourage you to check it out on Amazon – the Kindle version is currently $2.99 and the print is $8.99. Don’t tarry in picking up your Kindle copy, for the price will go to the normal price of $3.99 soon. And I’d very much appreciate a review when you’ve finished, if you’d be so kind. With this project completed, it is time to move forward with the next one: Book Four in this collection should be started in the coming week or two, and I’ll continue to post details of its progress in the coming months.

I thank you for taking time out of your day to read this post. Your encouragement and support mean a great deal to me. If you aren’t yet on my mailing list, I encourage you to subscribe to get the inside scoop on my work and my writing life. I’d love to connect with you and share my journey and experiences with you.

Until next time,

-Eli