Blackwater Requiem, Current Project, and Writing Process Update

I wanted to take a moment and talk about what all is going on with my writing currently. Obviously as a writer I have to, you know, write. Crazy concept, I know. But as I get asked, not infrequently, as to when the next Marsh book will be coming out, I wanted to take a moment and lay it all out.

Blackwater Requiem

The book I am writing at this moment is roughly title Blackwater Requiem. If you think Jaws meets Deliverance, you won't be too far off base. Set in Jubal County, it features a group of friends going on a kayak trip who run into some bad things in, and around, the water.

I am just over 8k words into it, with no clear idea of just how many words it will be. If it's going to be a novella, it will end up being a damn long one. I suspect it will come in at least the 50k word mark, but again, it's early days. You can actually read the first three very rough chapters on my Patreon as we speak. 

You can partly blame Ben Meeks for this. I pitched him the idea to it, in depth, over a long trip to some con where we were riding together. Since then he's brought it up to me, that he really loves the idea. He's been telling me I just need to sit down and get it out there. I had been holding off though, thinking that I should just get straight to Marsh.

But here's the thing:  I know me. It's going to nag at me until I write it. So my intention is this will be the last thing I write (new) before I start on Marsh 7. Get it out of my system, then I can focus on Marsh.

At the current pace I am writing, I should have it finished (draft 1) by the end of the year. Maybe a bit earlier, if things go well. 

But What About That Crimson Horror Trilogy?

They aren't going anywhere. Two of them are complete first drafts. The third is around half written. But I hit on a way to tie them more fully into Jubal County and Howard Marsh (where I can have him as a major secondary character), so I want to do that. These books will explain where Marsh was during the time jump that will take place between the first 6 book arc and the next. 

My thought process is that I will slowly be working on these in the background. They are written, mostly, so now it's just editing and reworking. Blackwater Requiem is the focus, and then Marsh 7 will be. But I will be doing some edits on this trilogy along the way, with an eye to having them start coming out in 2026. 

The New Process

I have a new writing process. This year I have not gotten much written, and it has really, really chaffed. Largely it is due to the fact that, in the mother of all first world problems, I have gotten a couple of nice promotions/raises in the past year or so. As my roles and responsibilities at work have grown, I have been much more mentally drained at the end of the day.

This means that when I would sit down to write at night, the words were a real struggle to get out. So I tended to just focus on back end type tasks. So I would feel like I was getting stuff done, which I was, it just wasn't creative type stuff. Which was not ideal.

So my process now is that I get up a 4:30am every week day. This is a lot earlier than I was getting up (previously it was closer to 5:50am), and other than the office cats, there is no one else awake in the house. So I am able to write with no interruptions (other than office cat Oscar trying to lay on my keyboard). 

I've been doing this for a few weeks now, and it's working. I'm averaging close to 3k words a week written, which while that is below what I view as my 'standard' pace of 5k words, is a damn bit better than the roughly 0k words I have been achieving. And I think in the coming weeks as I adjust and settle in to this routine, I will be able to get back to that pace. Fingers crossed.

So When Do We Get More Marsh?

The question on everyone's mind! When will the 7th book in the Redemption of Howard Marsh book come out?!

Ok, so assuming I finish the first draft of Blackwater Requiem by the end of the year, then I will go straight from that draft, into writing Marsh 7. As you all know each book is comprised of two novellas, and I have both of them plotted out (as much as I plot out any of them that is, which is 'very loosely'). 

If I have hit my stride, and am in fact doing 3-5k words a week, then you could expect it to take me between 3-5 months to write it. Then factor a couple of months for me to polish it, then a month at my editor, then a month to actually publish it. So late summer or early fall of 2026 Marsh 7 should be hitting shelves.

My dream would be that in 2026 you will be getting Marsh 7, Blackwater Requiem, and Crimson Horror 1 (and if all goes reeeeeeally well the second in this trilogy). I would also love to get out a few short story collections (but lord, how long have I been saying that now?). 

But yeah, with Capital of Nightmares coming out late 2025, it's looking like in a span of about a year you should have at least 4 news books from me, with potentially as many as six. 

I mean, so long as I have the money to pay my editor haha! That's going to be a lot of dollars going to a lot of words getting properly finessed!