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ILONA ANDREWS

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Sorry the post is so late. Gordon and I plotted for several hour to finish our current project. All the braining is going into the book. It is at 85,000 now, and I just assured Mod R that it will not be longer than Bayou Moon. So we must cap at 125K.

She just emailed back suggesting 150K book. Mod R not helping.

Small Magics is being recorded for your audio pleasure as we speak, and we will probably offer a new hard cover printed edition for you. A lot of you emailed us letting us know that you missed out on the Subterranean edition, so we will try to remedy that. We are looking at a holiday release so tail end of fall, beginning on winter. We will let you know the date when it firms up.

Small Magic audio will feature Kate and Curran, I mean Hillary and Michael. They have done amazing work on the Wilmington Years, so this promises to be very fun.

We will be attending Coastal Magic Convention in February of 22-24, and we might have just accidentally and through kindness of Jeaniene Frost and Lee, found a room for Dragoncon, so if that works out, we will try to jump into the Dragoncon track for the upcoming year. If they will have us. We went once and it was overwhelming but great.

Sorry, I have like .25% of the brain left, because still trying to process all the plot.

Book go boom.

Must make the boom happen at the end.

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Comments

  2. The tail end of a big and consuming project really does some weird shit to the brain. I’m currently unable to write in my own language, English isn’t faring much better, and sometimes words really don’t come out how they should out of my mouth. I’m tired. Don’t wanna research plants no more, why garden

  3. Oh, I think more words are very helpful, and I know a whole bunch of people who will agree with me 😜

  4. YES! I’ll take a book boom any day from House Andrews. 😉 Mod R, please encourage them some more! 🤩

  5. Raises hand for giant fantasy novel. Back in the 90s, I think that was all I read.

    Seriously, I’m glad you can make it as big as you want it to be this time.

  9. I’ve been wanting to try DragonCon sometime. The Horde should get their own booth. Get on that ModR! You can fly over and join us. 😛

    • I agree we should have a BDH booth- we can get deals on tickets for rooms if we can get a block at the hotel they use too. I would totally run the BDH merch shop if anyone wants a volunteer!! I’ll keep eye out for news and do we have a discord channel or something for BDH for event planning and mingling..? However We’ve bought a house now so I’m praying the gas doesn’t leak again in the house and try to kill us-thank you new house I didn’t need that money at all🤦🏼‍♀️.

    • Don’t wait if you want to go in 2024. the hotels open up very shortly. I got my hotel and tickets already and this is for labor day next year.

      September isn’t even over.

      We don’t call it the Hotel Hunger Games for nothing.

      • I have my tickets for next year, but still no hotel. Hoping to score in the October hunger games. Otherwise, I may just bite the bullet and go with the Ritz, to the horror of my husband (and my wallet!).

  12. Yes! More words!! 📚📚📚
    (And Bayou Moon is my favorite of the Edge books. Cerise is feisty and William is, well, William. They are a well matched pair.)
    And glorious *boom* vid!!

  13. I don’t normally do cons. Florida in February does sound sort of inviting though. A friend has invited me down to her annual February in Florida trip. One of these years I will do it.

    We will read as many words as you care to write. Short story or brick book; it’s always a welcome respite from whatever craziness the world comes up with.

  15. I still have birthday wishes you were kind enough to record for me at Dragoncon. You were so gracious.
    I hope you make every scheduled convention and enjoy them all with lots of book sales!
    Make sure you schedule your introvert recovery times to follow each convention!

  16. Passion projects, which aren’t contractually required to be no more than XX number of words, should be as long as it takes to tell the story.

    Why limit yourselves? Go for the boom. All the boom. Boom-da-boom.

    Any word on mammogram results? Still need you to take care of yourself between writing and Gordon’s purging passion projects. ❤️

    • There’s a very old silly joke about a student being quizzed on a bear attack.
      Teacher: The bear is coming at you, what do you do?
      Student: I make a loud noise.
      Teacher: The bear roars even louder.
      Student: I run.
      Teacher: The bear runs faster.
      Student: I climb a tree.
      Teacher: The bear is climbing after you.
      Student: You know what, this isn’t fair, you’re on the side of the bear!

      😀 I’m on the side of the Horde. “We’ll write 125k”. “The BDH will read it”. “It can’t be 150k.” “The BDH will want 200!”

  19. That vid reminds me of the first line in a Terry Pratchett book:

    “In the beginning there was nothing…… which exploded.”

  20. Personally, I’m of the belief that the biggest problem with book length is that it’s still measured in “k”-s. I would instead recommend a switch to moles.

  24. Take however many words you need to tell the story properly. The BDH knows you have a tight grip on your editing, so don’t worry about anything we say about proper length now. Go for the BOOM.

  26. I’m from Western Canada and I attend Dragoncon every year. Last time I got a picture with you guys! Thank you again, that REALLY made my con!

    • I had lunch with a friend at DragonCon this year. God’s honest, that’s as about as close as I want to get. Interesting, but way,way too crowded. You ought to try LibertyCon or Imanginarium one year.

      • My much better half and I got engaged at Dragon Con… in 1997… Haven’t been back, it would be hard to top that moment.

  27. I’m with Mid R. 150 K sounds good. Actually. for me, it’s the longer the better. I guess that’s what y’all get for writing such good books. Only downside to a nice long book is the amount of time it takes you to get it done. See me shedding crocodile tears for you and other authors who write nice long books.

  28. I’m pretty sure the BDH would be happy with 1M words. I’d pay more for a huge book. Honestly, I’d pay more for any of your books. Sanderson’s books are not better and always more expensive than yours.

    • I’d even go for a serial format and pay by the chapter. COD, or subscription.

      I’m always delighted with the Big Boom and mic drop, but I wouldn’t be offended by a stealthy approach to same. ..hiss…hiss Hiss…Sizzle…pop…Pop…POP…Supports Crackling…Scream for HELP…BOOM BOOM…BOOM BOOM!!!

      But, I’m not the writer/artist. I am just another horde member and IA addict. Crawling back into my cave now.

  31. 150K is nice… yay for braining!

    the convention looks fun, but i’m not going to florida right now. be safe!

  32. I’ve been knee deep in my own projects; completely understand the lack of brain power for anything else.

    On that note – who are Hillary & Michael??

  33. I would love to see you at DragonCon! I go every year and saw you there a few years ago. I’d only read a few of the Kate books at that point and after seeing you two I became obsessed with your work! Hope y’all can make it happen.

  35. It’s like the fish’s “just keep swimming “ but “just keep writing “… lol looking forward to reading!

    🥰📖

  37. Brain drain is very real. I get like that when I do a lot of validating. I get like that after I explain a complex answer to a complex question. Jolly Ranchers hard candy helps just so far. All I want to do is watch mindless TV and not think. Thinking makes my head hurt. 🤪

  39. I’m excited about your new project! 150K sounds great to me. I’ve been rereading Kate’s books for the maybe tenth time and am really enjoying the series. I agree with the BDH that we’d gladly read even your grocery list.

  41. All the posts about long books made me think about the longest I read:
    Les Miserables by Victor Hugo – 545,925 words
    But I love The Count of Monte Cristo a lot more = 464 162
    As a usually offered as 3 books the Lord of the Rings but have seen it a a one book title too: it has 564 187 = also a book I love and reread again and again.

    Longest book I heard about has something around 3.2m words, but is not what I’d count as a ‘normal’ book, that seems to be Marienbad My Love by Mark Leach – 2.5 million words

    I’d take a word count of all of those too 😉 but am happy with all what the authors deem a good book, no stress only to please the reader please, no burn-out and still having fun writing is way more important

  43. Wow!

    I check the blog several times a day and this post didn’t show at all Monday and it just appeared a while ago.

  44. When Ilona says 125K, doesn’t that actually mean 150K, and we all know 150K ends up being more like 200K, no? 😉

    I hope you know I’m just kidding and will very, very happily read however many words HA writes, with or without a BOOM! But of course, we do like the BOOM. 😁

  46. if you want to write 150,000 words I’ll read it. I like big books, I cannot lie. I’ve read all of Diana Gabaldon’s including her ideas of a short story… that weren’t lol

  47. Whatever the word count is, the book will be preordered and read multiple times – just like I always do for HA books.

    Thank you for keeping theBDH informed and putting up with our nonsense. (Thanks to ModR included here, especially the “nonsense” part.)

  52. there’s a favorite quote I have from a scifi series Babylon 5. at the end of an episode, where destruction of the space station was avoided a character quips..
    No boom today, boom tomorrow. There’s ALWAYS a boom tomorrow.

  53. We’ll read as many words as you write, and still love them – so take as many as you need!

    Out of interest, do you ‘hear’ your characters in your head when they talk & you’re writing? If so, do they still sound as they did originally, or have their voices changed to sound like the audio narrators?

      • Thanks for the quick reply! I didn’t mean to imply you were mad or anything – just I’ve read some authors describing their characters as talking to them when they’re writing.

        Hope your Tuesday is going better than Monday.

  54. If it just happens to be 150k words we won’t say no. I’ve never been disappointed by a longer book from you both 😁📖📚
    Also I just finished reading Fourth Wing (it’s awesome totally recommend) and it reminded of that short story posted to the blog a while ago about the girl with the old dragon who gets Mulan style drafted to a spy organization… Idk if I’m remembering it correctly. Was that the three musketeers like story that Ilona said they wouldn’t be writing?? because I’d love to read more of it and if they need a big mainstream book to grab a new audience, lots of people are looking for more dragon books to read 👀 (that’s me looking for more dragon books to read) Just some food for thought. Love you all!!!!

  55. Oooo…. I’d LOVE to see you at D*Con next year. I sadly missed Jeanine as the one day I could work her D*Con schedule into mine my body “noped”. Aging sucks LOL. You should be early enough in the “guest” request queue it shouldn’t be an issue. I definitely would love to attend any panels should you guys do one or 2 🙂

    Also – you could do 200k words and I’m down for that LOL

    I’ll definitely keep an eye out for any hard backs you guys release so I can finally start building back my library with my favorite authors!

  58. Whoop whoop and a squee, too! So much great news!! So much to look forward to!! Thank you thank you! I honestly am having a hard time containing my happiness.

    • House Andrews have decided to not announce projects until the manuscript is close to an end or a preorder can be shared 🙂.

  60. Love it, though not the brain-dragging problems. The video finale makes me want to put in a link to the famed “Where’s the kaboom?” sequence from The Wabbit.

  61. I would LOVE to see you guys at DragonCon! We love it so much but don’t make many panels since we do cosplay repair. I would totally take a break to hear y’all!

  62. Yippee!!! New audios, new book. I can’t wait.

    Btw, I’m with Mod R, the more book the better 🤷🏻‍♀️

  63. I love the words from HA. The more the better.
    But, I am thinking more words more time. which is better?

  64. Oh, big boom! Does that mean all those little fragments that blew out will be books in the future? Just kidding, maybe. 😈

  65. its such a pretty boom!

    i understand brain drain. every year when i have to compare my medicare options and see if it’d be cheaper to switch to a different prescription part D plan or medicare advantage plan (and sadly, it often is), by the time i’ve explored all the options and compared them, my head explodes and there can be no more thinking that day. i overfilled my brain and cant brain anymore that day. maximum capacity has been exceeded. nothing more can compute.

  66. OOOh I live only like 1 hr from where this is being held. I really need to get in my request off for all the days now

  68. Hope you take time to decompress after recharge after this saga is penned. Recently saw an aquarium design gallery in Houston if such things tickle your fancy.

  71. Such a pretty BOOM!! I’m sure I’m not the only BDH member for whom a never ending book from HA seems like a slice of heaven. We all appreciate Mod R. helping nudge us all a bit closer. Keep up the good work! (250k seems like a nice round number to me.)

    I think we all have times when no further braining is possible. My husband laughed out loud when I quoted your blog in such a moment. He recently ran short of new authors to read and told me that I could pick one of mine that he hadn’t read yet for him to read next. He was finishing a prequel to a long series, so I had a couple weeks to ponder.

    Yep, he’s now making comments like: Curran picks peas out of Chinese food just like you do. I expect he will read the entire HA catalogue before he’s done. I did have a couple other series that were in the running, but the outcome was never really in doubt. It’s a good excuse to reread for me, too.

    Anyway, a big thank you for the many fun conversations ahead as we discuss your books, starting with Kate Daniels!

  72. I am heartbroken. You may be at Dragoncon next year… and I will not. I had reserved (last year) for this year hoping so much you might be attending, finally going even though. Meeting Jeaniene Frost was a treat, and she was kind enough not just to sign, but to let me take a photo of her signing, my Rippercushions tote bag. We had a chuckle at your expense and I would like to send you the picture, but can’t figure out how to upload it. She was delightful, of course. I used the Rippercushsions tote as my swag bag and it got love from the BDH along the way!

  73. I am excited for more books no matter the word count, and I am super excited for Small Magics in audio! Yay!

  77. Ilona wrote: “..and we might have just accidentally and through kindness of Jeaniene Frost and Lee, found a room for Dragoncon, so if that works out, we will try to jump into the Dragoncon track for the upcoming year. If they will have us. We went once and it was overwhelming but great.

    Of course they will have you! 🙂 Dragon Con ‘can’ be overwhelming, but this year it didn’t seem as if the Con had grown back to its pre-COVID numbers, with only 80 – 83,000 5-day membership holders in attendance, and with (I thought) fewer 1-day pass holders.

    Prior to this year I last attended Dragon Con in 2021, the year after the cancelled COVID year. Following this year’s Con, some regular attendees voiced the hope of the organizers keeping the attendance at the current “See, we’re cooperating with you CDC and Atlanta” level by permanently limiting 5-day membership availability; but I say, why keep a good Con down?

    I hope the room does comes through because I am SO looking forward to seeing you and Gordon at Dragon Con 2024! LOL! That is, if I can lock down my own room in the annual Dragon Con room-block reservation Hunger Games. 🙂

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