First off, I hope everyone has been enjoying Embers so far. If you haven’t grabbed a copy yet, you can do that HERE! I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but I’ve seriously been so excited to share this book with you all. Finally being able to put it out there in front of your eyeballs has been almost liberating.
…which brings me to the topic at hand. If you’ve followed my work and enjoyed the Ziva Payvan series, you may be wondering what comes next. It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for a while now, but it’s been gnawing at me extra hard over the last few weeks. That tends to happen when you start coming up on the end of a project you’ve poured your heart and soul into and need to, you know, actually come up with a plan for how to move forward.
So buckle up, people, because I’m about to get all candid on you.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit of an emotional wreck on release day last week. It was actually kind of funny because I knew good and well half the stuff I was upset about wasn’t stuff I needed to be upset about, but there was just kind of a jumble of feelings that needed to be sorted out (sounds a little like a certain character in Embers, doesn’t it?). Part of it simply had to do with the fact that, as I’ve mentioned, it was such a relief to not only be done with the book but also to finally be able to share it with people. And, news flash, when a book deals with deep, emotional journeys for the characters, the author has to channel all of that to an extent while writing it, so that may or may not have left me a bit mopey as well. Then I was getting all of these wonderful, heartfelt early reviews, and people were responding to things in the story in precisely the way I wanted them to. Add to all of that the daunting idea that any new project—regardless of what it was—would have to be started completely from scratch, and the fact that I was just plain tired, and it was quite the weird, dissonant recipe for a few shed tears (while I laughed at myself for being dramatic).
But those aforementioned early reviews—no matter how wonderful and heartfelt—were hitting me in a different way, too. All three of the initial reviews from beta readers mentioned in some manner how Embers was the conclusion of the Ziva Payvan saga. This, at its heart, was also not something to be upset about; I’m not really spoiling anything when I say the book was definitely designed to cap off the current plot and character arcs. It was always intended to be an ending, more definitive than Ronan, but still left open enough to leave room for more (in the trailer I made for the book, I even said the story came to a “close,” rather than an “end”). But seeing that same comment made universally by three separate individuals got me asking myself some deeper questions. Is it the conclusion?… Should it be the conclusion?
…At what point do you let go and move on?
And I think that right there is what was messing with my head the most and causing the severest of the Release Day Blues™. I’ve always had plenty of other ideas for future stories I’d like to work on, but Ziva & Co. are pretty much all I’ve ever known. The idea of closing their book—so to speak—for good has always been, quite frankly, terrifying, so I’ve wanted to just keep writing them forever. At the same time, knowing the ending I had in mind for Embers, I didn’t want to risk somehow ruining that by trying to drag the series out longer than it should go (I touched on this a little in my last blog post).
And then it hit me
…in the midst of a semi-tearful rant to a family member on this very topic: I AM AN INDEPENDENT AUTHOR. This is my story and my characters and I can do literally whatever I want. I don’t have a publisher breathing down my neck telling me what to write and how to write it. That is absolutely the best thing about indie publishing; aside from, you know, following basic etiquette and maintaining a professional presence, there are really no constraints whatsoever.
I think articulating all of that aloud (“I can do whatever I want so why am I upset about this?”) is what kinda snapped me out of my silly stupor. The notion was just as liberating—if not more so—as the Embers publication itself.
Now Embers has been out in the wild for about a week and a half, and I’m over it 😂
So anyway!
If you’ve finished reading Embers already—and even if you haven’t, don’t worry, this isn’t really a spoiler—you may have seen this little note I left at the end.
So here’s the deal: as the note says, the Ziva Payvan series as we know it is indeed over, but there’s still much more to come from the Ziva Payvan universe (which really does need a name—if anyone ever has any ideas, holler at me haha). Whenever we see Ziva & Co. again, it’ll be new material, a new plot arc, new starting points for new readers, etc. I anticipate some shorter, more contained stories, and I do already have some ideas I need to flesh out. It’s also certainly possible that my brain will conjure up more galaxy-spanning, high-stakes material like what we’ve seen previously in the series. There are also some short story concepts I’ve wanted to play with.
Then I’ve also had ideas for other full-length novels, but I’ve always been hesitant to pursue them because of my aforementioned fear of deviating from the Ziva Payvan universe. But I figure hey, I’ve created this whole galaxy of worlds and alien races and war and politics—why not just set those other novels in the same universe? Thus, my next* major project is a new story starring a Durutian bounty hunter, set on a distant Fringe world called Cruth (if you’re particularly eagle-eyed, you may have noticed Cruth is already included on my galaxy map). This Durutian bounty hunter is also related to some characters we already know from the series, and there’s another subtle connection to something that was mentioned briefly in Embers. It’ll be fun to have it tie in a little with the other books but still have it be its own story—a person would not be missing anything if they hadn’t read the rest of the series. I’m also very excited about the world-building in this one.
I say “next” with an asterisk, however, because while I’m plotting this one, I’d also like to be working on plotting and outlining for potential Ziva & Co. continuations so that I’m able to either a) work on writing them simultaneously or b) be able to jump into one right after the other. Now, you may be thinking, “But EJ, you originally tried to do that with Fracture and Embers and it went horribly.” Yes, yes it did. But I was also trying to write those books in tandem without any sort of outline. Gives me an ulcer just thinking about it now. The idea is that I’d have a much more solid structure to work with this time.
So, we’ll see how it goes. The fact of the matter is it may be a while before you see anything new from me (hopefully not four years this time, but still). Frankly, it sucks having to start completely from scratch, regardless of how excited you are about new projects.
On top of all that…
There’s also maintenance to be done with the current series. One of the things that’s been on my to-do list since Fracture’s publication is to look into hardcover development, and now that Embers is done, it’s as good a time as any. I’ve actually thought it would be really cool to do some sort of special edition hardcover of The Collection, but it would make for one chonky doorstop regardless of what tweaks I made to formatting, trim size, and font size, so I’m not sure how feasible it would be. But hardcovers of all the individual books are definitely on the table.
I’ve also recently gotten several new inquiries about whether my series is available in audio, which always rekindles my interest in pursuing that venture. Audiobook development can be incredibly expensive, but if there’s actually enough interest, it’ll be worth it.
In conclusion!
I always try to post regular updates about my current projects on social media, but particularly with Facebook, I never know how many people are actually able to see the things I share. The best possible way to get the latest info is to subscribe to my newsletter (and then of course to make sure that newsletter doesn’t end up in your email spam folder, or lost in your Gmail Promotions folder). And please never hesitate to reach out with questions or comments directly.
Before I do ANYTHING though, I’m letting myself take a much-needed break and play through Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. It’s been sitting untouched on my shelf since it came out in November 2020 because I know how unproductive I am while I’m gaming and I wouldn’t let myself play until Embers was done (you’re welcome). I’ve always been a fan of the AC franchise and have really loved the open-world RPG feel of the last couple of installments, so I’ve been enjoying Valhalla a lot so far as well. It’s just so pretty!
So anyway, I’ll be around. If you’ve enjoyed the Ziva Payvan series, I hope you’ll stick with me and check out what else I’ve got in store!
