Any news on Peace Talks

[Dina]

The problem for the beta readers is that they have to keep secrets. If Peace talks was published as a serial, like a lot of books used to be in the past, we could discuss every chapter here and reread them in all detail. It would be a lot of fun.

Exactly

[AndiSue]

Did we skip/miss an update on 44?

The updates have not been every chapter.

December 6 - Chapter 36
December 17 - Chapter 38
December 27 - Chapter 39
January 17 - Chapter 41
January 31 - Chapter 43
February 21 - Chapter 45

[segaily]

The updates have not been every chapter.

December 6 - Chapter 36
December 17 - Chapter 38
December 27 - Chapter 39
January 17 - Chapter 41
January 31 - Chapter 43
February 21 - Chapter 45

Not sure on the rest but we got a chapter 40 update.  It was only about 3 days before the chapter 41 update however so not many people noticed. 

[segaily]

The problem for the beta readers is that they have to keep secrets. If Peace talks was published as a serial, like a lot of books used to be in the past, we could discuss every chapter here and reread them in all detail. It would be a lot of fun.

That really would be amazing!  Though I would not want to force those kinds of deadlines that the serials in the past had.  If a chapter needs a few extra days to be right I am OK with that.   I think Stephan King tried something semi like that at one point with just asking people to pay. I do not remember the details however as I have never been a huge fan of reading horror.   Though I did really enjoy the movie based on Misery. 

[jbmdw45]

The problem for the beta readers is that they have to keep secrets. If Peace talks was published as a serial, like a lot of books used to be in the past, we could discuss every chapter here and reread them in all detail. It would be a lot of fun.

Also, they have to keep track of all the different versions of history they've read. It's easy for us to spot continuity errors like e.g. Anna Valmont telling the "wrong" story in Skin Game of how she first got involved with Nicodemus, because we only read one version of Death Masks. For the beta readers it's probably harder, and for Jim himself keeping track of what "actually" happened must be a nightmare.

[toodeep]

e.g. Anna Valmont telling the "wrong" story in Skin Game of how she first got involved with Nicodemus.

Has that been confirmed as a mistake?  There are some things that look like mistakes (such as Mort's house changing from a stucco house, to a condo, and back to a stucco house between books) that I thought WoJ had indicated was not writing error.  I believe the current assumption for how this can be is that something that will be written in the future involving time travel will effect things causing this continuity change in the story.

[Dina]

Not sure on the rest but we got a chapter 40 update.  It was only about 3 days before the chapter 41 update however so not many people noticed.

42 too.

[Independent George]

I'm suddenly nervous about the fact that the completion of Peace Talks seems likely to coincide with April Fool's Day. You know what that jerk likes to do to us on April Fool's Day...

[AndiSue]

Also, they have to keep track of all the different versions of history they've read. It's easy for us to spot continuity errors like e.g. Anna Valmont telling the "wrong" story in Skin Game of how she first got involved with Nicodemus, because we only read one version of Death Masks. For the beta readers it's probably harder, and for Jim himself keeping track of what "actually" happened must be a nightmare.

In one of the Q&As around the Brief Cases release Jim said exactly this. I happened to transcribe a Q&A for another group and here is what Jim said:

"Oh, I don’t check stuff. I don’t check stuff because it would be useless for me to check stuff. When you’re writing a book you’ll go through and plan it out and then get the rough draft written and then you’ll clean that up and send that to beta readers. Then you’ll go through and changes things based on feedback from them, go through it again one more time and see if there’s anything that that needs to be done, then it goes off to the editor and the editor comes back with some comments and then you change it some more. Then it goes off to the line editor and then it comes back and you’ve got to fix all the grammar and spelling errors and then once you’re done with that it goes to the proof stage and then you’ve got to read the proof. So by the time the book is done I’ve seen between 9 and 11 slightly different versions of the same story and in my head I can’t keep track of which one wound up in the books. You guys have read one version. I’ve kind of got this cloud of parallel universes rather than a working knowledge of what actually happened in the book universe. So that’s why I have friends. Priscilla Spencer is very good at that. My friend Lowell in Chicago is really good at that. And when I say “really good” what I mean is it is so annoying. But really, really necessary. Because I’ll write this big scene and be like “boom boom boom boom POW! Wow! That was really good!” and I’ll send it off to the beta readers and they’ll come back and be like “Yeah, you killed that character three books ago.” Stuff like that happens to me." - June 7, 2018, Brief Cases Book Tour - Joseph-Beth Bookstore in Lexington, KY https://youtu.be/Df_3c02lelg

[morriswalters]

The updates have not been every chapter.

December 6 - Chapter 36
December 17 - Chapter 38
December 27 - Chapter 39
January 17 - Chapter 41
January 31 - Chapter 43
February 21 - Chapter 45

To which you can add chapter 46 as of 3/1 2019

[KurtinStGeorge]

The updates have not been every chapter.

December 6 - Chapter 36
December 17 - Chapter 38
December 27 - Chapter 39
January 17 - Chapter 41
January 31 - Chapter 43
February 21 - Chapter 45

To which you can add chapter 46 as of 3/1 2019

So let's do some math.

December 6 - Chapter 36
December 17 - Chapter 38
11 Days - 2 chapters
December 17 - Chapter 38
December 27 - Chapter 39
10 days - 1 chapter However, I will subtract 1 day for Christmas
December 27 - Chapter 39
January 17 - Chapter 41
21 days - 2 chapters Again, I will subtract 1 day for New Year's Day
January 17 - Chapter 41
January 31 - Chapter 43
11 days - 2 chapters
January 31 - Chapter 43
February 21 - Chapter 45
21 days - 2 chapters
February 21 - Chapter 45
March 1 - Chapter 46
8 days - 1 chapter

So 11+10+21+11+21+8-2 =  80 Days estimated writing time (It doesn't matter if Jim's writing schedule is 5,6 or 7 days a week.  Assuming his schedule is steady; which I know is a huge assumption in late December, the total number of days are what matter.)

80/10 chapters = 8 days per chapter  Of course, the assumption here is each chapter is the same or very close to the same in word count.

So; in theory, it's just a question of how many chapters Jim has left to complete.  In reality, I don't know if the last chapter or three; the ones which contain the final boss battle(s), might take a day or two longer each, but I'll ignore that possibility for now.  If Peace Talks is 52 chapters long (I believe someone counted and said the last four of five books have been about 52 chapters each.), it should take 48 more days.  (6 chapters x 8 days per chapter)  If Peace Talks is 55 chapters long (I think Cold Days was 55 chapters long.  I know it had the highest word count.), then it will take 72 more days. (9 chapters x 8 days per chapter.)

Final assumption.  When we are given a chapter number, that means Jim has finished that chapter, not that he has started working on that chapter.  If the later is the case, I have to add 8 more days to my estimates, which I really don't want to do.

March 1 + 48 days = April 18
March 1 + 72 days = May 12

So now that I've done some simple math and made a rough estimate when we can expect Peace Talks to be finished, it will be interesting to see how close I get Jim gets to meeting my estimates.   If Peace Talks is finished within this time frame, I expect we will get it in time for Christmas.
 

[Maz]

KSG's post made me smile.  Thank you.

[segaily]

March 1 + 48 days = April 18
March 1 + 72 days = May 12

So now that I've done some simple math and made a rough estimate when we can expect Peace Talks to be finished, it will be interesting to see how close I get Jim gets to meeting my estimates.   If Peace Talks is finished within this time frame, I expect we will get it in time for Christmas.

I have been meaning to do this myself. Thanks.  If nothing else it is fun to look at.  If only the update posts included the total planned number of chapters we could really go crazy with predicting publication dates.  I am currently going with hitting shelves just before Halloween   I like to be optimistic. 

[morriswalters]

Chapter 47 3/4/2019

[Just Al]

Just as an FYI, for everyone here, plus Jim.
Here is an essay that Charles Stross wrote on his own problems with writing very long book series

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2019/03/lessons-learned-writing-really.html