The End of a Bookgasm

As I emerged out of my home in the last week and did social-ish things, most conversations I had with people I know started like this:

Other person: “Oh hey! How are you doing?”
Me: “Ok, just finished the book.”
Them: “That’s awesome!  Which book was this again?”
Me: (I should probably start carrying around a pocket flow chart…)

If I was going to summarize 2017 up in terms of work-themes, I would have to call it “The Year of Books.”  I didn’t plan it that way, but that’s how it ended up.

The year started off with final edits on The Witch’s Cauldron, which was officially released in May.  Just prior to the release, I was getting the second draft in for Sigil Witchery. So as I was getting that book completed, I was turning around to promote TWC, from book signings and radio interviews to touring the country over the summer. While I was on the first tour in May, Jason Mankey and I put together a proposal for The Witch’s Altar for the Witch’s Tools series.  That project got greenlighted quickly, but we ran into a scheduling conundrum.  We each had also contracted for 3rd books, and there are catalogs and series to think about.  So we ended up shifting gears to get the first draft of TWA completed for October, pushing back our other projects.  Essentially I came off of the summer tour/festival season and then wrote half a book, and went into the fall festival season. Then got the feedback for the second draft on TWA, as I was working on my 3rd-now-4th book, Weave the Liminal: The Path of the Modern Traditional Witch.  The second draft got turned in the first week of December, and I turned in WTL’s first draft on the 18th.  And while this was all going down, Sigil Witchery got back from the printers a bit early, so despite the official release date being January 2018 – it’s now available.

Got that?

Yeah, that sure seems like a lot of books to me too, so I totally understand why folks are like, “damn, which book now?”  This year basically became the perfect storm of books.

Timeline-wise, TWC was contracted at the end of 2015, the first draft turned in spring of 2016, second draft due in the middle of the summer. It didn’t have such a pushy schedule since it’s part of a series, and the publisher wisely spaced out the release of each book.  It was at PantheaCon in 2016 that I taught my sigil workshop and had such a tremendous response that by the end of the weekend, I mentioned to Elysia (my editor) about doing a book, and she encouraged me to propose it.  So by June I was sending her a proposal for that and a few other projects.  After some discussion, we decided the sigil book was the one to focus on, and that project started to move forward in the fall.  According to my email, I then proposed Weave the Liminal back in January of this year – just as I was turning in the first draft of Sigil Witchery.

So in theory, I was looking at about a book a year, which by official release dates, is pretty spot on:
The Witch’s Cauldron: May 2017
Sigil Witchery: January 2018
{insert: The Witch’s Altar, late 2018}
Weave The Liminal: Early 2019

So really it’s all Jason Mankey‘s fault.  No of course it’s not, that just seems to have been the “pin the tail on Pan” sub-theme of this year – blame it on the Mankey.  Which is totally not fair, because Jason is an awesome human being.  We’re just both gluttons for punishment when it comes to work.

My plan for 2018 is mainly to work on art and art-related projects (Which may include an oracle or Tarot or both), so taking a break from writing new books in 2018. Unless it’s an instruction manual to go with a deck. Of course, I’ll have final edits on TWA and second draft/final edits and illustrations for WTL to do, but art is the focus. For reals.

If you’d like to purchase a signed copy of either of my available books, you can head over here: http://lauratempestzakroff.com/shop.html –  I also highly recommend supporting your local independent bookstore or witch/occult shop.  Llewellyn (the publisher) ships worldwide and also has specials to keep an eye on.  Of course, there’s always amazon too.

Also, you should definitely pick up a copy of The Witches’ Almanac, Ltd – this is my second year of writing for them – which is a huge squee, because I have been using this wonderful resource since 1996.