So I’ve been pretty heads-down lately, working hard to get my novel revised and synopsized and sent off to my agent (almost there, too!), but I wanted to give a quick run-down of the writerly news I’ve had lately. Most of it is good, too.

First, I finished the revisions to my young-adult, urban fantasy novel this morning. The book I’ve tentatively titled A Sudden Outbreak of Magic is done!!! I may have a thing or two to tweak, and a spell-check to run, but I think this sucker is there. I just have to send it off to my agent, along with an updated synopsis of the book, and short descriptions of what happens in books 2 and 3, just in case a publisher is interested in buying a trilogy.

Please, publisher, be interested in buying a trilogy! I want to write the next books to find out what happens to Kelley, Jeroan, Jimbo, and Polly. Not to mention Archie. And that dragon, too.

Second, I have a release date for A Gathering of Doorways! The date is January 27th. Almost exactly three months later than planned, but my book about lost kids, organic farms, ghostly jaguars, expanding dragons, and feral greyhounds is comin’ out! The book is at the printers now, and should be available for purchase this coming Tuesday.

Ironically, the book is coming out almost a year to the day after my SF novel The Wannoshay Cycle came out.

Third, I got the news a while back from Prime that there won’t be a second novel in my contract. Thanks to the tanking economy, Maps and Legends won’t come out from that publisher this year. It sucks, but in a way the news is good, because I haven’t finished writing the book yet (I sold the book “on spec” — basically on the strength of a three-page outline). And I’ve been too caught up in my YA novel(s) to even think about working on poor Maps and Legends. I’ll probably write this book after my baseball book and the sequels to my YA fantasy book. Sometime in 2010…

So it all works out. I’m just glad the Gathering of Doorways novel made it out, right before the cuts at the publisher started. Here’s hoping the printer prints those copies FAST!

Also, speaking of Gathering, I came across another review today from a few weeks back that somehow slipped under my radar. This one’s from Bookgasm:

It’s every parents’ worst nightmare: the disappearance of your child. In Michael Jasper’s fantasy A GATHERING OF DOORWAYS, the situation is more complicated than usual, because 5-year-old Noah has entered into “the Undercity,” a cavernous, underground world whose tunnels he navigates with the aid of a jaguar. Guilt-stricken dad Gil goes on the hunt for him, helping advance the adventure, but the scenes with Noah’s mother threaten to reverse that forward motion, or at least bring it to a halt. Descriptions of the forest ground suddenly opening up into a hole to swallow people are nightmarish, leading characters (and the reader) to princes, dragons and other strangers. The underwhelming novel’s just shy of satisfying, despite an ending that is poignant and real. A better tale of this type lies in John Connolly’s THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS.

“Just shy of satisfying” – that’s my goal, folks! Gotta keeps those readers coming back for more, see? Okay, just kidding! You win some, you lose some, you keep on writin’. Have a great weekend!