The next CLOAK MAGE and other scheduling

I got three different emails today asking when I will write the next CLOAK MAGE. So I thought I would write this up and link to it when people ask.

I’m glad people are looking forward to it! I will write the next CLOAK MAGE in the second half of 2025, if all goes well.

At the end of 2024, I realized that I had written myself into a problem. I had too many ongoing incomplete series. As of this writing, I am working on five different unfinished series:

1.) THE SHIELD WAR

2.) GHOST ARMOR

3.) CLOAK MAGE

4.) HALF-ELVEN THIEF

5.) STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE

That is really too many ongoing series. The gap between releases in the individual series was just getting too long, and it was getting harder to split my attention between them. As disciplined as I try to be in my writing, I’m just as prone to Shiny New Idea Syndrome as any other writer.

So I decided that for the first half of 2025 I wanted to focus up and finish some of the things I was working on, specifically THE SHIELD WAR, GHOST ARMOR, and STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE.

Finishing those three won’t take as long as it sounds. Both THE SHIELD WAR and GHOST ARMOR will have six books. I just published #4 for THE SHIELD WAR, and I’m currently editing #4 for GHOST ARMOR. I’m also 10,000 words into #5 for THE SHIELD WAR.

STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE will be a trilogy, and I’m about halfway through the third and final book. I plan to release that after the concluding books of THE SHIELD WAR and GHOST ARMOR.

So I think THE SHIELD WAR, GHOST ARMOR, and STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE should be all wrapped up by the end of summer 2025.

Once I reach that completion point, I will start writing CLOAK MAGE and HALF-ELVEN THIEF again. But I really want to clear the decks (and the inside of my head) of some unfinished series first.

In the second half of 2025, this is what I want to work on:

1.) New epic fantasy set in Andomhaim/Owyllain.

2.) CLOAK MAGE

3.) HALF-ELVEN THIEF

Three unfinished series will be much more manageable than five.

Thanks for reading, everyone! I am very grateful that there are so many people waiting for the next book in the various series.

Now back to editing GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY (book four of six of GHOST ARMOR)!

-JM