It's only forty-five days before the release of To Russia with Love and we have been scrambling to get our ducks in a row.

The reason? We were overly optimistic. You see, in traditional publishing, they follow a pattern for the production of books. They also have several books in production at the same time and because of that, their timelines are long. It can take up to two years from contract to shelf. As independent authors, we set our own schedules, which give us the freedom and the ability to release multiple titles in a year, but also gives us the ability to break those schedules just as easily.

Although threats of contract cancellations for non-deliveries do not exist in our world, there is still the commitment to a date, commitment to readers. That is important to us.

Since Cecilia had already booked and purchased her flight to visit me in July, we had picked that month to release To Russia with Love. We prefer to release our books together—in the same physical location instead of 4,000 kilometers apart. In January, right after the release of Countermeasure, we estimated we would spend three months in edits/rewrites of the original To Russia with Love manuscript and three months more in production prep for the release.

Instead, we have spent close to five months in edits and rewrites and the schedule is as tight as a drum at the moment. We have worked very long hours during in the last five months—our typical day last from 8am to 12am, the 16-hour workdays are common for us. During the time we spent weaving the new subplot into the original plot, we absorbed everything we could about story arcs, GMCs, Show versus Tell. We laughed at ourselves and at the crazy things our characters threw at us. We learned that even when we disagree about something, we are awesome at working it out without killing each other or drawing blood. And once we have sorted it out, we laugh again at the process of reaching a solution that was mutually satisfying.

Through sweat and tears, we managed to finish the manuscript and have it ready for publication within our established timeframe. Yes, being independent means we had the luxury of stretching our deadline and postponing the novel's release, but that would mean breaking our word, breaking a promise. We are free to make those decisions and we chose to make the right one. Because of our utmost respect for our readers, we will make it happen when we said we would. We will deliver To Russia with Love on the announced date and hope those who have enjoyed Trevor and Cassandra's story, those who have been waiting anxiously to read their next adventure, will experience the same high we did while writing the story. It was a great adventure to write the first time and an even greater adventure to enhance the second time around. We plan to repeat the dose in the next installment of their story. There is no rest of the wicked.

Sláinte!