The manuscript for book two, ‘Flight of the EsCargo’ is finished! 

I’m now working hard editing it. I decided to do the book in two parts, rather than have it as long as book one ‘The Dreamers’ (400+ pages!) and have it another six to eight months late on the goal I set for its release. My goal was to have it finished by October 1st, but I don’t want to put out a less than excellent book, and matching ‘The Dreamers’ quality is important to me, so I’m hoping to have it out by November first. I’m also working on the cover design and I’m in a good place to do that! I have a household full of people that I can use to stage it, illustrating one of the exciting scenes from the book for the cover.  

            Book two overlaps book one, from the point of view of two members of the Teng Clan, a Chinese American family who five generations ago fled China to find religious freedom in the USA. Mark and Emily Teng are chosen to help staff the last training year for the final colony ship of the five ships launching, the EsCargo.  

Meanwhile a young, depressed ‘wealthie,’ Daxton, feels purposeless and empty. After experiencing the violence outside the safety of the Arroyo Del Mar compound, he decides on an adventure! He’ll stowaway on the last ship. In his words, “How long will it be before the violence spills over the compounds walls?” and “What is there here for us anyway?” He and his childhood friend Charlotte convince several other college friends to join them. 

I'm having fun editing, refining and streamlining it. New things are added as needed to focus a scene, others are subtracted to get rid of unnecessary fluff and distractions that make the storyline drag. It can be a fun process.

Book one was so much fun, and so fulfilling to me. It was the book that launched an author, me! Now I'm working on book two of the Terra Colony Project series, and having as much fun with this one as I had with book one The Dreamers. 

I just finished chapter eight, and though it's been tough as my time is very limited and divided between my writing and other responsibilities. I have one day a week to write, Sunday, and sometimes I can grab time in the early mornings on weekdays. If I can hammer out two chapters a week, I should be able to get book two released by the first of October, which is my goal. 

Book two is called: The Flight of the EsCargo. A tongue in cheek reference to the fact that this last Colony ship in the Terra Colony Project's five, has the fewest colonists and more cargo than the first four, also that it is the last ship to leave Earth for Terra. 

In this part of the saga a college student from the highest social strata, a "Wealthie." Forms a group of troubled Wealthies, with a famous surgeon's daughter who's life is ruined when her father refuses to perform an elective abortion, and a couple of brilliant "Mids" (lower middle-class) students from his college to try the 'heist of the century'. They will perform a disappearing act, by stowing away on the EsCargo. 

They need to hack into both Frontier Space shipbuilders, and the TCP's databases, break into a protected warehouse, and figure out how to survive in crates in a cargo hold for long enough that sending them back will be impossible. Can this rag-tag group of college kids pull it off? They have to, once they've begun, there's no turning back!