Brightly (Flicker #2) has been in the wild for a little more than two months, and I couldn’t be happier with how it’s been doing.

As I mention in the acknowledgements, writing Brightly was one of the most difficult things I’ve done in my life, for many reasons. (Let me tell you right now: writing books is hard.) Now that Brightly is finished and published, though, I feel fantastic.

Publishing Brightly has been great for all sorts of reasons, but the two best things about finishing it are:

1) Seeing reader’s reactions.

I’m very proud of Brightly. It’s a good book. I believe in it. I was excited to share it–but I couldn’t help but feel nervous about what readers might think.

That’s the fundamental difference between a first book and a second book, I think, at least from an author’s perspective. You’ve got one book under your belt and you’re (theoretically) more confident in your skills. You know what you’re doing. Your second book is (ideally) even better than your debut. But you never know if your readers will feel the same way.

I’ve been overjoyed to see that reader response to Brightly has, thus far, been very positive. If you guys get a kick out of the book, then I’m doing my job right! (Imagine me throwing confetti everywhere.)

2) Starting work on Book Three.

And, yes, I am writing Book Three! (A lot of readers have been wondering about this, because of–er, well, the way Brightly ends. If you’ve read it, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, I’ll leave it at that.)

This summer is going to be basically a three-month writing camp for me, during which I kick out as many words as humanly possible.

It’s been great so far. I’ve having a ridiculous amount of fun working on this book. Part of it, I expect, is because I’ve had this book (and most of its pivotal scenes) swirling around in my head for a long, long time. Finally seeing it begin to take shape is thrilling. Just about every time I sit down to write, I get excited and say to myself, “Oh, I get to write that scene today! And I get to introduce that character!”

Expect more updates on the Book Three front as I keep plugging away, including periodic teasers! If you haven’t liked my Facebook page yet, there’s no time like the present. I post many updates on Facebook first!

In other news, it’s SpoCon season again! Well, sort of. The con is in August, which feels like a long wait–but I can confirm that I’m going to be attending as a pro again this year! This year’s Guest of Honor is none other than C.J. Cherryh, so if that doesn’t get you excited, I don’t know what will. You can see the other fabulous guests on the website.