Here’s something I’d love to know: do you read the same genre(s) that you write? And if so, is that because you’ve always loved reading it, or is it primarily for research purposes?
Science fiction has always been my preferred genre to read and that’s what I tend to be drawn towards writing; though I have noticed that the more I write, the more diverse my reading habits have become.
While I've always read wide, my writing preference is for speculative fiction (which covers all the bases of science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, etc). What I read really depends on my mood and what I need as a reader.
"Literary" fiction is kind of touch and go for me these days as I've read too much of it that is pointless character sketches or playing around with things claimed to be ground-breaking that is just annoying (no, I will NOT read your work if you don't follow traditional grammar conventions including some means of indicating dialogue using punctuation marks). On the other hand, I've also encountered some superb literary works that leave me breathless--and I find that more entertaining than literary game-playing.
I do have a strong preference for Pacific Northwest/American west settings, and those are my most likely settings if I dip into historical readings. Family sagas, again, primarily with Western settings, also grab my attention. Right now I find myself integrating my setting preferences, my fascination with family sagas, and my speculative fiction interests into my writing. It's a tough niche to market, however. I think once it gets discovered...it may do well, but the process of finding that discovery is convoluted and sometimes I despair of ever finding it.
This preference in settings also frequently has me snarling at yet another fantasy story set in a quasi-medieval setting. Take me out of Europe and you're likely to have me as a reader. Contemporary Europe, sure. Fantasy faux-European? Uh-uh.
I worked for six years at the National Centre for Writing here in the UK, which (probably inevitably!) significantly broadened my reading habits. Reading a mix of literary and historical fiction certainly opened up my eyes to techniques and styles I hadn't really encountered in genre fiction.
Hard agree that pseudo-medieval Euro fantasy has been overplayed. Though I do really like the Witcher series (games/books/TV), but then that adds a new flavour (at least for UK audiences) by infusing it with Polish and Eastern European mythology.
I used to read sci-fi exclusively. That was the area I wanted to write in. It was my first love when it came to fiction. As I got older, my tastes started varying, but I felt like a certain kind of betrayal if I read non-Scifi. There was a time when I thought fantasy was going too far off the reservation. But then I started reading Guy Gavriel Kay's 'Tigana', which blew my mind. Then, I got into the Bosch series on Amazon and started reading crime thrillers of all kinds. I realized that with all these other genres my ideas for SciFi started to evolve. I think it's like Jazz. Your love could be pure Jazz, but the best Jazz musicians listen to all sorts of music and incorporated the ideas into their own music. I mean, Cannonball Adderley did a rendition of Fiddler on the Roof, which is absolutely epic! I think reading other genres is a way to gather ideas to enhance the topic I'm most interested in. I let it happen naturally though, I don't force myself to like a particular genre, but I've learned so much beyond the boundaries of Sci-fi. highly recommend looking at other genres to enhance the one you spend most of your time in!!
I love the comparison with music! I often find that my favourite music/books/films are the ones that mix and remix genre and blend the boundaries between them. I agree that reading outside of your preferred genre, or outside of the genre you write in, can absolutely help to enrich your work. I've read more widely in the last 5-or-so years and definitely feel that it's improved my overall writing, even though I'm still focused on writing science fiction and fantasy.
Yes. With the exception of Biography (read, don’t write.) I mainly write stories. The genre doesn’t matter to me and I sometimes mix them. I think writers will naturally write what they like (want) to read. Unless they are writing solely for money and picked a popular genre. But I don’t think I could write something I didn’t enjoy.
Absolutely. Writing what you want to read also means you'll probably have a decent idea of what you can bring to the genre; some sort of fresh take or new idea. It's harder to do that if you're less familiar.
True. Although my first novel is a blend of historical fiction, adventure, romance, and a little humor. And it is suitable for teens or adults, so I made it pretty much impossible to market. 🤣
But it is the novel I wanted to write (and the kind of story I would like to read.) So I did.
Interesting. In the case of my gothic novel, yes, I’ve read all the gothics! Now I’m writing a utopian novel, and I am definitely reading all the utopian books. But it is also fantasy and I haven’t read a lot of that.... yet. I have some homework to do!
There's always that balance between reading enough to be informed, and not reading so much that you end up conforming to all the well-worn genre tropes. Although, being uninformed about a genre can also result in blundering into cliches, of course, without even realising.
I'm not a genre-based reader or writer. I choose the setting that best suits the story I want to tell. That has included contemporary, historical, fantasy, and science fiction (though all my science fiction, except one published story, was deservedly consigned to the fire long ago).
I believe that the heart of genre is the focus on a particular virtue: beauty for romance, strength for superheros, cleverness for science fiction, perceptiveness for mystery, power for fantasy, etc. (https://gmbaker.substack.com/p/seeking-the-true-heart-of-genre). Fascination with a particular genre is fascination with a particular virtue. Nothing wrong with that. But I think I am more fascinated by the interplay of the virtues, which leads me to a more cross-genre approach to reading and writing.
But there is also the factor that at any given time a genre can have a particular fixation. We live in a very ideological age and I think different genres take on the taint of different ideologies. The taste for, or distaste with, a particular genre can also be based on the current ideology that dominates it. Personally I can't abide fiction with an axe to grind, whether I agree with the cause or not. This means I often have to look back a few years to find things I want to read, and, for that matter, a style I want to imitate.
It also makes for an interesting experience when we do look back through the history of genres, when trends come to the surface. I have a particular fondness for the Asimov/Clarke era of SF, for example!
You would think that I would be reading scads of sci-fi since I write space operas. But in truth ... no. My preferred genre (wait for it) is historical romance novels. Then, thriller novels like the ones written by Baldacci. Also, big chonky fantasies like those written by Brandon Sanderson.
I read very widely but oddly, I don't read as many space operas as I "should". I think the main reason is that the type of sci-fi I like to read is not in great supply. It's an odd mix of science fiction and fantasy, and the books that came close to it is the Darkover series by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
I also prefer optimistic sci-fi, so I like reading pulpy Star Trek novels. (The Star Trek New Frontier novels by Peter David is a favourite of mine.) Sci fi tends to be a morose genre, though I have a soft spot for the Expanse series By James SA Corey.
Highly recommend Iain M Banks' Culture novels for sort-of-optimistic scifi (the setting is a highly functioning left wing utopia, albeit with specific plots that are about Bad Things happening), and definitely Kim Stanley Robinson's work (especially his recent output, which is basically optimistic sci-fi about how we can come out the other side of the climate crisis better as a species than we went in).
I've been eyeing Iain M Banks! And I honestly didn't know Kim Stanley Robinson wrote optimistic-ish sci fi. I currently have Peter F. Hamilton books on my shelves and wonder if they're too dark for my tastes. But they're rather pretty, though!
KSR's always had an environmental element to his novels, but I've read in some interviews how he's deliberately aiming for optimistic sci-fi these days - while acknowledging the challenges - because being overly cynical doesn't help anyone. :)
Just had a look at KSR and realised he was the one who wrote the Mars books. A-ha! Yes, I know him, and I have been eyeing his latest books as they seem to have a utopian bent - NY underwater, but instead of death and destruction, people adapted and created a life around it. Curious!
Yes! I've not read his very latest, but can highly recommend 2312, Red Moon and Galileo's Dream. And the Mars books are incredibly influential for me - my brain remembers them more as history than fiction.
For the most part, yes, I read the same genres that I wrote. For any given stretch of reading my list includes a good bit of science fiction or historical fiction (and biography/history on the nonfiction side). I also enjoy fantasy, but so far I haven’t made any real effort to try to write anything in that genre.
Most of what I've written so far has been closer to fantasy than science fiction, which is something I need to address at some point. It does seem from the discucssion here that most writers read extensively within their main genre, while also going more broadly in their reading tastes.
I could give a long and detailed answer, but it would boil down to "I write what I feel like writing, I read what I feel like reading, and both can be all over the place."
2022 has been a slow reading year, but, 2021, I easily read over a hundred different books from Dumas, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, J. Michael Straczynski, Sir William Scott, Sir Terry Pratchett, Jerry Pournelle, Lord Dunsany, Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, J. M. Barrie, Ben Aaronovich, Jim Mortimore, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dominic Greene, HR Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Rafael Sabatini, an attempt as Thomas Mallory (Morte d'Arthur remains unreadable), Andre Norton, EE "Doc" Smith, Mary Shelly (comparing the 1818 and 1831 versions of "Frankenstein"), Patrick S. Tomlinson, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Jasper Fforde, and, last (but certainly not least) some Simon Jones.
Need to catch up on my Simon Jones, of course.
But, as I'm attending the Fforde Fiesta in May, I do need to prioritize the Jasper Fforde for the moment. I hope he felt better after writing, "The Constant Rabbit." It's much less subtle than any of his other works and I feel its writing was more an act of catharsis for the author than a truly polished story.
I Started reading SciFi/Fantasy at the tender age of 10. Although I had been watching horror and SciFi movies for a long time before. (My favorite SciFi movie of all time is The Thing (From Outer Space)). So my favorite reading genre is SciFi/Fantasy. But I also enjoy Adventure, Spy, Cop, War, Detective, some Drama, Horror, Thriller, and a few others. I even read some Romance. As far as writing is concerned, I have thus far only written in the SciFi/Fantasy, Horror (based upon a nightmare I had when I was about 10) and Historical Fiction (During and after the crossings of the Ice Bridges by the CroMagnon into the Americas). I have also written a lot of poetry which I plan to publish in the near future (Aversion of my only saga is inserted in the middle of my first book. It is titled The Gift Of War. I wrote the original back in the '60s, when I was in the Army, posted in Germany). I will possibly try a few other categories, but that is still in the dim mists of the future. Right now, my immediate aim is to become established as a serious writer. (I am writing 5 more books right now, but it is taking some time. One of them is an attempt at light humor in the Quest Of Mankind series. Others are from remembered dreams and one is a pure Horror story (the forces of the Creator fighting against the overwhelming forces of the Fallen One. Don't know for sure where that one is going), which is still in the making. Ideas and dreams keep coming, but I only remember very few of them. Sometimes I remember to add them to my possible Short Story folder. Anyhow, that's a bit of me for now.
I find the idea of writing stories based on dreams to be fascinating. I so rarely remember my dreams that I don't think I could translate them into written stories. Though I have inserted occasionaly dialogue snippets from dreams, now I think back.
When you turn your dreams/nightmares into stories, do you do much adaptation so that they make more sense to a reader, or do you put them down on the page as-is?
Hi, Simon. In my case, I have to ingrain the memory into my mind while I am waking up. Don't know how I began doing that and I can't explain how it works. It just came to me and I do it automatically. Unfortunately, most dreams are in the REM stage and occur within a few seconds of waking up. There are three in particular that I remember as if I were dreaming them every night. One was when I was about 10, one was when I was drinking and one was about 30 years ago. There are some 5 or 6 that I wrote down as possible short stories. But, the one I had at 10 years of age was a pure nightmare. And I know I had never seen a movie or TV show that came close. Nor did I read anything like it. It was so scary that I woke up sitting straight up in bed and covered with cold sweat, shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. Now I realize that all of those things are used pretty commonly in describing events in life, but all of them happening at once? Even when I had nightmares about vampires, giant tarantulas and Lake Michigan overrunning its shores and threatening to flood Milwaukee out didn't scare me as much as this one did. I swear I was in another, parallel world when it happened. Anyway, in answer to your question, I usually start the story out with the dream and build it up from there. The one I just described turned out to be a great SciFi/Horror/Fantasy story. I am thinking about making it into a duology. The same with the Historical fiction book I wrote about after the crossing of the Ice Bridge. For that one, I think I will add to the beginning, as a sort of a prologue. And maybe writing about the crossings from Europe at about the same time. The books I am planning to release first, The Quest Of Mankind series, are a different story. I started a book back in '89 and had to shelf it because of the demands of work. When I retired the first time, in '96, I went back to writing the story off of the outline I had written down. I started getting other ideas and put it aside again to write them down so I wouldn't forget them. Well, I ended up writing 3 more stories, so the first one became the 4th in the series. I added 2 more and finished all 6 of them, including editing each of them 4 times. I am also working on 3 more of that series. I think I told you some of this before. Anyway, that's the answer I have for you.
While I've always read wide, my writing preference is for speculative fiction (which covers all the bases of science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, etc). What I read really depends on my mood and what I need as a reader.
"Literary" fiction is kind of touch and go for me these days as I've read too much of it that is pointless character sketches or playing around with things claimed to be ground-breaking that is just annoying (no, I will NOT read your work if you don't follow traditional grammar conventions including some means of indicating dialogue using punctuation marks). On the other hand, I've also encountered some superb literary works that leave me breathless--and I find that more entertaining than literary game-playing.
I do have a strong preference for Pacific Northwest/American west settings, and those are my most likely settings if I dip into historical readings. Family sagas, again, primarily with Western settings, also grab my attention. Right now I find myself integrating my setting preferences, my fascination with family sagas, and my speculative fiction interests into my writing. It's a tough niche to market, however. I think once it gets discovered...it may do well, but the process of finding that discovery is convoluted and sometimes I despair of ever finding it.
This preference in settings also frequently has me snarling at yet another fantasy story set in a quasi-medieval setting. Take me out of Europe and you're likely to have me as a reader. Contemporary Europe, sure. Fantasy faux-European? Uh-uh.
I worked for six years at the National Centre for Writing here in the UK, which (probably inevitably!) significantly broadened my reading habits. Reading a mix of literary and historical fiction certainly opened up my eyes to techniques and styles I hadn't really encountered in genre fiction.
Hard agree that pseudo-medieval Euro fantasy has been overplayed. Though I do really like the Witcher series (games/books/TV), but then that adds a new flavour (at least for UK audiences) by infusing it with Polish and Eastern European mythology.
I mostly write sci-fi (to date), but while I do love reading sci-fi, my reading tastes definitely go far wider than my writing tastes (abilities?)
When I read more widely I quite often have the definite sense of *I couldn't do this*. :P Still very useful learning, though.
I used to read sci-fi exclusively. That was the area I wanted to write in. It was my first love when it came to fiction. As I got older, my tastes started varying, but I felt like a certain kind of betrayal if I read non-Scifi. There was a time when I thought fantasy was going too far off the reservation. But then I started reading Guy Gavriel Kay's 'Tigana', which blew my mind. Then, I got into the Bosch series on Amazon and started reading crime thrillers of all kinds. I realized that with all these other genres my ideas for SciFi started to evolve. I think it's like Jazz. Your love could be pure Jazz, but the best Jazz musicians listen to all sorts of music and incorporated the ideas into their own music. I mean, Cannonball Adderley did a rendition of Fiddler on the Roof, which is absolutely epic! I think reading other genres is a way to gather ideas to enhance the topic I'm most interested in. I let it happen naturally though, I don't force myself to like a particular genre, but I've learned so much beyond the boundaries of Sci-fi. highly recommend looking at other genres to enhance the one you spend most of your time in!!
I love the comparison with music! I often find that my favourite music/books/films are the ones that mix and remix genre and blend the boundaries between them. I agree that reading outside of your preferred genre, or outside of the genre you write in, can absolutely help to enrich your work. I've read more widely in the last 5-or-so years and definitely feel that it's improved my overall writing, even though I'm still focused on writing science fiction and fantasy.
Yes. With the exception of Biography (read, don’t write.) I mainly write stories. The genre doesn’t matter to me and I sometimes mix them. I think writers will naturally write what they like (want) to read. Unless they are writing solely for money and picked a popular genre. But I don’t think I could write something I didn’t enjoy.
Absolutely. Writing what you want to read also means you'll probably have a decent idea of what you can bring to the genre; some sort of fresh take or new idea. It's harder to do that if you're less familiar.
True. Although my first novel is a blend of historical fiction, adventure, romance, and a little humor. And it is suitable for teens or adults, so I made it pretty much impossible to market. 🤣
But it is the novel I wanted to write (and the kind of story I would like to read.) So I did.
I am very familiar with writing impossible-to-market stories. :)
Impossible To Market Story Writers Unite! Sounds like another Discord in the making. 🤣
We could all wallow in communal despair.
🤣
Interesting. In the case of my gothic novel, yes, I’ve read all the gothics! Now I’m writing a utopian novel, and I am definitely reading all the utopian books. But it is also fantasy and I haven’t read a lot of that.... yet. I have some homework to do!
There's always that balance between reading enough to be informed, and not reading so much that you end up conforming to all the well-worn genre tropes. Although, being uninformed about a genre can also result in blundering into cliches, of course, without even realising.
Exactly!
I'm not a genre-based reader or writer. I choose the setting that best suits the story I want to tell. That has included contemporary, historical, fantasy, and science fiction (though all my science fiction, except one published story, was deservedly consigned to the fire long ago).
I believe that the heart of genre is the focus on a particular virtue: beauty for romance, strength for superheros, cleverness for science fiction, perceptiveness for mystery, power for fantasy, etc. (https://gmbaker.substack.com/p/seeking-the-true-heart-of-genre). Fascination with a particular genre is fascination with a particular virtue. Nothing wrong with that. But I think I am more fascinated by the interplay of the virtues, which leads me to a more cross-genre approach to reading and writing.
But there is also the factor that at any given time a genre can have a particular fixation. We live in a very ideological age and I think different genres take on the taint of different ideologies. The taste for, or distaste with, a particular genre can also be based on the current ideology that dominates it. Personally I can't abide fiction with an axe to grind, whether I agree with the cause or not. This means I often have to look back a few years to find things I want to read, and, for that matter, a style I want to imitate.
It also makes for an interesting experience when we do look back through the history of genres, when trends come to the surface. I have a particular fondness for the Asimov/Clarke era of SF, for example!
You would think that I would be reading scads of sci-fi since I write space operas. But in truth ... no. My preferred genre (wait for it) is historical romance novels. Then, thriller novels like the ones written by Baldacci. Also, big chonky fantasies like those written by Brandon Sanderson.
I read very widely but oddly, I don't read as many space operas as I "should". I think the main reason is that the type of sci-fi I like to read is not in great supply. It's an odd mix of science fiction and fantasy, and the books that came close to it is the Darkover series by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
I also prefer optimistic sci-fi, so I like reading pulpy Star Trek novels. (The Star Trek New Frontier novels by Peter David is a favourite of mine.) Sci fi tends to be a morose genre, though I have a soft spot for the Expanse series By James SA Corey.
I love the Expanse books (and TV show).
Highly recommend Iain M Banks' Culture novels for sort-of-optimistic scifi (the setting is a highly functioning left wing utopia, albeit with specific plots that are about Bad Things happening), and definitely Kim Stanley Robinson's work (especially his recent output, which is basically optimistic sci-fi about how we can come out the other side of the climate crisis better as a species than we went in).
I've been eyeing Iain M Banks! And I honestly didn't know Kim Stanley Robinson wrote optimistic-ish sci fi. I currently have Peter F. Hamilton books on my shelves and wonder if they're too dark for my tastes. But they're rather pretty, though!
KSR's always had an environmental element to his novels, but I've read in some interviews how he's deliberately aiming for optimistic sci-fi these days - while acknowledging the challenges - because being overly cynical doesn't help anyone. :)
Just had a look at KSR and realised he was the one who wrote the Mars books. A-ha! Yes, I know him, and I have been eyeing his latest books as they seem to have a utopian bent - NY underwater, but instead of death and destruction, people adapted and created a life around it. Curious!
Yes! I've not read his very latest, but can highly recommend 2312, Red Moon and Galileo's Dream. And the Mars books are incredibly influential for me - my brain remembers them more as history than fiction.
Dystopian nonfiction. For real
Is that just 'reading the news'?
Hahaha yes. But also, topical writing about climate issues and waterless worlds.
For the most part, yes, I read the same genres that I wrote. For any given stretch of reading my list includes a good bit of science fiction or historical fiction (and biography/history on the nonfiction side). I also enjoy fantasy, but so far I haven’t made any real effort to try to write anything in that genre.
Most of what I've written so far has been closer to fantasy than science fiction, which is something I need to address at some point. It does seem from the discucssion here that most writers read extensively within their main genre, while also going more broadly in their reading tastes.
I could give a long and detailed answer, but it would boil down to "I write what I feel like writing, I read what I feel like reading, and both can be all over the place."
2022 has been a slow reading year, but, 2021, I easily read over a hundred different books from Dumas, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, J. Michael Straczynski, Sir William Scott, Sir Terry Pratchett, Jerry Pournelle, Lord Dunsany, Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, J. M. Barrie, Ben Aaronovich, Jim Mortimore, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dominic Greene, HR Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Rafael Sabatini, an attempt as Thomas Mallory (Morte d'Arthur remains unreadable), Andre Norton, EE "Doc" Smith, Mary Shelly (comparing the 1818 and 1831 versions of "Frankenstein"), Patrick S. Tomlinson, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Jasper Fforde, and, last (but certainly not least) some Simon Jones.
Need to catch up on my Simon Jones, of course.
But, as I'm attending the Fforde Fiesta in May, I do need to prioritize the Jasper Fforde for the moment. I hope he felt better after writing, "The Constant Rabbit." It's much less subtle than any of his other works and I feel its writing was more an act of catharsis for the author than a truly polished story.
I Started reading SciFi/Fantasy at the tender age of 10. Although I had been watching horror and SciFi movies for a long time before. (My favorite SciFi movie of all time is The Thing (From Outer Space)). So my favorite reading genre is SciFi/Fantasy. But I also enjoy Adventure, Spy, Cop, War, Detective, some Drama, Horror, Thriller, and a few others. I even read some Romance. As far as writing is concerned, I have thus far only written in the SciFi/Fantasy, Horror (based upon a nightmare I had when I was about 10) and Historical Fiction (During and after the crossings of the Ice Bridges by the CroMagnon into the Americas). I have also written a lot of poetry which I plan to publish in the near future (Aversion of my only saga is inserted in the middle of my first book. It is titled The Gift Of War. I wrote the original back in the '60s, when I was in the Army, posted in Germany). I will possibly try a few other categories, but that is still in the dim mists of the future. Right now, my immediate aim is to become established as a serious writer. (I am writing 5 more books right now, but it is taking some time. One of them is an attempt at light humor in the Quest Of Mankind series. Others are from remembered dreams and one is a pure Horror story (the forces of the Creator fighting against the overwhelming forces of the Fallen One. Don't know for sure where that one is going), which is still in the making. Ideas and dreams keep coming, but I only remember very few of them. Sometimes I remember to add them to my possible Short Story folder. Anyhow, that's a bit of me for now.
Sounds like you're keeping busy!
I find the idea of writing stories based on dreams to be fascinating. I so rarely remember my dreams that I don't think I could translate them into written stories. Though I have inserted occasionaly dialogue snippets from dreams, now I think back.
When you turn your dreams/nightmares into stories, do you do much adaptation so that they make more sense to a reader, or do you put them down on the page as-is?
Hi, Simon. In my case, I have to ingrain the memory into my mind while I am waking up. Don't know how I began doing that and I can't explain how it works. It just came to me and I do it automatically. Unfortunately, most dreams are in the REM stage and occur within a few seconds of waking up. There are three in particular that I remember as if I were dreaming them every night. One was when I was about 10, one was when I was drinking and one was about 30 years ago. There are some 5 or 6 that I wrote down as possible short stories. But, the one I had at 10 years of age was a pure nightmare. And I know I had never seen a movie or TV show that came close. Nor did I read anything like it. It was so scary that I woke up sitting straight up in bed and covered with cold sweat, shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. Now I realize that all of those things are used pretty commonly in describing events in life, but all of them happening at once? Even when I had nightmares about vampires, giant tarantulas and Lake Michigan overrunning its shores and threatening to flood Milwaukee out didn't scare me as much as this one did. I swear I was in another, parallel world when it happened. Anyway, in answer to your question, I usually start the story out with the dream and build it up from there. The one I just described turned out to be a great SciFi/Horror/Fantasy story. I am thinking about making it into a duology. The same with the Historical fiction book I wrote about after the crossing of the Ice Bridge. For that one, I think I will add to the beginning, as a sort of a prologue. And maybe writing about the crossings from Europe at about the same time. The books I am planning to release first, The Quest Of Mankind series, are a different story. I started a book back in '89 and had to shelf it because of the demands of work. When I retired the first time, in '96, I went back to writing the story off of the outline I had written down. I started getting other ideas and put it aside again to write them down so I wouldn't forget them. Well, I ended up writing 3 more stories, so the first one became the 4th in the series. I added 2 more and finished all 6 of them, including editing each of them 4 times. I am also working on 3 more of that series. I think I told you some of this before. Anyway, that's the answer I have for you.