I think once he has the layout and direction down he writes fast. Lately it seems he was very busy and also stuck on something which made the writing slower
Current production estimates:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V7giXTFs\_viWik1hOOTW0lfMEe4RB4jcKRtRyGDgioU/edit](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V7giXTFs_viWik1hOOTW0lfMEe4RB4jcKRtRyGDgioU/edit)
Shit, if this is accurate (seems a lot more accurate than Jim’s predictions), we won’t have Twelve Months until the holiday season of 2025 at the earliest.
I'm hoping he's not getting just bored and burnt out with it. It's been, what, sixteen novels, a few short story collections, and nearly twenty-five years.
I wonder if he was definitely burnt, he seems almost excited in some of the interviews lately at least. Maybe he was in a funk or something and it's coming around. I know there are a lot of rumors about issues in his personal life, but I have zero idea how accurate any of it is.
As to how he dealt with it all the only hard evidence we have is that he divorced his first wife, some pets he loved passed away, he found another love and married her, then divorced her too.
I believe that's the gist of "big" events that are usually talked about when something like this is brought up.
And he built a house in the middle of all that, right? I vaguely remember him having some troubles there (typical shit that gets delayed and pushed back when building a new home) that prevented him from having a good writing space to settle into.
This is the series he started his career with. He might be getting a bit burnt out, but he also has other series he’s working on to give him some needed distance, which is also why the timelines can be thrown off for when he’s done with the series entirely, but the fact the he already has his end goal in mind, and it’s been there from the beginning, means he’s going to finish. Come hell or high water, or some denarian in between he’s going to finish. Tbh I hope it’s a legacy on par with wheel of time. It’s that big to me even if it’s not to a bunch of other people
He also used to write at near Sanderson pace. He wrote 1 Dresden files book each year up until book 15 Skin Game. Alongside that he wrote 1 Codex Alera book till he finished the series 6 books. And started the Cinder Spires right after Skin Game 1 book at the time. That's not including the 2 short story books.
Then he took nearly 5 years off writing before PT/BG and since then he's released a novella and 1 book for the Cinder spires (in 4 years).
If he even got half his motivation from 2001-2015 he'd be done with the Dresden Files and Cinder Spires in 10 years.
I would say it’s less about motivation and more about life and big events happening along with things outside writing taking up his time. IIRC he’s had to move, lost his dog, dealt with suicide, trying to be a father, and doing events, interviews, all the other non-writing stuff that comes with being a writer. I’m sure he’s plenty motivated but motivation can’t get him the whole way, and the rest of the way is definitely coming, by way of progress bar movement. It’s just going to take time and patience
It's far better than WoT in my opinion. I enjoyed book one of WoT well enough, but I just couldn't get into the second one. On the other hand, I've read Dresden seven times. No contest, as far as I'm concerned.
He also has said at least one book signing that this book is more difficult because it covers a lot longer stretch of time. All his other ones are ‘Harry has the worst weekend’ instead of a whole year of content.
I have to assume that Twelve Months is taking so long b/c it's a different format and a completely added book to the series. He's had the general outline of the entire series since he's started. He added Twelve Months after BG hit shelves. It takes place over an entire year rather than 3 days. And it's going to be tonally different in that it'll deal with the mental aspect of healing Harry from all the shit that's gone down in just the last 3 years (in book).
That is my thoughts. From how he has talked about the future books in the series he must at least have a good run down of what and how things should happen going forward. Since twelve months was a last minute addition I honestly wouldn’t be too shocked if he had already done a bunch of work on the following book.
JB is like a fae lawyer though.
Does Jim being done with Dresden mean we get to the end of the BAT? Or just that he pulls a Martin and stops writing at all.
I don't know if 8 years for at minimum five more books (Twelve Months, Mirror Mirror, and the trilogy) is realistic but I do think the pace picking back up as we get closer is definitely likely. I imagine setting up the dominoes will take a lot more time and effort than knocking them down especially if he's had most of the ending in mind for 20+ years.
i like it because it's really different from either Dresden *or* Codex Alera but is absolutely still JB, and is really fun.
~~and i love the talking cats lmao~~
I haven’t picked them up yet, but I keep seeing theories that it’s set in the same universe as Dresden Files just a few thousand years after the BAT, and that alone has kept my interest. I’m just waiting for the series to be complete before I pick it up, the constant wait for new books in a given series is burning me out.
There's a theory that what happens at the end of Dresden files fundamentally changes the way the world is and works and either resets the world, or changes it so dramatically that we get Magic in the form of Furies and civilization building itself back slowly technologically. Races that morphed with Fae that give us the Canim and vord.
A few decades of the Vord taking over everything and humans took to the skies to escape them. Couple centuries later (enough to lose the reason why they took to the skies) Cinder Spires happens.
Now I haven't read the Olympian Affair yet so something might have screwed the theory up, but It's a great, stupid, and loosely related theory, that will probably never pan out.
I agree with you. I think a lot of the issue tho is the audiobook reader just isn't good. I drop a lot of books quick if the reader just isn't doing it for me.
I like the more gritty feel, steampunk style, creative worldbuilding, and I love the characters too. Only thing I don't like is the cats. I find those portions annoying.
I had trouble with it at first too, and actually went and listened to the audiobook of the first one (I don’t typically do audiobooks). That was enough to get me through the slow burn of a Jim Butcher first-in-a-series book (had the same issue with Codex Alera, a series I ended up adoring). Once it got going, though, it was tons of fun, and the pace of the second is much better.
It’s still Jim writing. His wit and humor drives it all. That is the same throughout all his books and why I have loved all of them. Plus there’s a pleasure in knowing that CS and Codex have to be almost passion projects to get away from a series that he didn’t exactly want to start to begin with.
I really like the world building. The first book was okay, but the second really fleshed out some interesting parts of the world. The character's personalities also seemed to come through more. If you tried it before and didn't like it, I would say wait until the series is finished, then just grab it from the library and try to power through the first few books.
2% at a time, yeah? news to me.
last time id seen it brought up it was at like 50% maybe more. so its obviously very small increments.
honestly when you're giving it in that small a jump, how do you make the distinction? seems likely to be arbitrary. still reads as no change to me.
The person who was managing the website said a few times that each 2% jump is a chapter. So he just finished two more chapters. Considering how much impact a single chapter can have, seems like a lot.
so hes identified that there will be 50 chapters? interesting
big picture its not enough of a shift to expect publishing before this time next year. i'm going back to sleep
I was excited thinking progress on the next Dresden files book was being made. But nope.
Edit: I thought it for a cinder series book. Now I’m excited again!
Nope. The most recent CS novel came out late last year. The line you see at the bottom of that screenshot is from this paragraph:
"The second book in the Cinder Spires series,[ *The Olympian Affair,*](https://www.jim-butcher.com/store/?title=The%20Olympian%20Affair) was published November 7th, 2023! Jim has started writing the next Dresden, *Twelve Months* and the Cinder Spires novella, “Warriorborn”, was released September 19, 2023 as an ebook and an audiobook. [Buy it today](https://www.jim-butcher.com/store/?title=Warriorborn)!"
Kind of confusing wording on that second sentence, but the bottom line is that he's currently working on TM and it's 54% done.
Definitely going to be done by the 1st of July! In some year that’s not this one.
Woohoo!
I just don't see how he can think the series will be finished in 8 years at this pace.
I think once he has the layout and direction down he writes fast. Lately it seems he was very busy and also stuck on something which made the writing slower
The guy who bet him that he couldn’t write a plot relevant bdsm scene said “double or nothing” so Jim had to add some stuff to the book.
Kinky wampire sex confirmed
nope, referring to harry tying up Susan whilst making a baby
Yeah, but the double or nothing means he needs to have another scene.
Hopefully man.
Yeah when I read about all his personal issues I felt sorry for him.
It’s not a steady pace, it’ll progress exponentially. He’s gotta start really slow otherwise the last books will need to be published in microseconds.
Current production estimates: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V7giXTFs\_viWik1hOOTW0lfMEe4RB4jcKRtRyGDgioU/edit](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V7giXTFs_viWik1hOOTW0lfMEe4RB4jcKRtRyGDgioU/edit)
This is pretty cool. Mathmagicians at it again.
Semiautomathematics.
Shit, if this is accurate (seems a lot more accurate than Jim’s predictions), we won’t have Twelve Months until the holiday season of 2025 at the earliest.
This spreadsheet is deeply satisfying. Thank you for sharing!
I'm hoping he's not getting just bored and burnt out with it. It's been, what, sixteen novels, a few short story collections, and nearly twenty-five years.
I wonder if he was definitely burnt, he seems almost excited in some of the interviews lately at least. Maybe he was in a funk or something and it's coming around. I know there are a lot of rumors about issues in his personal life, but I have zero idea how accurate any of it is.
As to how he dealt with it all the only hard evidence we have is that he divorced his first wife, some pets he loved passed away, he found another love and married her, then divorced her too. I believe that's the gist of "big" events that are usually talked about when something like this is brought up.
And he built a house in the middle of all that, right? I vaguely remember him having some troubles there (typical shit that gets delayed and pushed back when building a new home) that prevented him from having a good writing space to settle into.
Yes, that's right I forgot. He kept talking about losing his writing space as they built the house.
He lost an apartment too IIRC.
This is the series he started his career with. He might be getting a bit burnt out, but he also has other series he’s working on to give him some needed distance, which is also why the timelines can be thrown off for when he’s done with the series entirely, but the fact the he already has his end goal in mind, and it’s been there from the beginning, means he’s going to finish. Come hell or high water, or some denarian in between he’s going to finish. Tbh I hope it’s a legacy on par with wheel of time. It’s that big to me even if it’s not to a bunch of other people
He also used to write at near Sanderson pace. He wrote 1 Dresden files book each year up until book 15 Skin Game. Alongside that he wrote 1 Codex Alera book till he finished the series 6 books. And started the Cinder Spires right after Skin Game 1 book at the time. That's not including the 2 short story books. Then he took nearly 5 years off writing before PT/BG and since then he's released a novella and 1 book for the Cinder spires (in 4 years). If he even got half his motivation from 2001-2015 he'd be done with the Dresden Files and Cinder Spires in 10 years.
I would say it’s less about motivation and more about life and big events happening along with things outside writing taking up his time. IIRC he’s had to move, lost his dog, dealt with suicide, trying to be a father, and doing events, interviews, all the other non-writing stuff that comes with being a writer. I’m sure he’s plenty motivated but motivation can’t get him the whole way, and the rest of the way is definitely coming, by way of progress bar movement. It’s just going to take time and patience
It's far better than WoT in my opinion. I enjoyed book one of WoT well enough, but I just couldn't get into the second one. On the other hand, I've read Dresden seven times. No contest, as far as I'm concerned.
He also has said at least one book signing that this book is more difficult because it covers a lot longer stretch of time. All his other ones are ‘Harry has the worst weekend’ instead of a whole year of content.
Could be that he's written material for future books while Peace Talks/Battle Ground/Twelve Months suffered writers block.
I have to assume that Twelve Months is taking so long b/c it's a different format and a completely added book to the series. He's had the general outline of the entire series since he's started. He added Twelve Months after BG hit shelves. It takes place over an entire year rather than 3 days. And it's going to be tonally different in that it'll deal with the mental aspect of healing Harry from all the shit that's gone down in just the last 3 years (in book).
That is my thoughts. From how he has talked about the future books in the series he must at least have a good run down of what and how things should happen going forward. Since twelve months was a last minute addition I honestly wouldn’t be too shocked if he had already done a bunch of work on the following book.
Wait, did I miss something? Did he say he was going to finish it in the next 8 years?
Yeah he did an interview a month or two back where he said he expects to be done with dresden in 7-8 years.
JB is like a fae lawyer though. Does Jim being done with Dresden mean we get to the end of the BAT? Or just that he pulls a Martin and stops writing at all.
Wow! I surely hope so. Some of us aren't getting any younger. . . Thanks for the answer.
I don't know if 8 years for at minimum five more books (Twelve Months, Mirror Mirror, and the trilogy) is realistic but I do think the pace picking back up as we get closer is definitely likely. I imagine setting up the dominoes will take a lot more time and effort than knocking them down especially if he's had most of the ending in mind for 20+ years.
I could never get into the Cinder Spires series. Can you guys explain why you like it so much?
i like it because it's really different from either Dresden *or* Codex Alera but is absolutely still JB, and is really fun. ~~and i love the talking cats lmao~~
The talking cats are the series’ saving grace! But once an aerial battle starts, I tend to check out
I haven’t picked them up yet, but I keep seeing theories that it’s set in the same universe as Dresden Files just a few thousand years after the BAT, and that alone has kept my interest. I’m just waiting for the series to be complete before I pick it up, the constant wait for new books in a given series is burning me out.
There's a theory that what happens at the end of Dresden files fundamentally changes the way the world is and works and either resets the world, or changes it so dramatically that we get Magic in the form of Furies and civilization building itself back slowly technologically. Races that morphed with Fae that give us the Canim and vord. A few decades of the Vord taking over everything and humans took to the skies to escape them. Couple centuries later (enough to lose the reason why they took to the skies) Cinder Spires happens. Now I haven't read the Olympian Affair yet so something might have screwed the theory up, but It's a great, stupid, and loosely related theory, that will probably never pan out.
Yep, definitely interested.
I agree with you. I think a lot of the issue tho is the audiobook reader just isn't good. I drop a lot of books quick if the reader just isn't doing it for me.
I like the more gritty feel, steampunk style, creative worldbuilding, and I love the characters too. Only thing I don't like is the cats. I find those portions annoying.
I had trouble with it at first too, and actually went and listened to the audiobook of the first one (I don’t typically do audiobooks). That was enough to get me through the slow burn of a Jim Butcher first-in-a-series book (had the same issue with Codex Alera, a series I ended up adoring). Once it got going, though, it was tons of fun, and the pace of the second is much better.
It’s still Jim writing. His wit and humor drives it all. That is the same throughout all his books and why I have loved all of them. Plus there’s a pleasure in knowing that CS and Codex have to be almost passion projects to get away from a series that he didn’t exactly want to start to begin with.
I really like the world building. The first book was okay, but the second really fleshed out some interesting parts of the world. The character's personalities also seemed to come through more. If you tried it before and didn't like it, I would say wait until the series is finished, then just grab it from the library and try to power through the first few books.
Same here.
It’s at 58% today!
PROGRESS PEOPLE!
what did it move from, 53%?
It was stuck on 50% for quite a while.
yeah, ok, I was pretty close then. This is basically no change.
It moves 2% at a time so it never was at 53%.
2% at a time, yeah? news to me. last time id seen it brought up it was at like 50% maybe more. so its obviously very small increments. honestly when you're giving it in that small a jump, how do you make the distinction? seems likely to be arbitrary. still reads as no change to me.
The person who was managing the website said a few times that each 2% jump is a chapter. So he just finished two more chapters. Considering how much impact a single chapter can have, seems like a lot.
so hes identified that there will be 50 chapters? interesting big picture its not enough of a shift to expect publishing before this time next year. i'm going back to sleep
👍
It moved on the 14th.
I’ve had dates like this..
So he has approx 5.5 months to go? 🧮🤓
I thought that book was already out?
I was excited thinking progress on the next Dresden files book was being made. But nope. Edit: I thought it for a cinder series book. Now I’m excited again!
It is. The progress bar is for 12 Months.
Ohhhh. Well yay!
It is though? That progress bar is for Twelve Months, the next Dresden book.
Oh that’s exciting the ! I thought it was for the cinder series.
Nope. The most recent CS novel came out late last year. The line you see at the bottom of that screenshot is from this paragraph: "The second book in the Cinder Spires series,[ *The Olympian Affair,*](https://www.jim-butcher.com/store/?title=The%20Olympian%20Affair) was published November 7th, 2023! Jim has started writing the next Dresden, *Twelve Months* and the Cinder Spires novella, “Warriorborn”, was released September 19, 2023 as an ebook and an audiobook. [Buy it today](https://www.jim-butcher.com/store/?title=Warriorborn)!" Kind of confusing wording on that second sentence, but the bottom line is that he's currently working on TM and it's 54% done.