It’s that time again, new book release day! What that means to those of you following along is that Graveyard is finally here. After starting my outline on November 13th, 2021, and writing that opening chapter on January 1st 2022, Dark Nebula: Graveyard is ready for readers. I have to say, this fifth book in the Dark Nebula series was both fun to write and also very taxing. My outline and original thoughts for the book were going to bring it in around 120k words. I really thought at the start I know where the book would go and how to get there, but then after I got into it, the characters came to life and told me another story. And the ending, wow. Let’s just say I never saw it coming and threw my entire outline out the window. Needless to say, I was almost 40k words over my original goal, and it blew away my timelines I had for self-edits and editor, which was its own challenge hitting this deadline.

Graveyard starts where Beacon left off, and we’re following Abigail on her mission to find humanity’s first ally in their battle against the Galactic Alliance (GA). She and her tiny band of explorers are trying their hand at finding an ally in fellow species found guilty by the GA tribunal, and in this case, that means the Ursis in the Proto Dark Nebula. Along with Abigail’s adventures, my second POV in this book is Ibu. Yep, you read that right. Ibu, the Nanil alien they brought back in Discovery from the Lupus Dark Nebula. The same one that helped them in Beacon. You get to meet them and get in their head. What do they really think of humans and their crazy emotions? Well, look no further than Graveyard to find out.

This book was huge. Not my largest, but it came in a solid second place. Here are the series word counts:

• Book 0: Contact (FREE) – 22,674 words
• Book 1: Isolation (FREE) – 135,641 words
• Book 2: Discovery – 125,451 words
• Book 3: Generations – 132,478 words
• Book 4: Beacon – 183,707 words
• Book 5: Graveyard – 158,835 words!!!
• Book 6: Nursery – Coming soon…

I learned after struggling to write Beacon that fighting the story to fit my mold (or outline) in the middle of writing was a waste of time. Just let it go, let the story come out however is happens, and if you can, cut and edit later. In the end, the story is the story. And while I did tweak it during editing, the bulk of the story remained untouched. After all was said and done, my self-edit lagged, but my Editor, and Proof Reader helped me bring it together.

Well, here it is. Graveyard!!!