Scott Lynch provides update on his writing process

Scott Lynch, the author of the long-percolating Gentleman Bastard series which began with The Lies of Locke Lamora (2006) has provided a substantial update on his current writing situation.

As is well-known, Lynch launched his career impressively with The Lies of Locke Lamora and its immediate sequel, Red Seas Under Red Skies (2007). However, his proposed seven-book series seemed to stall after that point. The third book, The Republic of Thieves, was not published until 2013. The fourth book, The Thorn of Emberlain, has been hovering around the edge of completion for well over two years, since Lynch revealed he had completed a draft of the novel in early 2019. However, updates since then have been fleeting.

Lynch has faced a public battle with mental health issues, publicly speaking about delays caused by anxiety, bereavement and other problems in his life. A few years ago he noted that he was reasonably productive as far as writers go, but had crippling problems letting go of a work and sending the final version to the publishers.

In his update, Lynch confirms that this problem has left him in a situation similar to "Prince's vault," the analogy that the musical artist Prince completed entire albums and numerous, fairly expensive music videos and then shelved them in his vault for years and years on end, refusing to release them to the world (five years after his passing, the fate of much of that material remains unclear). Lynch confirms that in his "vault" are seven short stories, a novella, a novelette, a number of essays and even a whole novel (whether this is The Thorn of Emberlain is unclear, but one assumes so since he confirmed completion of that draft), which he wants to get out to the world.

To combat his anxiety issues, Lynch confirms he is now on anti-anxiety medication for the first time in his life and he hopes this will allow him to start releasing this material to the world. Obviously we wish him the very best and hope this helps him with his health issues, before any consideration of his writing career.