I wrote them because I enjoyed doing so. And without wanting to completely hijack the thread, WiP2 was the first big thing I wrote. Okay, I only got about 50-60,000 words into it before I gave up (this was 18 or so years ago; but I had, by then, realised I needed an earlier book to set things up; that set-up became the current WiP1. As it happens, WiP2 is very different from its earlier incarnation.
As for WiP3.... WiP2 (the current,
third version) now shares only one character with WiP1; however, in its second version, it shared the stage with the aftermath of WiP1, including all the extant characters from that book. As you might imagine, it became unwieldy, so I split off that aftermath, which became WiP3. (And what exists of WiP4 was cut from the end of WiP3, the bit where it merged back with the thread of WiP2.
With me so far...? Only joking.
I have no idea whether any of them will be published. I entered an earlier version of WiP1 (when it was ~190000 words long) in the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook competition (the Centenary one) and it was shortlisted (if you can call a list with 100 entries short). I offered a slightly updated version to an agent; they weren't interested, but kindly suggested some things (especially POV "cleanliness") that needed fixing. Which is what I've been doing, free time permitting, in the year or two since. (In between spamming this place with puns
, which are mostly absent from the books.)
Anyway, that's enough thread hijacking....
