Summer 2018 Update
Whoa, I’ve missed more posts than I thought. Ah, well. Life has seemed to accelerate once again, and time is increasingly scarce. At this point, I’ve accepted that that’s just the pace of life and it will likely get worse before it gets better. As a result, writing and writing related tasks have fallen further into the cracks of my life.
I continue to research a new novel series idea. Taken from a 30,000 foot view, I’ve actually made substantial progress. The novel seed-idea has some inherently difficult storytelling problems (at least from my POV and writing experience) and I’ve worked through them (or have a framework to work through them). I’ve also started an outline with the first few chapters sketched. This is new for me—I’m not normally an outliner, but this new novel series is much bigger in scope than what I’ve typically done before (except for the alternate history steampunk book). It’s a sprawling epic-fantasy/space-opera type of scope and I really rather not do the revision work I normally have to do when I pants it like for the Sunken City Capers books.
Speaking of which, the last and final Sunken City Capers book is going to be my next project. If I’m not drafting book 1 this new novel series by Jan. 1, 2019, I’m going to switch over and write book 5 in the SCC world. Otherwise, I’m going to finish the new novel series book 1 and then switch over to finishing SCC. Either way, I suspect book 5 will hit stores 2020 at the latest (when in 2020 remains to be seen).
And while my writing output has diminished, my reading output has skyrocketed due almost exclusively to audio books. I took a while to warm up to them, but they just fit so perfectly into the cracks of my life (working out, doing dishes, commuting, etc.) that I’m able to get through quite a bit. I’ve currently read 15 fiction books and 12 nonfiction books to date. My favorite so far is the Red Rising trilogy by Pierce Brown, it has a rough opening act in book 1, but it’s so worth it. It’s a rare series where each subsequent book is better than the one before it. It’s a league above the Hunger Games in my opinion (which is its closest comparative).
I’ll try to write more consistently on the monthly schedule going forward, but at this point, no promises.