Coming Soon: The Darkness Of The Deep and Other Realms, Volume One

With this year nearing its close, I wanted to come back here and give you some previews of what is coming in 2014. I've been trying to establish a bit of a plan for how I would work on different books and coordinate those projects with a publication schedule through my publishing company. When you try to balance the tightrope that is writing and publishing, you learn that not having a plan can lead to difficulties over the long-term.

I'm hoping to change that. I have two books coming out in the near future with a couple more on the way. At this time, I thought it would be nice to give you a taste of what's to come by showing you the covers to The Darkness Of The Deep, my first published fantasy novel since A Kingdom Of Shadows back in 2012.

In the same way, I have a collection of short stories, the first volume in what I'm planning as an ongoing series of collections titled Other Realms. This inaugural issue, Volume One, contains ten original, never-before-published short stories by me. Doing short stories helps keep me balanced between writing novels and novellas so I hope to keep up that work throughout 2014.

Another point I'd like to mention is that a few of my books currently available as ebooks will also make their way into print. (Finally!) I'm excited about those developments too and I will, of course, post about those updates as soon as possible.

2013 was a strange year and a difficult one in many ways. I was able to produce works of fiction despite the changes that were wrought and I'm glad for that. I hope that I'm getting better at this fiction writing thing. Only time will tell. I'm still having fun with all of this. Maybe I'll be able to make a living too.

Catch you later. I'll be updating about publication dates and other information as soon as those are available to me. Happy New Year. Make it a good one.

Update: Killer Of Dragons, Future Books, and Publishing Aims

Well, I wrote a few posts here about my involvement in NaNoWriMo and how I made good progress on a book but ended up not crossing that finish line again. I am here again to report that as of today I finished Killer Of Dragons. The book ended up as a novella, albeit a longer one. I'm happy with the ending and I am now looking at what to write next. The next phases are proofreading and editing. I have work piling up in that category and hope to get everything in line for a series of 2014 releases. My publishing company has sat idle this year and I am more than ready to end that trend for good.

Although I've started looking at possible plans for future writing, I don't know what book will come next. I have a few sequels in mind for books that I have out. This doesn't mean I'll start them right away only that I will have one or more of them done this year. Whatever plans I have must be fluid enough to work with my process as a storyteller.

I've put titles I have for books in a tentative writing/publishing list. That is a good first step for me, an outline for going forward. I've thought about doing it for the next couple of years or so just so I can have a bit of forward thinking without over-committing.

As far as completed projects are concerned, I have several waiting in the wings as well as some WIPs that I may or may not complete. All of these efforts are done in the name of organization. I'm pretty bad about organization. I want to get better but, well, you know, it takes time.

I'll be updating here with some of the projects developments and hopefully coming back with some other writings as well. I haven't done a "Dear Writer" column in a while.

Thanks for checking in folks.

NaNoWriMo 2013: Final Update

Despite my best efforts to cross that finish line, I did not complete 50K words on my novel Killer Of Dragons. My final word count was 32, 367 words. National Novel Writing Month is officially over. The next step for me is to continue working on this novel until it is complete.

I made some good strides this month even with life's familiar complications. I progressed farther on this book during November than any of the others. Though I have not done it yet, I believe that I will be able to write a novel in a month's time. There are tweaks to be made and flexibility is key to fitting in the right amount of writing into each day.

Writing every day is essential in this work. Each 1,667-word day matters. They add up and if you miss one they can quickly pile up to unrealistic levels. That is the main lesson for me this time. Do my very best to meet that minimal word count and I should have zero trouble getting to 50,000 words every month.

I am aware that not every novel fits neatly in to 50k. Some of them will be longer and that's fine. You just take the time necessary to get to the ending. Then the work of proofreading and checking the book takes over. That might spill over into the following month. That's also fine unless you're crazy enough to think you can write a novel every month. You might have to write more than seven pages a day.

Eight pages a day puts you a 2K words. That means you could do 60K in 30 days. Very nice.

Ten pages a day puts you at 2.5K words. That means you could do 75K in 30 days. Also nice.

If you want a fatter novel, say 90K, then you'd just have to write 3K words in 30 days. That's just twelve pages!

That's just a little math to put things into perspective.

I'm glad I participated in NaNoWriMo this year. I'll do it next year. With any luck, I will keep writing books in the meantime. Thanks for following along, folks. Later.