Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Returning to Life

I’ve been away from my blog for far too long. Some family tragedy and  serious health issues really brought me to a standstill. Stress is a nasty predator of productivity.

As my energy flagged, I had to focus more and more on less and less in order to get things done.

The blog fell on the wayside pretty quickly.

For those waiting for books, fear not: there are more books coming.

Oracle hit a brick wall. I was tired of writing the story and I lost the course of the story in my head. It needed a serious revamping. Plus, I had been staring at that story for far too long and needed to get away from it and do other things. Fear not, Nem’s adventures in Aggadeh will be continued, but it might be a little while before I get to it.

I have a new, modern fantasy that has entered editing now. Still needs a lot of work to hammer out the narrative into something that is worthy of being put into a book. The Science of Magic will hit the ‘shelves’ in just a couple of months.

I also have a new classic fantasy titled Unwanted Hero for next year. Right now, it is just 30,000 words of notes and a couple of chapters. I need to develop a proper outline for the story as the first chapter didn’t quite set the stage for the story as well as I wanted, and some points I felt were important for the story couldn’t quite be fit in.

I also have two science fiction stories on the back burner, Privateer (working title) and Who Will Cry for Ilsa. Isla is a story that is based on someone else’s work, so I need permission for that one to see the light of day. If I can’t get permission, then I’ll set that story aside for retooling. I like the character Isla and I’d like her to be known to others.

To date, I’ve been primarily self-published. I’m seriously thinking of trying to get one or two of the above traditionally published. Let’s face it, if it gets rejected by the trades, I can simply self-publish those too.

So why turn to traditional publishing when I’ve done pretty well with self-publishing?

The answer is, to build exposure. One of the toughest things about self-publishing is building an audience. The bigger your audience, the larger your income as more books get sold. And the higher my income, the less I have to work high-stress, part time jobs and the more I can focus on writing.

I’m coming out of hibernation. There is a lot I want to get done.