Monthly Archives: April 2021

Music, Sorcerer's Bane, Writing

writing and streaming

We seem to be on a Thursday update kick. Maybe I’ll keep it.

This week, nothing much exciting happened. I wrote a few thousand words on the new novel, and it seems to be coming along nicely. I’m not a full time author, so I only have a couple hours each day to work on it, and right now, while I’m starting out, I’m rethinking a lot of things I did on the original draft (which I’m mostly ignoring except for my memory of it). At some point, I expect the plot to diverge quite a bit, but I’m still writing “the setup”, and while there are a lot more scenes now in this new draft to get to the same point in the plot as the old one was after about two chapters, and probably three times the word count, the initial part of the book will follow essentially the same story, just in more detail and more depth.

In other news, well, there isn’t really any other news. And there probably won’t be a lot of other news, beyond a weekly updated on the progress of the book. I suppose you might be interested in checking out my music stream, but I suspect only a handful of you will enjoy it and come back after your first experience. You can catch me at https://twitch.tv/fourafterever this Saturday, probably around 4pm Pacific. It’s grunge/sludge/metal kind of stuff. Stop by and say Hi!

Sorcerer's Bane, Writing

A New Direction for a new start

I know I said last week that I probably wouldn’t say more about what the next project is until I’ve got something to show, and I wasn’t going to say more, as I really wasn’t sure what it would be. I had a lot of options staring at me, clamoring for time, and whatever choice I made, it had to be something I was excited about writing.

It also had to satisfy some new ideas about the direction I want to go with my writing career. I’ll talk about them in the future, but it’s important, I think, for you to know that they exist just as context for the rest of this post. I’m not going to step out of speculative fiction or anything like that. It’s more like doubling down on the things that turn my crank.

Darned near six years ago, I started a new fantasy series, a sword & sorcery series that was going to be five books, all about the length of Mendleson Moony or Minders. Sixty thousand words and change, each. I planned to write them all as a set, and then release them once a month until they were all out.

I finished the first book, sent it to my alpha readers, and started on the second book. In the middle of this, all my life things that were going on at that time really put a crimp in the writing. I have two thirds of that second book complete. And it’s been that way since early 2019.

And then the writing came to a complete halt.

I’ve had it in my mind to finish that book out, then finish the series out, and release it as planned, so I started reading it all over again, trying to catch up. And as I was reading it, I kept running into things that I wish I had done differently. It wasn’t the kind of book, as written, that fit where I wanted to go. And if I had to match that for three and a third more books, I don’t know if I would have been able to complete the series.

And then, as if struck by lightning, it occurred to me last night that I could just rewrite the whole thing from the beginning so that it would fit my new criteria.

This morning, I wrote almost 2000 words of a new start of the first book of that series. I know you have no idea what it is, or what the goal for it is, but I’m excited about it, and I hope you will be, too. The first iteration really focused on one character in typical Sword & Sorcery style, but this new direction will expand the book quite a bit with more from the other characters, and is likely to have more of an Epic Fantasy feel. I expect it will at least double the first one in length, but that’s really only an estimate. There’s a very real possibility it will be even longer.

I’m excited about it. I hope you will be, too!

Creativity, Writing

What a year

2 Comments

The last time I came here to write anything in this space, I had a hope that things were going to be changing for the better. I had no idea that the bullshit I’d been dealing with would continue to drag on and on and on. It did, though.

Except!

Except I wrote and recorded a new record, Down, Not Out which got released in October. In my own opinion, it’s fantastic, but some other people really liked it as well. Check it out if you get a chance. The link there will take you to my band page, which has links to most of the places where you can find my music.

Also, I’m still alive, which is a fine place to be. I’m enjoying being alive, and looking forward to getting vaccinated here, real soon.

The title of the previous/last post is still accurate. There will be more books. I just don’t know what, or when, and I’m not going to really say more about them until I’ve got something to show. I don’t expect it to be quickly, though. There are a lot of things I have to resurrect.

If anyone still hangs around here, comes to see if I’ve got anything to say, I love you. Period, end of story. I hope to give you some good things in the weeks, months and years to come. I’m excited about the future, for the first time in a long while, and I want to share it with you.

P.S. If you are still here, drop me a note in the comments (assuming they still work). I’d like to hear from you, what your up to, and what’s kept you going the past year.