You might noticed by the presence of two widgets that there are two books in progress. I still have some editing work to do with Orbital Chaos, and next weekend will be the Read-Out-Loud part of the book. For those who don’t know, that’s where my wife and I alternate reading chapters out loud to each other and catch the really cringeworthy mistakes. Which means that Orbital Chaos is slated to be published next Sunday night (assuming we don’t run into anything major). Sunday, the 25th of January. If you’re waiting for this book, check back here Sunday night to verify that it’s headed up to Amazon.
The promo for Frozen Logic expires today (Sunday, 1/18/2026), so I put the price at 99 cents and will run that for about a month (until the end of February). If you’re interested in that book and don’t have Kindle Unlimited, grab it while it’s cheap, because it’ll go back to it’s $2.99 price in March.
I’m in the early phase of creating The Missing Link. Book 9 of the Daphne Blazefire series. For those who don’t write books, I have a system in place allowing me to create book-after-book in sequence. For books that are 70,000 words in length (average), like the newer Daphne books, it takes me two months to create, write, edit, and publish. To create the book, I always start with the blurb, which is based on an idea I have for a new book. And just so you know, I have 20 Daphne story ideas already in the can, and can sit and pop out additional stories like a broken candy machine. So, if you really love the Daphne series, there will be plenty more in the future.
Right now, I have more than an idea about The Missing Link. I have a Scrivener template with 20 chapters ready to accept scenes. This template normally ends up with three to five scenes per chapter, and now you’re probably wondering, “Where do I start?” I usually start at the critical points of the story, and there are three major points. The first one is the transition from Act I to Act II. The second is the transition from Act II to Act III (I use a 3-Act structure). Finally, the midpoint scene. I try to put some sort of major twist at each of these three points. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what those twists will be for The Missing Link, because that would spoil the story for you.
The next parts I work on are some of the minor turning points. These can be specific to the story, or they are some of the scenes where the protagonist loses all hope, or better known as the Dark Night of the Soul. Everything is hopeless, and it looks like the good guys are doomed. That happens near the end of the book.
The opening scene is super important, though I usually hack down something when I start, then tweak it when I edit the book. It has to pop because it’s the first thing people read in the preview on Amazon before they decide to buy the book (or download and read using Kindle Unlimited).
After I decide what I’ll write for the critical scenes, I’ll go through and figure out all the scenes in between. Sometimes this can require a subplot to move the story along. I might decide to inject something that could show up in a future book. Gotta add a bunch of humor, and there needs to be some RUSTY is snarky moments. I also have to make sure the tropes are there. In the case of Daphne, there needs to be a “RUSTY loses his head” moment.
Once all the scenes are defined, I still have to write the book. At this point, I don’t have any words written, so I just start from the beginning, think about a scene that I defined, then visualize and write it. That task goes on for weeks. I can usually knock out two scenes a night on a weeknight. That’s about 2,000 words. Sometimes, if things are going great, I can knock out 3,000 words. Other times, I struggle to make things work. Like, I run into something that requires me to go back and insert something into a previous scene.
The rest is boring. Just editing to make sure everything is consistent, spelling is right, grammar, sentences flow, etc. Then there’s the Read-Out-Loud and PUBLISH! (I love that part).
The first time I wrote a book, I struggled with each of these tasks because I had not yet established a system. It took several months to get the book done and published. Now, it’s an addiction. Each time I publish a book, there’s this little high that I feel from completing something large and complex. Then I come down from my cloud, grab the next story, and get busy. Well, technically, they kind of overlap a bit. I like to have the story planned before the previous book is done. That way, I can hit the ground running and start writing the rough draft.