Progress

I’m deep into the editing phase of Desperate Action. There are a lot of characters in this story and I’m spending a lot of time getting inside the head of the viewpoint character to bring out the personalities of everyone around them. I’m making a conscious effort to get details into the story. Eventually, this type of writing will become something I don’t have to think about. Then I’ll be able to crank these out much faster.

I’m always learning something new. It’s been my lifeblood since I learned how to program a computer in the late 70s. The computer world is about keeping up with the newest technology and paradigm or getting chewed up and spit out. The writing world is really no different. The skills don’t advance as quickly as computer hardware (thank god), but there is always something new to learn. That’s what makes writing so exciting.

Another aspect of writing is that I get to build something new or expand something I created from nothing. That has always been my driving interest in software engineering. Writing a novel is somewhat along the same lines, except the rules are not as strict. In the programming world, you have to write commands in a strict format or the whole thing blows up. In a book, there’s a lot of flexibility around how something can be written.

I was hoping to have Desperate Action done by now, but there is still too much work to be done. I’m shooting for after Thanksgiving or the first week of December. After this book goes out, the next one should go together much faster. The characters will be fully developed and the plot will in motion by the time I start writing the second book.

While I was writing this book, I came up with three short stories that I can write as spin-offs for this series. They’ll fill in some backstory.

Short Stories

I’ve been holding back from spending time on side projects, but I have written some words on a short story that I tentatively titled The Space Junk Collector. This is a random short story that doesn’t fit into any of my other series. I’ve written 3,535 words already and it feels to be about half done. I’m going to submit it to Asimov’s and see if they’ll publish it. If they reject it (which is the most probable outcome), then I’ll try another magazine (I have a list). When I exhaust my list, I’ll publish it myself.

I’m going to try that process for a few more short stories in the future. Before I do other stories though, I plan to finish Daphne and Cargo Pirates (MacKenzie Steele series). Those two will go straight to publication.

Escape from the Abyss

I haven’t touched this project in a while. I’ll probably focus on the artwork and the bible part of this story to get that ready. That is really the only thing holding me back from finishing up the story and getting it out the door. It’s funny that something like this takes so much time but it’s the initial story of a long series and a miss on the first story will sink the whole thing. Also, the books in this series will end up being the largest novels I’ve ever published. They’ll probably end up being the largest I’ve ever written. Doorway was 69k but never published. Some day… or not. Technically, the Mac novels were 64k to 68k in length. However, the first book of the Abyss series will end up being more than 100k. I already wrote 52k of the rough draft and it’s near the mid-point. I’ll need to spend some quality time refreshing the draft of this story. I’ve learned a few techniques that I want to apply that will greatly improve the story itself.

Anyway… I’m still chugging along. Desperate Action will be the next book published and it’s going to be good.