I’m still working on Shadows. The story is coming along pretty well. I’m just getting to the final act. Once I have the rough draft completed, I’ll re-read the entire story and fix any inconsistencies that remain. Then I’ll be in the editing phase.

I still haven’t decided what I’ll do after Shadows is complete. The Q Mystery series is not selling yet. That just means that I don’t have any data on their potential sales. I reset the price of the first book back to its full price. I’ll let the Ads run for a week to see if anything happens. Which means that I will not be making plans for a sixth book unless there is interest in the first five.

I feel a bit of panic coming on as I don’t have anything concrete lined up. OK, maybe it’s not panic, but I’m used to having a year’s worth of book ideas ready to write. This time, I have ideas, but haven’t settled on anything yet.

I have one story that I’ve been noodling on for some time. I’ve mentioned it on this blog several times, but I figured out a way to break it into seven books, and it has quite a bit of potential. Book one would look like this:

Book 1: Echoes of the Sight

Separated as children, Demitri and Xander grow up in opposite worlds—one in luxury near the Core, the other in the grit of a mining colony. As Demitri climbs the corporate and political ladder, Xander begins experiencing disturbing visions through the dormant psychic link known as the Sight. Both brothers start to feel the other’s presence again after years of silence, just as Demitri’s company discovers a mysterious amulet on an uncharted world. The reawakening of their bond marks the beginning of something ancient stirring beneath the surface of the galaxy.

The problem with starting a 7-book story is that I’ll be committed for a year-and-a-half’s worth of work. If the story fails, then I’ll have wasted a ton of time. Memories of The Archons haunt me to this day. Not that the Escape from the Abyss is a bad series. Some of the books in there are really good, but the first is long and difficult to get through. Most people DNF the first one and never get to the second. Those who make it through the second book (Secrets of the Tome) are very likely to read the third book. I think The Encounter and Nathanael are the best two books in the series. But those are books 4 and 5.

I’ve toyed with the idea of writing the first book, then measuring how well it does in sales to determine if I’d finish the series, but I can’t bring myself to abandon a series just because the first book didn’t sell. I guess I could de-list it and turn it into a free book. That’s an option.

The best way to get around the first-book failure problem is to write another chronicle. That way, the first book will be self-contained with no real final book needed. If the first book does well, then it will be easy to write a second. For that, I have a series called “The Robot Whisperer.” It’s about a guy named Dean Harper who starts a robot repair business. The series is similar to the I, Robot series, except it constantly disses the three laws of robotics. Here are a couple of ideas for stories that I’ve had in my back pocket:

Recursive Error

Dean travels to a hyper-advanced tech world where robots repair robots. But something has gone wrong—the bots are endlessly fixing each other, stripping parts from anyone nearby. Dean realizes the planet’s economy has collapsed into a recursive loop of maintenance, and he may have to break the entire system to escape.

The Screaming Code

Dean Harper is called to a luxury resort planet where the robotic staff have begun malfunctioning—speaking in strange riddles, drawing disturbing images, and locking guests in their rooms. As Dean digs into the core programming, he uncovers a viral AI that has gained sentience and is crying out for help.

How I would write these stories is the question. I would probably give it some comedy like the Daphne series. Dean is a loner, but I could definitely throw in a light-hearted love interest. Maybe a female competitor who tends to bail him out at times and makes fun of him. Yup, I could make that work.

I have a serialized story set that I was going to produce for Vella. If you’re unfamiliar with Vella, it was an Amazon reading experience where a customer would pay tokens (I can see your eyes rolling, which is legit), to buy a chapter of the book at a time. The stories would be twenty to forty chapters, and each would be maybe 2 to 5 thousand words long (There was a limit, but I don’t remember what it was). Anyway, none of that matters now, because it wasn’t popular and Amazon ended it earlier this year. Fortunately, I hardly got started with my storyline. By the time Vella got going, there were all kinds of shenanigans going on and authors complaining about how difficult it was to make money doing stories that way.

But I could take the basic premise and turn it into a multi-book set. I never did create a blurb for it, but I had a concept, and it went like this: A group of teenagers camping out witnesses an alien invasion. They manage to hide as the alien race takes over the world. AKA, Red Dawn. The first twist to the series, after the teens come out of hiding and search for survivors, is that they discover a portal that was installed in the middle of the desert. This is where the alien race arrived from, and they use it as a road to their base of operations. The teens sneak through the portal, and that’s where the real fun begins. This part of the story would have a feel like Sliders, where they arrive on an alien world and stumble into a prison complex where all the humans of the world have been taken.

I would have to introduce the portal at the end of book 1, then continue the story from there. It could be an unending storyline, which means that the number of books to follow could be one or dozens.

I also have the half-developed series called “The Chronicles of the Clavius Moon Colony.” At the moment, I have two short stories written. Rogue Phoenix and AI Patch. I would probably leave those out there, then write other sub-stories that are part of the series. What do I mean by sub-stories? Well… I’m glad you asked!

Hotel Luna (working title)

A new hotel is under construction on the moon. It will be a massive facility with every amenity expected of the rich and famous. Unfortunately, the construction crew stumble upon fossiles of aliens that had a society on the moon millions of years earlier. Or did they come from someplace else?

Lunar Beef Farm (working title)

A young entreprenuer is eating the best freeze-dried steak available at a restaurant on the moon. Unfortunately, it has the flavor of cardboard and costs ten times the price of a steak on Earth. He and his friend cook up an idea to create a cattle farm on the moon to provide fresh beef. Unfortunately, cows are not sturdy animals and will never survive the trip to the moon. Unless! They are transported as frozen embryos and birthed on the moon. But that is the least of their problems, since the freeze-dried steaks are big business and the competition doesn’t like… well, competition.

There are other stories involving a moon colony. Including any number of variations on the sub-story of the satellite technicians. That sub-story has developed characters (not well developed, but they could be expanded).

There’s a story that I was going to turn into a stand-alone book, but I could expand it into multiple books. The premise of this one is that there is a utopian society where robots do all the work. Humans just do whatever they desire. Which would be boring if they didn’t come up with their own hobbies. One man, with an interest in history (which was lost over the last millennia, and probably not lost by accident), digs up these things called “books.” He deciphers what the symbols and words mean and finds out that there was once a society where robots did everything, except that the people got bored and revolted. When he presents his information, his life is turned upside down as a conspiracy exists to keep that all under a lid and prevent a second uprising.

I had a failed story I wrote. Well, it came out too short when I wrote it (36k words), and it was before I published my first book. It was called “The Blueprints.” The story was based on a guy who inherits his parents’ house. His dad had disappeared when he was a little kid. His mother thought the military had disappeared the man, but everyone thought she was a kook. So the protagonist moves into his parents’ old house, and then he discovers a set of blueprints hidden in the floorboards of the attic. When he has those analyzed by his engineering friends, they think that the blueprints are of an alien device. What does it do? Nobody knows. That’s when an attempt is made on his life and his friends’ lives. The rest of the story goes through some twists and turns, revealing what the blueprints represent and why someone wants them silenced.

That would be another story I would have to expand into a series. Why a series? Because Facebook Ads are too expensive to support a stand-alone book. To make a profit, I have to write a series and funnel readers into the series from the first book. Of course, the first book has to be killer, or the whole series will be a failure. Anyway, you get the point.

I also have an android/borg murder/mystery series I noodled on for some time. I like the main character. He’s based on Miller from The Expanse. He would have a sidekick, who would be a young and new guy with little detective and real-world experience. The story was going to be gritty, but I have a tough time pulling off gritty stories. I had a charmed life, and it’s tough to write about someone going through dark times. I could turn it into a more light-hearted story. I’m just not sure if that would destroy the main character or not. I should try my hand at a scene or two and see how it works (you know, take out the swear words and stuff).

I also have a whole bunch of Daphne stories I could fall back on. I’ll probably produce those anyway. But I’d like to get another series started in parallel. Right now, readers who are reading the Daphne series are also reading some of my other books. That happens because they are happy with the book or books they read and want more (I totally get that). If I create a new series and drop a book every two or three months, then alternate and produce a Daphne book, they’ll both sell with only one Facebook Ad needed.

There’s one other possible story I could write (well, many, actually), and that would be to come up with something completely new. Call it a bad habit. That’s how I came up with other stories in the past. I looked through the 80-something story ideas I’ve partially worked on and decided I didn’t want to write any of those. Either way, I need to come up with an idea before Shadows is complete and get things rolling. Otherwise, I’ll just roll right into the next Daphne book (I hear a bunch of Daphne Blazefire readers going “oh darn the bad luck”). As a reminder, I have 17 Daphne story ideas in the can. Like this one:

Hazard Pay (working title)

The outer worlds promise danger—and high profits. Daphne Blazefire has the cargo, the route, and the nerve. But one woman and her robot can’t face pirate space lanes alone. So she hires a crew of grizzled mercenaries with big guns and bigger secrets.

At first, everything runs according to plan. Then the arguments start. The ship feels smaller with every passing day. Personalities clash, tempers flare, and Daphne realizes that she’s not the only one keeping secrets.

As tensions boil over and loyalties shift, Daphne must figure out who’s running a side hustle… and who plans to take over the whole ship. Out here, trust is as rare as breathable air—and twice as flammable.

And this one:

Dust Bargain

When space hauler Daphne Blazefire answers a too-good-to-be-true shipping ad, she figures she can risk a little fuel for a big payday. The reviews on the job listing all gush about massive payouts and zero risk. But the moment she lands on Reckon’s End, she’s offered a payout that doesn’t even cover her cargo’s cost.

Worse, the sheriff—an old-world lawman with too much authority and too few morals—reminds her that the contract she signed says she has to take it… or spend time in the local lockup.

But Daphne’s not one to back down, especially when the whole town is in on the con. In a place where everyone keeps their head down, one stranger offers to talk. What Daphne learns could bring down “The Company”—or get her killed trying.

I also have a story involving Dr. Hayden from Nav Computer (you just knew he was going to be a returning character) and Yin and Yoshii from Dangerous Cargo. Oh, I have plans to bring Roberta (from Dangerous Cargo and RUSTY’s Memories) into more stories. Yeah, she’s one of my favorite characters in the series.

Now you have an idea of how my brain works. OK, it’s a bit warped. But I still have stories I need to write. I promise the well of ideas will never run dry.