Overall and Writing Update

Yeah, sorry folks, I've been super quiet lately for a multitude of reasons. First of course is laziness, let's get that out of the gate. I'm sorry, but wow life has been crazy and I've dealt with several consecutive bouts of depression, which haven't been fun at all. Each lasted roughly a month. Sigh.

Secondly, I just haven't felt all that interested in blogging. Not many subjects have been of interest, and I'm floundering trying to think of things you guys would enjoy hearing about. It's always hard for me to measure people without comments.

Anyway! I feel like crap cuz I've gone a year and a half now without having released a book. For all three of my fans, I do truly apologize. However, I haven't been idle. On the contrary, I have in fact been doing insane levels of research and have in fact been working on two stories at once. One is another Primal Frontier story, the other is another novel set in a steampunk alien world. I've finally dubbed it The Pariah Chronicles, following the story of an airship crew as they go on weird adventures on an entire PLANET that I've been working on. Jeez, I can't make things easy on myself, can I? First series I invent a continent, and now a planet from the ground up.

Now, here's part of the problem with how that whole novel has been: It's been a HUGE jump in style. I'm now writing an entire crew, around seven people, all of whom have varied personalities and backstories with unique voices, and that's really been stretching my skills. I've never had a cast that big before, so it's been a challenge learning how to juggle that many characters and channel that many voices, which scenes to use them in and how. On one hand this is a very big and powerful learning experience. I'm learning new skills for my writing toolbox and having fun doing so. But it's also a work in progress which requires lots of fine tuning.

Second problem was plotting. I'm terrible at it. I actually spent seven dod gamn months last year, trying to plot this story out to the last detail. And failed miserably. It was an incoherent mess that required two fellow friends and writers to convince me was beyond salvaging and I had to start over. Reluctantly, I agreed that I indeed have to do this. So, almost a whole year wasted. I wasn't terribly happy about that. I then tried a new tactic, which I've called "Screw it, Imma just wing it" and started just bashing out words without any course or direction. Surprisingly this worked quite well, and managed to find unique character voices and had fun doing so. I found another plotline and tried following that. But again, I found that it had internal problems and was again forced to start over.

So I'm now a year and six months in, and now I'm trying to prepare myself for my third startup. However, this one I think will be far better than my other two. It's more natural, still exciting, and I can do the things that I enjoy without shoe-horning them in.

As a rough synopsis, a pair of xenoarchaeologists have hired on a renegade airship captain and her crew to engage in a race against time to document, collect and rescue as many extinct alien artifacts and architecture as they can before a massive war breaks out between multiple powers. Many of the research zones are right in the path of the conflict, and with how the heavy artillery and treasure hunters treat things, they have to move fast before these rare artifacts are stolen or pounded into dust under the teeth of heavy artillery and rockets. But they aren't the only ones in this race. There are other treasure hunters, techno cults, pirates, privateers, and corrupt military commanders who all want a slice of this lucrative action, so our heroes will have to be smart, daring and darned lucky to come out of it with a full hold and their arses intact.

And yeah, I'm going to throw all sorts of weird arse technology and weapons into this setting, you have no idea. It'll be a setting where you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a mad scientist or someone connected with a doomsday weapon. But those will come in future stories! After I get this kidney stone of a story finally out and I can flow freely once again.

On another positive note however, I've pushed my writing speed even further, to the point where on a day off I can actually hit five thousand words! So making ten to fifteen thousand words a week, which is now reasonably achievable, is a gigantic increase in pace that can help me to get a rough draft out in one to three months, instead of six or more. I actually managed to achieve sixty thousand for my last draft, before I realized it wasn't working. But fret not! I'm not killing that one. On the contrary, it's very salvageable, but for a later story. So it hasn't been a complete loss.

For now my goals are to give my brain a wee break, then sit down to work and get these two stories done. This upcoming Primal Frontier story, Heart of the Hunter, will be a shorter story, and will actually be for free. Give possible customers a taste of what I have to offer, ya dig? Even so this one has a lot of my heart in it, and it will be very different from the others I have written. With luck I'll have it done and published before the year is out. As for The Pariah Chronicles, I'm going to get details and stuff hashed out, and hopefully get a rough draft done within the year, and finally get it published by next year.

So I'd like to thank all of you who have stayed with me through this journey of confusion and silence, and hope that you will be satisfied with what I have coming up in the near future. Hopefully next week I can produce another blog article too about some interesting hunting chaps from Greenland. Until then, take care!