Hello everyone! Happy new year. Anyone following this blog will have noticed my unexpected hiatus over the past couple months. Due to a couple of changes in my schedule, I’ve had less time than intended to keep up with things. Pair that with the holiday season and some things fell through the cracks. As a result, I wanted to take the time to give some updates on the status of my writing, this blog, and what to expect from me going forward.
A quick overview of what happened
Several things happened all at once which caused the disruption of my plans. Most obviously, my debut novel released. I always knew that releasing a book was going to come with work, but I didn’t realize how much I was going to have to do after it was released. It’s always discussed in terms of the preparation and few people talk about post-release obligations. Since my book released, however, I have been to two promotion events and two conferences, I’ve been trying to schedule a second book signing, and I’m trying to keep track of valuable promotions and opportunities for visibility. That’s over two and a half months, and I’m trying to get more conferences and events on my schedule for next year. That wouldn’t be a problem if not for my day job and my family, but here we are.
As well, I am now trying to prioritize work on my sequel, which understandably takes a lot of my creative focus. Very few people can write in multiple different stories at once, and I have proven that I can’t. Since this blog was originally conceived as a place to build interest in my books mixed with supplemental content for anyone interested enough to seek it out, the sequel has to take priority over the blog.
On top of the predictable series of events above, I also learned over the last few months that my day job, which is a necessity for most debut authors for at least a few books, is in danger of getting outsourced. As a result, I’m being forced to build other marketable skills in order to protect my ability to keep writing and covering the costs of self-publishing well. I haven’t been posting here, but trust me, I’ve been working. There’s a few other more minor events, but those on their own might have caused me to miss a week here and there. The two months of silence came from the combination of juggling new obligations with old while trying to train for a new career.
The blog is alive
First and most importantly, In terms of moving forward, I do intend to return to regular posting on this blog. These plans include posting some fiction that will remain available for free and some thoughts on publishing trends, books, or TV/movies as the story-telling elements seem relevant. Due to ongoing changes in my schedule, however, there will be some changes. These are listed below:
- Posts will be biweekly going forward. Weekly posts are too much for me to keep up with under my new circumstances. Weekly was hard when I only had a full-time job, a 4 year old, and debut book production to worry about. Add in book promotion, book writing, and career swapping and it’s never going to happen.
- Only one post a month will be fiction. I hate to do this, since the fiction posts were part of what I loved about this space, but it’s needed. As I said above, I can’t work on two projects at once, and this was never intended as a space for beta content from upcoming books.
- Non-fiction posts are going to start leaning more toward opinions on recent releases in books, movies, or TV, or experiences while working on my second book. Part of that is because it requires less research, but honestly, I do a lot of the research for my own publishing anyway. Mostly, this is about quality. There are a limited number of publishing topics I can provide a unique viewpoint on, and it doesn’t do anyone any good for me to re-hash the same information you can find on seven other web sites with a quick Google search.
- I’ll be leaning on discussions with other consumers of the same media more. I always want to approach my discussions with an eye to evaluating how the story-telling works or fails because that’s the element that I have any expertise to examine, but at the end of the day, an evaluation is always an opinion. It’s more valuable to more people if those opinions are contrasted between different people as opposed to just me rambling about my thoughts.
Announcement
The last thing I want to talk about is an announcement. My book, Wake of the Phoenix, has finished audiobook production and is awaiting final approval. I am extremely excited about this, and I can’t thank my producer, Scott Fleming, enough for his hard work. The final product is exceptional. I was hesitant to begin the audiobook process because of how hit an miss they can be, but this is a product I am very proud of. I’ll be running some promotions over the next month to try and build some interest and visibility for that audiobook and I hope to get some reputation for my narrator, as well. I’ll announce here and elsewhere when the audiobook becomes available. Keep an eye out of that’s an interest of yours!
Musings, Mythos, and Magic 