Good… afternoon? Yes, I’m a little later than usual today, but afternoon updates may become the norm in the future. Work is picking up and I am rediscovering how to organize my day to make all of my writing projects pan out—but the good news is, bar nothing else, the novels keep moving forward. In fact…

Inner Demon

Bam! Chapter 25 was edited today, putting us at about 9 chapters left to complete line editing—roughly two weeks. Following that I will begin copy editing, and I’ll need to think about covers and so forth in the mean time. (Also, the beginning of copy editing is also the beginning of sample chapters becoming an option, so that’s going to be fun.)

Our timeline to holiday publication is rock-solid so far!

Projects Round-Up

Unfortunately, it is looking increasingly unlikely that hardcovers are going to happen with The Failed Technomancer. I had no idea how much trouble I was getting myself in when I selected 5×8 as my book size—few places print that size, and those that do keep telling me that yet another issue is preventing my book from being published through their service. The most recent blockage is Draft2Digital telling me that I can’t use the ISBN I purchased from Bowker… which doesn’t make any sense. But oh well, I’ll take my punches and move forward.

As for the short stories and newsletter, progress on those projects is currently stalled, once again with Inner Demon taking the majority of my writing focus. They will get done—if nothing else, I may take some time after I finish editing Inner Demon to finish Regular 9–5 and Old Lace and Hairballs before I begin my next project.

Send-Off

While being entirely self-sufficient in the self-publishing process has always been my dream, simply needing to offload work to other people is making me reconsider small presses and agenting for traditional publishers, which is a bit of a bummer (but wouldn’t change much around here, aside from me hopefully having more to update you with each week if things can move faster). The idea is giving me a lot to think hard about, anyway. If any of you have any recommendations or thoughts (for or against), I’d love to hear them. Nothing is going to stop me from writing my stories, but I need to be flexible in how I get them to people—and make them worth the investment.

Anyway, I recognize that these quick updates covering about the same topics each week might come across a little dry, so here’s a fun, dumb joke to close things off and hopefully start your afternoon with a smile:

What do you get when you cross the Incredible Hulk with Captain America?

…

A Star-Spangled Banner.

Enjoy your upcoming 4th of July, everyone. If you don’t hear from me next week, it’s because I’m celebrating by launching explosives at the stars. Either way, I also won’t be sending out an update the week of July 10th–14th because I will be camping with my wife’s family.

Bless up.