A Prolonged Absence

After a prolonged absence from updating this blog I have a LOT of new updates. Over the last few years I have been writing a lot. After twenty years of writing, the "Crooked Line" series is probably 80% completed now. I also have another series of books which fall into the Dystopian genre that I have started in the last few years that you guys will receive an update on as well. I even have some small news a few other stories. Now, on to the meat and potatoes!

"Crooked Line"

The story will actually stretch out to nine books now. Long time followers will recall that the story was originally divided into two parts, each part would be four books each. As I have been stepping through the creative and writing process, doing outlines, story boarding and just plain writing, as I neared the end of books seven and eight, I realized that there were parts of the story that hadn't been told and even characters that had not been dealt with. The only way to do that was to push out to one more book.  Book Nine will wrap up the story line in, what I think is, a nice neat bow. I've even already written the Epilogue for Book Nine and have started one for Book Four which will bridge the gap between books four and five.  I also hope that it will further entice readers into the second part of the story. 

As some of you know, I am by default a pantser, a term I learned only a few short years ago after getting in with a group of writers. A pantser is someone who "writes by the seat of their pants." I will often go back after a book is nearing completion or at least after I have written out a large block of notes and build an outline in order to define chapters. It is my understanding that most writers fall into one category or another and rarely fit into both, I wouldn't be me if I didn't do things differently. This is largely why this story has taken a long time to write as I allow the story to more or less write itself and just use me as the vessel to write the story down. As a result, this story has always told itself and taken on a mind of its own. However, over the last ten years, I myself have been surprised at some of the twists and turns the story has taken. I even introduced a few characters years ago who were really just supposed to be MacGuffins or in some cases throw away characters. Before I knew it some of these characters had become central to the story and even a couple of them I had to fight them from becoming main characters. I've even had a couple characters, one in particular, who was supposed to be a recurring MacGuffin, sadly, he nearly outlived his usefulness and after the last use of him I no longer needed him, despite my original thoughts for him being used much more. 

I hope that you will find this update sufficient and even wet your appetite for the books to come to fruition. I don't have a planned date for them to be published yet as I still have another twenty percent or so to go on the story but hopefully soon I'll be able to update you with that information. 

Because I know that some of you enjoy the playlist updates for the books I'll be posting an updated version of the playlists soon.

Dystopian 

On 26 August, 2019 I began writing a story, this was probably the fifth or sixth attempt to tell this story. After spending a little time writing the other attempts, I would reject them for one reason or another. Finally, on that fateful day of 26 August, 2019, I found a version of the story I liked. This story follows a husband and wife ten years after the world went to crap. Life is hard for them and everything they do is all about survival. After meeting some unsavory characters and some unexpected allies their world gets a little bit bigger and even more dangerous. In full disclosure, this story was written when I was going through a long and rough period of depression and therefore it has some very rough story points in it. The story was originally written as a single book but as I was writing the closing chapters of the story I realized, much like the "Crooked Line" series, there was more story to tell. I have since started a second and third book. I do not plan on the story being more than the three books, however I have a collection of short stories, some where taken from rejected ideas others were just micro stories I wanted to tell that would guide the reader along what was happening when the world went to pot.  I can tell you two exciting points of news on this story. First, this story will likely be published under a pen name, one I've already decided. Second, I plan on having book one published this year with hopefully the short stories and then books two and three being subsequently published every three to six months. 

Love story

The love story book was one that I had an idea for many many years ago. I think the original idea for it dates back to some time around 2005/2006. This story always had a bit of a tie in to the "Crooked Line" series and after having written that scene from the "Crooked Line" perspective I have decided I really want to dust off the story notes and try to put it out subsequently to the release of the "Crooked Line" books. 

Gypsy

Gypsy is a code-name/working title for a story I came up with probably five years ago.  I love the idea of the character and the story but I haven't come up with any real conflict at this point. Until I have that, I won't really have any real story. But, stay tuned for more updates regarding the Gypsy story.