Howdy folks! Just checking in with a status update to keep you posted on my writing projects.
Year of Poetry
In April of 2020, at the height of the pandemic lockdown and just before the Black Lives Matter protests changed our social consciousness forever, I began a project of writing a poem a day for a year. I didn’t impose any rules on what kind of poems they should be in terms of form or length. By the time I wrapped that up in April of 2021, I had written hundreds of poems on subjects ranging from current events to ancient mythology, with a particular emphasis on calendars, holidays, and biographies of historical figures. The poems include sonnets, ballads, blank verse, haiku, limericks, song lyrics, doggerel, experiments in other formal forms, and even some free verse. After some edits, I’ll try to figure out how to get it published.
Mythology Reimaginings Series
Well, if you’ve known me personally or followed me online for any length of time, then you already know that I tend to attempt more simultaneous projects than I can reasonably complete. I write because I enjoy writing, but the books I have self-published to date (including my most recent release, The Gompa Oasis) have not been particularly commercially successful (that said, a huge thank you to everyone who has bought and reviewed them, you folks are true friends). Anyway since I don’t make a lot of money from my writing, it sometimes gets punted to the back of my priority list. My occupation was “web developer” for several years; but my business fell apart in 2016, and between that and the pandemic shutdowns, I’m just a stay-at-home Dad now, homeschooling two great kids while my amazing wife works as the breadwinner for the family. Cooking, cleaning, and supervising children takes the majority of my time, and it’s never done. I still have my professional plans, though, and I still have a few clients who have stuck with me through the years. One of those clients notified me of a software bug a few months back; and trying to patch that darn thing has turned into a major rewrite of a huge piece of code with literally thousands of files that all have to work together. I’ve made substantial headway, but I would have liked it to be complete weeks ago. I have prioritized the coding project at the expense of the mythology project. I’ve only picked up my Bible retelling project a couple times in the past few months. I am looking forward to getting back to it. I already have some ideas for the next one(s) in this series, and I have some new ideas for improvements to my old Arthurian and Greek mythology projects, too, when I’m able to get to them. Someday I might even try to get them published.
Fantasy Novella
I have a lot of other ideas about projects I would like to write and release; but at this point, I think what I’m going to do next is edit and self-publish a fantasy novella. This one is a really fun, lighthearted adventure piece, excerpted from a longer work that I wrote waaaay back in the summer of 1995: my very first novel, which has never been previously released. An enchantress in training uses her magical powers to rescue her farmboy/revolutionary boyfriend from a dank dungeon, and together they enlist the aid of a wizard and a dragon to fight the evil demigods who have seized power in the kingdom. Can their scrappy fighting force face down insurmountable odds against a well-armed magical opponent? I would like to have this one ready for release by July, but folks, the timing will depend on the completion of my coding project (see above), so I can’t promise a firm date.
Self-help book
I have a self-help book project as well. See, I tend to write in whatever genre I’ve been reading; and I’ve been reading a lot of self-help books lately: so this was almost inevitable. It’s past 40k words already, but a connection over on LinkedIn advised me to build a platform before I try to release it; and now I have another years-long project. So I’ve been making YouTube videos about self-improvement. The world is generally unimpressed thus far, but I’ve received encouragement from a few people who are close to me, and that’s all the encouragement I need. So go subscribe to my YouTube channel and watch for my future blog posts on self-help topics!
What are you working on these days? Please feel welcome to leave a comment! I’ll be talking to you soon. Have a great day.
