Sometimes you screw up. Sometimes you bark up the wrong tree. Sometimes life just doesn’t work out the way you wanted. And that’s just how it is. Hi folks, it’s Vincent again, back for another Monday check-in. Hope your weekend was nice!

Today’s soothing night rain ambience is provided by
The Dead of Night

Ugh. Last week for me was a major bust. I know what happened. I think. I set my goals too high, even though they seemed small enough. You’d think that three things would be easy. Nope. I, honestly, forgot to do all of them most days. I’m not sure what to blame, my disabilities or myself.

I can definitely blame this next thing on myself: I’ve stopped work on the Halloween omegaverse murder mystery. The lead characters demand it be a romance. And that’s awesome, I love romance. Except when the brutally murdered corpse of their mutual friend is the reason the couple gets back together. That, more than any horror I’ve ever written, makes me squeamish. Is that weird of me?

I’ll return to this concept. Or more likely, the gothic romance this idea turned into when I tried to work on it more. That needs to wait until after January.

I’ve learned my lesson. I need to stick with my plan, and more importantly, plan ahead.

THE GOOD NEWS IS

The sequel to Honoria is on the way. Will I get it out in time for Halloween…? I hope! I’m not making any promises. At latest it’ll be out before November 3rd. I want it out before the fourth because I am American and I am Very, Very, Very Nervous about what’s going to happen after that.

PSI is also undergoing work. I can’t explain much now. The goal is 3-5 more short stories in this plot arc (season?) followed by a novella or short novel as the climax, which will of course be bundled with the short stories. Theoretically I can do that with the rest of the series. But we’ll see. I have another novel idea that set before PSI proper starts but I’m not ready to write it.

The goal is to finish Arc 1’s work by Halloween night. Combined with writing and editing the short story (which is another novelette in truth) this will keep me busy without working on In These Unlucky Hours. That I’m having to push to the back burner as well.

Runner Owen and PSI have been my main projects from the start. I have so many standalone stories I want to write (like the gothic sword and sorcery story based on Dracula) but I need to figure out how to balance these things out. Because I’m not doing that well at all. My goal at the beginning of the year was to release a novelette (“short story”) every month - that didn’t happen because I needed more planning.

God above, I’m terrible at planning. How did everyone else learn that and how do I learn it now?

Unrelated: This week I’m juggling three works of fiction, one for any particular mood I’m in. I’ll be reviewing them on Storygraph, maybe Goodreads, and definitely my social media.

They are:

Goblin Heart by Fae Loxley
Strangely Beautiful by Leanna Renee Hieber
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I’ve started Strangely Beautiful already and the prologue has me intrigued. Goblin Heart has a premise with potential (how many stories with a princely goblin love interest have you heard of?). And I just really like Sherlock Holmes. I bet you do too, if you like Runner Owen.

My back hurts so I need to stop, but one last thing before I go: have you followed me on Instagram yet? Or Bluesky, which I use more often? Would be nice to see some new faces on my feed.

Good luck out there, support human creators, and don’t let the bastards grind you down.