Monday Catch Up
Hello world!
I’m still trying to pin down the best day to send these. I want to send them once a week, but life hasn’t been very accommodating lately. Well, it is what it is.
Halloween nears. The best time of the year, or at least it would be if the corpos weren’t already shoving Christmas down our throats. I’m getting ads for holiday sales on Youtube already. In five years, they’ll be year round! It’s exhausting. I already have issues about that time of year and the corpos’ desperate efforts to squeeze blood from a stone doesn’t help. I would say ‘I miss the old days’ but I don’t. I just miss a world with less marketing, less noise, less… you know what I mean.
You’re not here for my complaints, though.
So I got a hold of a couple of Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op stories. You can read some over on Wikisource. Hammett created the hardboiled detective, and his nameless Op is one of the most influential figures in the mystery genre, though far from the best known by the average person. I’ve linked the first story written with the guy, Arson Plus, above. Give it a read, it’ll take about 20 minutes.
I’m putting novels aside for now. As much as I want to read a proper book, I just can’t focus on them right now. And since I write mostly short stories myself, I need to be learning from other’s work. Admittedly, thinking about it, the fact I mostly read on my phone probably doesn’t help my focus problems… I’ll workshop that.
Here’s the part you’re really interested in: What have I been writing lately?
Well, I have too many projects going on to talk about them all here. Here’s the stuff I hope to release within the next few months:
Wish Upon a Storm edits got put on the backburner when I got sick, but I’m picking them up again today. I am a touch anxious. The scene I’m about to edit is painful and I worry overwrought and cliche. But my editor will intervene if that’s the case. Goal is mid-October release.
Runner Owen: I outlined almost an entire novella during one sleepless night. I will be working on that alongside my six part mystery short story collection. The first five stories of that will be released individually, with the sixth being a bit of a bonus. The mystery collection I hope to release around next spring. The next short story I aim to have out in November. It’s outlined, after all!
PSI is getting a revamp on the back end. It’s a lot of plotting, planning, research and things I should’ve done before I wrote Lock the Last Door. I would kick myself for not doing it before, but I know if I had, I never would’ve gotten where I am now. So it goes. Not sure when the next story will come, I’ll keep you updated.
But that doesn’t mean you won’t see Lazarus soon. I’m chewing over a Halloween short story, an AU of PSI. It’s very different from PSI proper… a cozy mystery set in roughly the modern day. So far, at least. Goal is October 25th release. Can I do it? I better!
I’ve got a lot of projects on my plate, don’t I? More than I’ve written here, much more. I would say I’m wrestling with too much but with my AuDHD I doubt I could handle just one WIP at a time, even if it were a novel.
Is this everything? No, probably not. There’s lots more I could say, but I think it’d get boring. And my back hurts from sitting in my wheelchair. I better get this sent and shared so I can lie down.
Until next time, readers, I’ll see you when I see you. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
