Writing Update: August 2019

It’s been a while since I checked in to update you all about my various writing endeavors. People often ask if I’m still writing, and the answer is always yes. I’ve got many different projects in the fire in one way or another. Here’s a breakdown of everything I’ve written or am working on writing:

  • Book One: Into the Elevator. Some fun stuff in this adventure about a girl transported to a fantasy realm, but it’s still a first book. I haven’t even reread it in years. Might be amusing to do so at some point, but . . . not likely there’s much here worth salvaging.
  • Book Two: Blood Countess. My one and only experiment writing a book with a partner. It was intended to bounce back and forth between medieval and present day Slovakia, with real-life evil noble Countess Bathory as the link between them. I wrote my half. The other half never really came together. Interestingly, one of the villains was a Vodnik in this one. No chance this ever gets submitted anywhere.
  • Book Three: Weaver of Dreams. The first book I ever submitted anywhere. A parallel world fantasy I still like the idea of, where our world is mirrored in a world of dreams. Good enough to catch the interest of my agent, though not good enough to convince him to represent me. Maybe I’ll revisit some ideas at some point. Shelved for now.
  • Book Four: Buttersby. Published! I actually wrote what’s essentially a trilogy for this one, though only the first book was published as Cavern of Babel. Still the world’s only alpaca fantasy, I believe. Available as an eBook over at Amazon, or you can get it by being a Patron for even one month over at my Patreon page.
  • Book Five: Adventures of Barboy. A comic fantasy about a plucky young man who has to save his city from a horde of zombies. Rewritten later (see Book Eight). Shelved.
  • Book Six: Vodnik. Published! Print copy available here. YA contemporary fantasy about a boy who moves to Slovakia and discovers he can see and interact with creatures from Slovak folklore. Some of them want to kill him . . . Would still love to write a sequel someday, but that day is unlikely to ever overlap with our current timeline.
  • Book Seven: Ichabod. An adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, jammed together with Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo. The whole thing is available for my Patrons, but that’s as close to real publication as this is likely to get.
  • Book Eight: Pawn of the Dead. A rewrite of Book Five, but set as a contemporary fantasy. Interestingly, it takes place at my own high school. A fun book, but I’m not sure it will ever do anything. Maybe I should reread it sometime to be sure. It’s currently being posted in chapter increments for my Patrons.
  • Book Nine: Tarnhelm. A YA teen noir fantasy. Revised and submitted to editors. It caught some attention at the time, but never enough to seal the deal. These days after the #metoo movement, the protagonist has some issues that might make publication even more problematic. It would need some serious revision to make it work, I worry. Shelved for now.
  • Book Ten: Get Cupid. I worked on this one a long time, and in the end, it went nowhere. YA contemporary fantasy about a group of teens who set out to rob a Vegas casino. Harry Potter meets Oceans Eleven. Rewritten in Book Twelve.
  • Book Eleven: The Memory Thief. Published! “Something Wicked This Way Comes” meets Pixar’s “Inside Out.” Available as an eBook or in Print. Buy it today!
  • Book Twelve: Our Lady of Questionable Morals. I loved the concept of Get Cupid, and I just couldn’t let it go, so I gave it another shot, moving it from Vegas to a private school and increasing the con man aspects. Revised and submitted to editors. Got some attention, but never enough. Shelved for now, though I wish it might still see print one day.
  • Book Thirteen: The Book Binder’s Curse. I wrote this one in a month for NaNoWriMo. An adaptation of Peter Pan that I had a lot of fun with, but which my agents . . . didn’t appreciate. 🙂 Shelved.
  • Book Fourteen: Magic at 30,000 Feet. Snakes on a Plane meets Hunger Games and Harry Potter. I just finished a third draft, and it’s getting sent out to editors soon. Cross your fingers.
  • Book Fifteen: Utopia. My only science fiction novel. Part Clockwork Orange, part Fury Road, part Star Trek, with mice. I love this book, and I have high hopes for it. It’s complete and should go out to editors soon. Again, wish me luck.
  • Book Sixteen: A sequel to The Memory Thief. I almost accidentally typed the title. It’s revised and pretty much ready for publication, but it’s waiting on the big screen adaptation of The Memory Thief, which puts this squarely in one of the lower circles of Development Hell. This is a great book. I hope you get to read it some day.
  • Book Seventeen: Murder Castle. A historical mystery/suspense set in Chicago in the 1890s. A girl’s sister goes missing, and she travels out to Chicago to find her, eventually going undercover as a maid in the same hotel where her sister was last seen. A hotel where many of the maids have gone missing before. Currently on submission with editors.
  • Book Eighteen: Codename Silverado. A steampunk western fantasy. I’ve finished most of the first draft, but I’m leaving it be for a while so I can reread it and finish it off in a while. I want to get a fresh read on things.

So what am I up to now? I’m actually trying to hammer out the plot for book one of what I’d love to see as a trilogy, though I’m intentionally making it so that Book One could stand alone. Game of Thrones meets Harry Potter, but with more sex. (Just kidding. I mean “less sex.”) It’s been fun for now as a plotting exercise, but I haven’t written a single word of it yet. I need to get the plot down and then send it to my agent to get his take on it before I do anything with it.

And that brings you up to speed with my current life as a writer. A number of things in the pipeline, but nothing solid yet. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

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