Saturday, January 23, 2016

Pardon My Reach...

Mellow greetings, gentle (or not so gentle, depending on your inclinations) reader!

Wait.  Sorry.  If I'm going to start with the word "gentle", I should probably avoid finishing with an exclamation point.  I guess if that's the only error tonight then I'm doing well.

Alright, greetings; mellow or otherwise.  With the new year comes a new start and, hopefully, more feedback from yours truly and to yours truly.  To translate that, I'm going to try to post more, share more, and I want to hear from you, the reader.

I apologize (which I do a lot, apparently) to anyone who feels like I ignored them and their offers to proofread for me.  It wasn't personal.  I wasn't really asking for help, just explaining my problem as I saw it at the time.  You see, I spent most of last year really depressed (my knee re-injury, physical therapy, problems in my personal life, money issues, etc.), trying to cope with various and sundry, and the only thing I found that helped was spending as much time as possible out-of-doors, dangling sharpened bits of bent wire in water, trying to entice the local wildlife to mildly injure their mouths and have an out-of-water experience.  I went places I'd never been before, saw some incredibly beautiful vistas, and spent a lot of time soaking up sunlight.  All-in-all, it was very relaxing and, three months after having to give it up for the winter, I'm missing it every day.

Still, it was therapeutic no end, and I face the blank page with a renewed vigor I haven't felt in a long time.  I've done some work of higher quality than I've managed in a while, and reviewed several projects I'd started and given up on due to my feelings about their quality.  Interestingly enough, they were all much better re-reading them than I felt when I gave up on them.  They may not go anywhere, and at least one of them is probably beyond my abilities at the moment, but I've returned to them and have been finding gold where once I saw only slag.

Progress has been made on the sequels to Triggerbreak and Subject 12.  I've been bouncing ideas for another short story to possibly add to Reagent Protocol, and I've done some work on an eventual followup to The Grand Granger.  That one is probably too grand a grasp for me at the moment, as I delve into the politics of the Empire and visit some of the intricacies of the Tal'Red to a depth I've never attempted before.  On the other hand, I had some fun, and I love working on the weaponry and other technical details of the technologies involved.

So, here's where the title of this post may begin to make sense.  You see, I fully intend to interact more with you this year, barring anything unexpected happening.  That means more updates more often, announcements as they become pertinent, and the occasional surprise in the form of more excerpts.  Of course, all of this is predicated on the idea that you, the reader, want any and all of the above, so I'm reaching out to you.

To begin this little experiment, if I hear from at least five people in the comments section here, I will share a snippet from the book formerly known as Rogue in a blog post.  It will be a few hundred words long, but since it explores a bit of Hammer's past as well as his present, I think you'll like it.  It also gives away the setting for a portion of the book that's not going to change before it gets published, but I don't want to talk about it too much before I post it.

Time to wrap up, so I'll leave you to get back to whatever activity you were occupied with before visiting my blog.  Thanks for reading and for supporting me through all this, and don't forget to tell all your friends and family about my books if they'd be at all interested!

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Still Alive and, Yes. I Have Been Writing.

I'm going to keep this quick because it's late, I'm tired, and I'm going to try to get back to writing here as soon as possible.

Alright, yes, I've been writing.  Not much, but some, and the quality has been higher than I was getting before I took the summer off.  Much higher.  I've actually found voices for characters I'd nearly forgotten how to write entirely, so productivity should be better from here in.

On a side note, for those of you who haven't given up, I've decided that Rogue will only be the working title for the book.  While this means I now have to find another title (and titles and names are two things I really struggle with), it also means I can save it for something more appropriate.

And on that note, have a safe and productive day.  I'll be offering a sneak peek or two if I feel there's enough interest, so feel free to drop me a line!