I looked at my blog today and realized it’s been over a month since my last update, so I guess we’re due. That ol’ New Year came and went, and I have to admit, it was not a joyous event at the Presley household. But let me back up a bit before we get there.
My December hiatus was nothing new in that I traditionally stop my writing at the end of November to focus on jewelry making for the month of December. Last year I abstained for baby reasons, so this time was my very first time to work with silver in almost two years, and I’m glad to say my skill did not diminish nearly as much as I feared. Alas though, my allotted time was shortchanged by illness, which meant this was not my most prodigious season.
Apparently two years ago was my prodigious period.
But I’m digressing again. My real intention was to explain away my other tradition: To go back to Dallas for the holidays in an already exhausted state. Because I’ve invariably stayed up all night working on the jewelry I intend on giving as gifts. And this year was no exception as I/ we were already pretty ragged by the time we reached Dallas.
Now this was not the first time we’ve traveled with the child, but we were still quite antsy how he’d be on the plane. Turns out he was an angel. Alas though, angels seem susceptible to viruses…
I should also point out that my wife comes from a large family, who of course all wanted to be in town to see our child. That meant there were 11 people sleeping under one roof. And 10 of them got sick over Christmas week.
Our particular strain started up on Christmas Eve and laid us all low. Up all night with the kid because it then turned into the croup over the next week kind of lowness. Which meant he would only sleep for 30 minute stretches at a time. And only when on my chest. Because the wife is still sick nearly two weeks later, which meant I was on double baby duty.
This is all compounded when I desired to show off my reindeer onesie (don’t judge me) by Risky Businessing around a corner. And in the process vacuumed up a splinter in my foot.
But “splinter” does it no justice, being that it was approximately two millimeters thick and lodged over an inch deep into my foot. Tweezers proved entirely insufficient, and it wasn’t until I received some pliers that I got it loose. Too bad I left a good portion of it in there. So three hours and $300 spent at Urgent Care later, I was free to limp about the rest of the holidays. The same holidays I was sick and still having to care for the kid throughout holidays.
Anyways, that was the long way to say that I’m still exhausted from the sleep I lost in December that I never made up. But I don’t intend on that stopping my 2019 plans in the least. Tonight begins my writing for the year and I don’t intend on stopping until next November, when it comes time to pack it up and work on jewelry again.
The loss of my cover for book three was a big blow, but I just received proofs from the new artist today, and I’m hoping to have book three out by late January/ early February (I don’t want it to compete with any big books, so need a light release week). Tonight I work on a short story for an anthology I’m taking part in, and then finish up some short stories set within the world of Ayr. These will all be compiled in a collection that will be either free on my website, or $.99 on Amazon for those who want it all prettified. These stories will not be necessary to enjoy the series, but will offer a bit more insight to some events in book four, which I will begin probably by the end of January.
That means I’m hoping for a June/ July release of book four to finish up the series. At which point I’ll be free of Marta et al, who have been cluttering up my head for… nearly ten years now. I’ll be glad to be rid of them and write something new for a change, although I reserve the right to return to Ayr on occasion for some novellas I have planned involving a side character that I think people might enjoy.
Also, there will be the requisite box set, then the remix, where I plan on splicing all the books together in chronological order. This will be an experiment of the oddest variety, for only those hard-core fans/ obsessives who went and watched the chronological remix version of Memento, but the idea interests me, so why not?
Soon as book four is in the books (pun!), I’m going to try my hand at some non-fiction. I’ve been studying worldbuilding as a concept for a few years now and developed my own system at it I think might interest fantasy readers and authors alike. Guess we won’t know for sure until it comes out though.
After that, I’m hoping to kick off an Urban Fantasy series that’s been cluttering up my head for… jeeze, I think since around 2001. This one will be a lot more episodic than Sol’s Harvest, but also a lot longer because of it in that I have major story arcs for 10-12 books. So I plan on staying with that one for a while. But what I’ll need is a bible first, which I hope to finish by the end of the year.
As I’ve stated before, my favorite joke in the world is Q: How do you make God laugh? A: Make a plan.
Despite being fully aware of the futility of plans, especially ones stated publicly, my plans for this year are:
Release Sol’s Harvest books 3, 3.5, 4 (Jan-July)
Release box set/ remix (Aug/ Sept)
Release worldbuilding book (Nov/ Dec)
Finish Urban Fantasy bible (Dec)
My, that doesn’t appear daunting in the least when it’s just four bullet points, but I’d be lying if I said my breath didn’t hitch a bit when I was writing it out. And I know I’m tempting fate by stating it publicly, but what’s the point of living if you don’t do it dangerously on occasion?
So there you go, 2019, the gauntlet’s been thrown down. Let’s see what you have in store…
I have a really photogenic kid, by the way.
