Weekly Update - 2/26/25

Man, it can be tough, trying not to spend too much time looking at the news as the country attempts to win at speedrunning the fall of an empire. At this rate, if I fly back to the Midwest for Christmas, I may need to use my passport, because I might be changing countries, for all I know. California going rogue and declaring ourselves an independent country isn't the craziest thing I've heard in the last month. Hell, it's not even in the top ten. California refuses to bow down to Emperor Stupid, and rightfully so. I heard the governor of Maine tell Trump, to his face, on camera, "We'll see you in court." Seems like there'll be a lot of that going around for the foreseeable future...

I finished up Neon Stonehenge a couple of days ago for alpha readers, although there's one big correction/change that needs to get made before it comes out for everyone. I'll have that done for next month, as I also start in on Have Totem, Will Travel. The commissioner has said they intend to keep commissioning them and it was loads of fun to write the first one, so I'm on board. There may NOT be the first chapter of HTWT next month, simply because I want to do a bit more planning for this one, and treat it as an actual novel, and less of a chapter-by-chapter month like I did the first one. We'll play it by ear, because next month is already super crowded, as you're going to see.

It might not have been obvious, but Neon Stonehenge was very seat-of-my-pants writing. When I wrote the opening page of Dale Sexton being thrown out of a window, I had zero idea who had done it or why, and trusted myself to solve it by the time I got there (which I think I did, well). (It was also part of a challenge I'd issued to myself, to take every writerly trope that I HATE and try and make them work for me. This one was the flashforward/flashback cold open.) That said, I'm going to take all the spare moments I can squirrel away in next month to build a proper pre-outline for the second Druid Gunslinger book, as well as what other noir tropes I can play around with in this one. Thankfully, I've been mostly pretty vague about the contents of each of the books in Quaranteam, with a handful of notable exceptions. 

Speaking of next month, I've sort of written February off a bit as a 'get my shit together' month, sadly, partially complicated by my cold and partly by the fact that it's a tiny little month. But part of what I realized I haven't been doing for months now that I used to do all the time is setting a schedule for what I'm working on. So earlier today, I drafted up a general list of what I'm planning on what dates for all of March, and where I hope to try and slip additional things in.

To make people feel better, both Brewster's Brood and Breakpoint are on next month's schedule, as are QT:Unbroken Mold and A Pack Of His Own. The winner of the next You Decide! is scheduled to get posted on 3/14, so I'll probably have the poll posted for that in the next day or two, for those of you who subscribe at that level. (The last few ones have come down to 1-2 votes deciding the whole thing, so if you're considering upgrading, it's only a few bucks more ecah month.)

There are two chapters of QT2 on the schedule for March, one early in the month and one towards the end. I'm hoping to squeeze in QT:SS in there as well, but the commissioner may need to take a month off, which, frankly, I'm just going to use to get caught up, if that needs to happen. I also need to try to find a way to jam a QTPT in there as well. Maybe I schedule that in for 3/28, which is the one actual open day on the calendar, but maybe not. We'll see. I want to wait to drop the poll until I drop my next piece of fiction, which isn't in ANY existing storyline. Sort of. It's adjacent? It's a spinoff? It's... well, you'll see soon enough. I woke up with what I call an "I don't have TIME for this!" idea early in the week, and I've already written 2k words in it just on the side, so I'm hoping to drop the first chapter (or maybe two) of that on Friday. (Those of you who have been with me for a long while will probably be delighted by it - the idea tickled me pink and refused to leave my brain until I put it to paper.) If it keeps coming at this rate, though, maybe I'll have it out tomorrow, and then try and push to get something else released for Saturday, which I realize is technically in March, but don't argue calendar semantics with me! In the words of Douglas Adams, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."

We may fall down somewhere along the way as we fight through March (I realized that if I get everything I'm technically committed to for each month, I'm writing about 50k words a month) but we're never going to get anywhere if we don't at least set down all the guideposts and try swinging for it.

I really should be writing instead of chatting here, but two more things before I post the upcoming public release schedule and then get back to this roadblock idea.

First, a number of people have been asking lately when I'm going to do an updated version of the Quaranteam Visual Guide, where I basically cast everyone in QT with pictures (mostly of actors). We did a version of it a couple years back, and we're slowly creeping up to one of the two numbers I set in my head on when I'd do another. We're about fifty new subscribers away, give or take, or about the same number of subscription upgrades, so if you're itching to know who I'd cast for certain roles, you can always consider upgrading your subscription a tier, or convincing a few friends to sign up. If we stay on the pace we've been at, we'll hit it by end of summer, but hey, new enrollment surges happen, as do upgrade surges. (If money's tight, believe you me, I get it, and take care of yourself first.) Once we hit that number, I'll post that we've hit it, and I'll start work on casting anyone who didn't have a picture in the old visual guide.  I'm committing here to having it out no later than one month after I tell you we hit the watermark.

Second, people have been asking about whether or not I'm going to do printed versions of other completed works, like we did with Book One of Quaranteam, like I keep claiming I'm going to. Yeah, yeah, I hear ya, friends! Before the end of the week, I'm going to be sending four art requests to my best friend - a cover for If I'm Honest, a cover for Morgana's Gift, a cover for C.A.R.P. and a cover for Neon Stonehenge. (For those you wondering what they'll look like, my best friend has been my artist for all things associated with this project - he did my avatar, he did the cover for Book One of Quaranteam, he did the Druid Gunslinger icon you can see as part of the collection and I expect these four requests will take him a little bit, but I'll start prepping the projects for print while I'm waiting. I'm committed here to have at least some of them available for purchase by this fall, which will include Kindle versions, versions straight from Amazon or signed copies available for purchase from me.

Anyway, typical me, once I start talking, I can chat for much longer than I should be. Here's the coming soon to public sites list: 3/1 - A Pack Of His Own 14; 3/8 - Before The Storm 13; 3/15 - CARP 10; 3/22 - QT2:29; 3/29 - QT:UM 4; 4/5 - Smokeland Slumdance 1, QT:PT 21.

That's all the news that's fit to print, and maybe some stuff that wasn't, but that's what you're here for, right? Watch each other's backs.