New Stories and Future Plans!
So, I could go on a long tirade about where I’ve been the past few months and why I haven’t been updating the site. However, in favor of a more entertaining story, I present you with this amazing video instead.
See? Wasn’t that more fun than me talking about mental health and working too much for like ten paragraphs?
Anyways, on to the important stuff!
First things first, and arguably the most important part of all of this, I want to talk about Tuatha dé Danann Episode I. I cannot thank those who bought and read the novella enough. Publishing it was such a massive learning experience and it was a lot of fun watching my sales bounce around on Amazon. The feedback I received from friends, family, and fans alike was incredibly generous and the entire experience was one I will value for the rest of my life. However, after a lot of thought and reflection on the matter, I decided to pull the novella from publication and remove it from the Kindle store.
Now you may be asking yourself, “If he liked the experience so much, why has he de-published the book?” And this is a valid question. There are numerous reasons, number one among them being that I wasn’t satisfied with the story. I think I did these characters and this world a massive disservice by my decision to release it as a series of novellas instead of a novel. A Goodreads review actually put it best when they said it felt like the first half or third of a full book, which is 100% accurate. I had this unbelievable story that I wanted to write over a dozen novellas, but in the end, I realized that the format left too much to be desired and was destined to fail. I struggled to write a follow-up Episode I, not for a lack of trying or an inability to write, but rather because every draft I wrote was boring as hell and only served a purpose as a portion of a complete story.
So, I pulled the book, went back to the drawing board, and drafted up an outline for a reimagining of the story, with a proper story and engaging character arcs. The outline I have takes elements from the novella, namely some of the characters and themes and the Boston setting, and is something that I am excited to really dig into and start writing.
Let me clarify: The new outline is the book that I always wished I had let myself write instead of TDD Episode I. I don’t want to reinvent the genre or anything like that, I just want to tell a damn cool story, and if I can write it as well as I’ve outlined, I feel like I have that story at hand.
So that’s the first big news. I will also likely not be self-publishing the new novel, but rather pursuing the traditional publishing route by querying agents once I finish the manuscript. This will obviously take a bit longer, but I am confident the final product will be worth the wait.
The second big piece of news, you may notice a new section in the website menu titled Tales from the Lovecraft War. This is the beginning of an ongoing writing project consisting of an anthology of short stories placing giant human-piloted robots against giant Lovecraft-esque monsters. Currently, there are two stories already available to read in the anthology; An Abridged History of the Conflict Between Mankind and the Elder Gods c. 2032-2096 and The Expedition. The first, An Abridged History of the Conflict Between Mankind and the Elder Gods c. 2032-2096, is written like a history book, looking back at this sixty-year-long conflict through a historian’s eyes. The Expedition is a collection of audio logs telling the story of the first expedition into the North American Exclusionary Zone, an area transformed by the first Elder God to arrive on Earth. Both of these were written in ways that I’ve never written before and were an absolute blast to write. Hopefully they are as enjoyable to read as they were to make! A third story, titled Mithril, will be coming soon, likely in the next two weeks as I put the finishing touches on it. Mithril is a more traditional narrative and tells the story of the first time one of the giant robots, dubbed Armours, meets an Elder God in combat. I foresee most of the short stories I write in the near future to be part of this anthology, as it is also something I plan on querying for publication in the future.
The last two bits worth sharing are that the Novels page of the site is gone, mainly because I don’t think it makes sense to have it considering I haven’t written any novels yet. Currently, Haven Lost is dead in the water. I will likely revisit it down the road, but at the moment I just don’t think I am a good enough writer to tell that story. I also removed Eternal Vigilance from the short stories page. This was partly due to Haven Lost being dead, but also because it is my least favorite story. I am still working on a better version of it, and hopefully, that will see the light of day at some point in the near future. I’m not in a huge rush to finish that, so that will be done when it’s done and not a moment sooner.
That about covers everything! Go give the Tales from the Lovecraft War stories a read and let me know your thoughts! Both stories are loaded with fun little nods and references! Let me know if you can identify any of them!
