The More Things Change...
In the world: The presidential debates are heating up. Wow,  the GOP is a mess. Things in Turkey are interesting to say the least. A suicide bomber in Istanbul a couple weeks ago. More people got shot in America on a daily basis. Business as usual in this chaotic, but beautiful, little world.
On the playlist lately: a nice spell of The Lovin' Spoonful and Slade lately. I've been going back and forth across the two bands using John Sebastian's Darling Be Home Soon, a great song that Slade did a psychedelic cover of. 

​Been a while. The ol' blog has remained dusty for a few months but I am slowly crawling back to the short ramblings and blatant self-promotion inherent in the medium. Cheers.

Carving out time to write these past few months has been challenging but it has been happening. Doing some freelance editing to add to the kitty, while my main writing time has been focused on some major, major re-writes to a finished piece: the final final draft. That's exciting, and I am ready to get it put behind me so I can get back to my two upcoming series.

Series one, book one entitled, Swill, is about a man desperately trying to keep his daughter alive. Drug-fueled robots have wiped humanity out in their hive-minded obsession with manufacturing and taking their highly addictive grease-based drug, Swill. Peter, his daughter, Melody, and a small group of survivors, are fighting their way out of Philadelphia on their way to the New Jersey Harbor and, hopefully, on a big boat to the Caribbean. This story is planned as a duology.

Series Two is a multi-book epic, The Brothers Blood. This is the story of Omar and Theodore Blood, enforcers for a notoriously eccentric and reclusive criminal organization. The brothers love girls, weed, talking trash, and their mother. They've always followed their father's directive: don't kill, but don't be afraid to break a few bones if duty calls. Things get more complicated when their employer asks them to steal an ancient map from a collection in Berkeley, California. Soon, Omar and Theo find themselves deep in a world they never knew existed. This is planned as a six book series, containing both novels and novellas. 

I have a finished first draft of book one of The Brothers Blood, and I am about 60% done with the first draft of Swill. I will keep updating the status as I move forward.

​Besides writing, this is what I have been doing.
Michael Jiwan Wagner's first birthday party, December 17th, 2015. A groovy time was had by all.
​A Few Things For The Writerly Among Us. Here and there, I'll be posting some random information or helpful resources for writers. A final word. Whether you're a novelist, a screenwriter, a musician, an artist, a dancer, or whatever, if you want to take your creative endeavors to the next level, you have to work on it every day. No matter what. Even if it's only for five minutes sometimes, you need to take those five minutes. Write notes, spell check and edit, organize, do a spot of research, post something online: To make a space for yourself in the crowded creative markets these days, you can't forget to keep up with all the other things necessary besides just writing painting, or rehearsing. Somedays, its going to be a five minute dusting of editing or research, but don't discount the importance of those five minutes. Do it. Don't quit.

You should write everyday for as many hours as you can. That is the baseline. Life makes its own plans though, so get done what you can by any means.

Good luck.