Mid-Year Update!
Hello all you new folks!
Hello everyone!
I thought that with the addition of a number of new folks I’d do a mid-year update similar to what I did in April for the first quarter of the year. I am thrilled to say that I am up to 48 subscribers and 103 total followers. I am honored that you’d spend your time reading what I have to say and I greatly appreciate your support.
First things being first and all, here’s the main reason my writing has slowed down a bit lately.
I’m spending a lot less time at a keyboard and more time holding a baby, which as far as tradeoffs go, isn’t too bad.
Writing
Since I last did an update I had a new short story come out! Hooves, Tracks, and Sabers by Raconteur Press includes a new short story set in my Lions of Hamilcar universe. If you love Rome, Carthage, and the Punic Wars this one is for you!
I have two more short stories accepted but not yet published. One of them is my first Fantasy sale, which I’m really excited about! The other is the companion piece to the story included in Assault Team by Three Ravens Publishing. The new story, titled Good Works, follows the other half of B Company, 5th Hunter/Killer Battalion. This was a super fun story to write and features some awesome mech-on-mech battles! When we get closer to publication I have a post with a snippet already written up for y’all, so be on the lookout for that. These three stories are in what I’m calling my Night Hunters universe.
In my last update (here if you want to read that one), I mentioned I’m working on a few different projects. One of which is a novel/novella in my Night Hunters series of short stories. That one has been slow going. I’ve rewritten the opening three times now for a total of almost 10,000 words and I’m still not really happy with it. So I’ve made the decision to put that aside for now and think on it some more. I had sketched out a very basic outline for something novella-length, but I didn’t like where it was going after the first couple of scenes, so back to the drawing board there.
I have been slowly pecking away at my Lions of Hamilcar novel, although nothing major to report there.
I have made a good bit of progress in two other stories. I’ve mentioned how my writing group (the formidable AlphaMercs) have been working on a shared-world SciFi universe and I have a novella pretty much completed there. Well I had a couple of new ideas pop up while I was feeding the baby, and I am now working on a follow-up novella and a short story for the upcoming Raconteur Press Space Cowboys 6 open call (read about that here!).
I’ve got about 80% of the short story done, partly by cannibalizing an old short story I wrote for practice a couple years ago. I think it will turn out pretty cool and I’m excited to see what my AlphaMercs buddies think of it. For the novella, I’ve got a detailed outline and I’ve written about half the first scene. Like Novella #1, I think this one will be ~25k, or maybe a little longer
On the writing front, I’ve started a little alternate history story on my Substack that’ll be free to everyone. You can read about that story and what inspired it in this post. That one will probably be in monthly installments moving forward until I decide to put it down.
The last thing I want to talk about is a project from my friend Sam Robb over at
. Sam’s taken on the task of publishing a pair of Science Fiction anthologies inspired by the works of Jethro Tull. The first on, Minstrels in the Galaxy, is live on Amazon now!
So if you’re a SciFi fan or just love the works of Jethro Tull, check that out when you have a chance. This is the first publication of the new AlphaMercs Press, so give Sam some love!
That’s all for this time. Thanks for reading and take care!