As we head into the final third of 2016, it’s worth looking ahead, both to the conclusion of this year but into the next. So here’s what I hope to get done over the next sixteen months and change!
:: Publish Amongst the Stars (The Song of Forgotten Stars, book III). This is a no-brainer. This book has to get out there! I hope readers will enjoy what’s in store for Tariana, Margeth, Lt. Rasharri, and their friends this time out. The series does not end with this book, but we do reach the end of the larger story’s first act.
Sadly, there will almost certainly not be a Forgotten Stars book in 2017. I haven’t even started drafting Forgotten Stars IV (although I do have some notes and some ideas for what happens in it), and I’m not sure how soon I’ll be getting there.
:: NaNoWriMo: my project this year will be my new space opera series! I’ve been doing a lot of background work and brainstorming for this one, since it’ll be a more character-driven series and more episodic in nature than the Forgotten Stars books. I’ll also be writing in a more adult tone for this one, which I’m looking forward to doing.
:: Signed copies of all existing books. This is something I’ve meant to do ever since I released Stardancer, and I’m frustrated that I haven’t got there yet. I really truly mean to do it soon! Hopefully in the next few months, once I get a chance to restock my supply of my own books. Stay tuned for details, but if you’ve ever wanted a signed copy of one of my books, you’ll soon be able to have precisely that.
:: Publish GhostCop and start editing its sequel. I had originally planned to get GhostCop out this year, but I decided to push it to 2017, because otherwise I wasn’t sure if I’d have anything ready for release next year, and I don’t want to go more than an entire year without anything coming out. Since I’m not sure when the next Forgotten Stars book will be on the docket, this looks to be my best bet.
As for the sequel? As of this writing I am now wrestling with that book’s climax and I have high hopes for making my deadline to finish the first draft by August 31. Yay! After that, I will let the manuscript lie fallow until March 1, 2017, at the earliest. (I am a staunch believer in letting manuscripts sit for a long time before attempting edits.)
:: Lighthouse Boy. Ahhh, now here’s a bit of a problem: I’m still not sure where I’m going with this one. The problem is the structure of the entire project: it’s one large book, kinda-sorta split in two. (The framing device is that the book is a autobiographical manuscript left behind by Our Hero later in life, which has just been found in two parts by an academic dude who leaves annotations and stuff all over the manuscript.)
So while I have the first draft of the first half done, I’m waffling currently on whether I write the second part and then edit the entire thing en masse, or edit the first part and then write the second. For various reasons, I’m leaning toward the former – mainly because if I need to change anything in Part One to reflect and/or anticipate the events of Part Two, I can’t do that if I’ve already edited and released the first one.
I am also really considering serializing this book, once it’s done, on Wattpad prior to publishing the entire thing, or maybe as a series of chapbooks. We’ll see. In any event, if I go the way I’m leaning, I won’t start drafting Book Two of Lighthouse Boy until some time next year, and then return to Forgotten Stars after that.
:: Attend local cons! I need to do more of this. Buffalo Comic-Con is coming up in September, and I’ll be in attendance, albeit as a ticket-buying fan. But I’ll be there, sizing things up and hopefully doing some interacting. Next year, once I have four books out, I’d love to be able to set up a dealer table of my own. We’ll see.
Locally, there are a surprising number of cons right now. Buffalo Comic-Con has been growing for several years, and this year it was joined by a new one, Nickel City Con, which was just held last weekend but next year apparently shifts to May. There are also UBCon and EerieCon, neither of which I’ve yet attended. (I can’t attend EerieCon this year because its dates coincide with an annual getaway trip The Wife and I take every year.) I do wonder if the Buffalo con scene is getting a little oversaturated, but as long as they all exist, I’ll try to attend as many as I can.
:: Short fiction. I’ve been thinking that it might be time to start writing some short fiction again. Right now I don’t really have any ideas ready to go, but that’s never a problem. I can walk down the street and spot ideas to write. What would I do with short fiction? I’m not sure. If nothing else, I can post it all on Wattpad, which I’ve already started doing with some of my older stories.
So there are some of my “stretch goals” for the next year-and-change. Will I make them all? Maybe, maybe not…but I’m going to have a hell of a time trying! Onward and upward! Zap! Pow!
VERY impressive!