The Coming Three Months

 

Well, man, have I got the next three months cut out for me.

Yesterday I finally finished my standalone WIP, The Boy Who Called the Foxes. That little fact is a lot bigger than it sounds. Guys, since I was thirteen, I’ve written about twelve serious novels. The Boy Who Called the Foxes is my thirteenth, and it was the first manuscript I seriously wondered if I would actually finish. There were a lot of reasons for this, I suppose. One of them was just the strangeness of devoting time to a completely unrelated story smack in the middle of working on the Dronefall series. But there were a lot of interesting psychological reasons The Boy Who Called the Foxes felt like it was hanging by a thread. I’ll devote a whole post to that around the release date this coming fall.

So, that book is now drafted, and I am moving on to focus on other projects. First and foremost is…

DRONEFALL FOUR, NIGHTSTARE

Now, hopefully the long-awaited book four will actually come out this month. That’s going to be pushing it a little, but that’s the plan. I’ve just sent the manuscript to my formatter, who has a schedule of her own to contend with, and then, of course, there’s all the uploading and proofing business that tends to throw multiple monkey wrenches into my timeline, but that’s all that stands between Nightstare and you guys right now.

So, that will be my main focus this month. I’ll be pushing the Dronefall series again for a while, and hoping I can make some new readers happy along the way, as well as giving my faithful friends who already love the series what they’ve been waiting for. And let me tell you, Nightstare was very exciting to write. We’re kind of hitting the big midpoint plot-twist of the series now, so a lot happens in this book.

While I’m powering through the chaotic fray of self-promotion, I’ve also got like…three other major projects I’ll be working feverishly on. One is starting Dronefall Five, of course. The other is set for release in April. That would be…

MY SECOND POETRY BOOK

I released my first poetry book, Songs from the Small Hours in 2018. That was forever ago, guys. I’ve been wanting to give you another collection of art and poetry for a long time, and this April, it’s happening. You would think over the course of three years I would have built up a good pile of poems, and all I’d have to do now was collect them in a file and do my art, right? Well, as it turns out, I’ve hardly written any poetry at all since Songs from the Small Hours. So what am I doing? I’m writing poetry every day until I’ve got enough for a book. I’ve literally never written this much poetry in such a short period of time, ever. In my life.

It’s actually really hard, but I haven’t written a dud yet, and I’m excited to see how this stretches me as a poet. Writing poetry, most of the time, is way slower than writing prose. And I’m discovering I’m way harder on myself about rhythm, and rhyme, and musicality, and subtext than I used to be. So, this is pretty interesting. Not to mention a little exhausting. But I want it ready by April. (Poetry month.)

I have yet another big release coming in May, if all goes well. I can’t tell you too much about it yet, since it is…

A TOP SECRET PROJECT

I have an ace up my sleeve I haven’t pulled out yet. I’m not going to tell you any specifics about it, but I’m very enthusiastic. It’s going to be pretty labor-intensive, of course, and I’ll be working with media that’s pretty new to me, but all the foundations are there. The project itself is very experimental, but if anything goes even remotely well, it’s a forerunner of things to come.

Was that mysterious enough? Should I have said “for nothing can stop these things” a couple of times in there? (If you understood that reference, you are an above-average die-hard A. L. Buehrer fan. Or stalker. Congratulations.)

…..

Anyway. So, I hope you now know enough to sympathize if I do anything truly delirious in the upcoming months. I’m going to be working ridiculously hard. And having a great time, I’m sure. Overall, I think I can promise you an exciting comeback here, shortly. I don’t often do this, maybe I should more often, but I’m going to say, if you want to keep on top of all this, you really should subscribe to Stardrift Nights. It will improve your life.

Thanks for reading to the end of this rather vague post. I hope it gave you a few things to look forward to in this soggy, sorry world. (Uh-oh, that was kind of weird. I’m already too tired.)