2018: My Projects and My Goals

Well, here we go with the first non-warp-up post of 2018! As I’ve already stated, January is my break month, so bar a book review that I’m a little behind on, don’t expect too much original content until February.

So, what’s the point of this posting? Well, I figured that I may as well talk a little about what I’m planning for each of my different weeks moving forward. The first week of the month is always based around my own projects and random other stuff, so that’s what I’ll be talking about here.

 

Content

One thing I really enjoy doing during these weeks are the Way Cool Wednesday posts. I spend a fair amount of time aimlessly surfing around the net, and when I stumble upon something that I think is cool, I like sharing it. WCW gives me a good outlet to consolidate that into one posting. I hope that you all find some entertaining and/or interesting stuff in there, because I intend to continue with this.

I don’t know if there will be a definite release schedule for them, but I’ll also keep posting short stories. Honestly, most of them fall into one of two categories: old stories that I’ve reworked or stories I couldn’t find a home for. The thing is, I can only push the same story around so many times. If I’m sending it out though, I’m happy with it. In some cases, I’ve found that I’ve posted something somewhere then an ideal anthology call has popped up a couple of months alter with a ‘no reprints’ clause in the submission guidelines. It sucks, but I don’t want to hold onto old stories forever, you know? I’d rather get them out here as free content than leave them to gather dust. So yeah, look out for more as time goes on. Unless I suddenly start nailing all my submissions, of course.

This kinda fits with all the weekly categories, but I want to start working with other content creators a lot more. I’ve really enjoyed doing so with fellow authors, and I’d love to do the same for other creative people. Artists, musicians, YouTubers, bloggers … anyone really. So, if anyone is up for doing a collaboration of any sort, hit me up and we’ll see what we can get going.

 

Projects

As the year has gone on, my creative juices have been flowing a lot more freely than they have in years. Honestly, I haven’t felt this motivated since the high points of my wrestling career. But what will be coming?

First up, I’m hoping to get some time to do some more art. I have a lot of ideas for silly little pieces, and I’m confident enough in my current skill set to actually do them at this point, but I just don’t seem to get the time at the moment. I just need to do some more time management, I think.

In terms of writing, I’m feeling good. The current projects are looking like this:

• The Fox, The Dog, and The King [The Cassie Tam Files #2] – In editing with NineStar Press
• LV48 [The Cassie Tam Files #3] – First draft current stands at 46K words. I’m writing between 2K and 4K words a day on this most days at the moment, and there’s at least 10K more words to write, probably a little more.
• The Spark Form Chronicles #4 – I have about 15.5K words written in the first draft, but it needs some real rewrites. This was originally going to be a novella that focused on the character Fahrn Starchaser. As it’s gone on though, the idea has expanded, and this should now be the third full length book in the series. There are a lot of plot points that were set up in the other books, and they can now finally be resolved. In particular, I wanted to touch on what is actually wrong with Connor Ford, and why he’s so important in the story universe. His role has been set in stone from the beginning for what it’s worth.
• Short Stories – I have four under consideration for anthologies, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed there. I have two current WIPs too; one is a short story about the afterlife, and the other is a comic script that I want to polish before submitting to one of my favourite comics.
• Teller Tales – My contract runs out this year. One way or another, this will be sorted. I have some potential homes for the quadrilogy, but if all else fails, I’m happy to self-publish. Books one to three need some minor rewrites first, ideally. Book four needs a few rounds of editing.
• Other novels – I’m making notes for two more novels. One is a horror, and one is set to be a ‘choose your adventure’ style thing. That’s all I’m saying at the moment.

So, I have a lot on my plate there. Which leaves me little time for my other usual: cosplay. Now, we don’t know which convention we’re going to do this year yet. It’ll probably be Hyper Japan, unless some particular guests get announced for London Film and Comic Con. Whatever happens though, my current ‘possible’ list of cosplays is Blaze the Cat [Sonic franchise] and James from Team Rocker [Pokémon]. This could expand if the mood takes me though.

 

Goals

Ah, New Year’s Resolutions. I’m keeping this generally simple this year:

I’ll do my best!

Yup, that’s it. My only resolution is to do my best. I do have some things that I’d like to work towards though:

• Release three books this year
• Sell at least one story to an anthology/comic/podcast
• Continue to grow the site readership
• Be more active in replying to others
• Work with more people

So, that’s it for me until anime week when you’ll get … something similar that covers the anime stuff. Until then, I hope you’re all having a great New Year thus far.