Let’s talk about something more cheerful

All that needs to be said about today’s election (and probably a lot that would have been better unsaid) has been said.  Now it’s up to the US electorate to cast their ballots and choose the future they want.  May they choose wisely.

For myself, I’ve spent the last few weeks writing my ass fundamental jujube posterior off.  It’s been a very enjoyable experience, albeit tiring, because it’s the first time I’ve really got my writing mojo back since being hit with a series of health problems beginning in June last year.  Two kidney stone procedures and gall bladder surgery took up more than a year, along with recovery time in between them.  That knocked my creative muse for a loop – it doesn’t seem to function well when I’m popping pain-killers like they were M&M’s.  I simply haven’t been able to do very much good work for fifteen months.  I can only thank all my loyal readers for being patient during the drought in my output.  (The Western novel I published earlier this year had been completed [in first draft] before my health problems began.  When Castalia offered me a contract to publish it, all I had to do was refine and polish it, with the very able assistance of my editor, Vox Day.)

As soon as possible after my gall bladder surgery, I began trying to write again.  I’ve got three books (over)due, and I really wanted to get cracking on them.  The first few weeks were very hard.  After being out of the creative groove for so long, things didn’t just fall into place in my mind.  It felt like wading through treacle, trying to put my thoughts on paper (or on a computer screen) once more.  Still, little by little, things began to click.  About two weeks ago, my creative muse finally returned from wherever she’d been hiding.  I’ve written something like 25,000 words since that time, and edited twice that amount.  The fifth volume of the Maxwell Saga, ‘Stoke the Flames Higher’, is well on the way to completion. I expect to have it out by early December, God willing.

I’ll be producing an e-book edition first.  I’m arranging with Castalia for them to take over my print production, as they can fine-tune it (e.g. series covers with matching spines, etc.) in ways that I’ve never been able to get right.  They’re also going to produce audiobook editions of the Maxwell series, and perhaps others as well.  Print and audio versions of the new book should be available by late January at the latest, with updated editions of the others to follow.

I’ve then got to produce the third and final volume of the Laredo War Trilogy, ‘Knife to the Hilt’;  and I’ve also got the second Western novel in the Ames Archives to produce by the middle of next year.  After that, Maxwell Volume 6 beckons.  I hope you enjoy reading them all as much as I look forward to writing them.

Future projects/proposals include at least one fantasy novel, if not two, either of which may grow into a trilogy or a series;  a space detective trilogy or series set in my Maxwell universe;  and a follow-on trilogy in the Laredo War scenario, extending it into the future to look at some of the long-term consequences of that war and another conflict it spawned.  The Maxwell Saga is plotted out to at least a dozen books, and I’ve got at least three more, perhaps twice that many, planned for the Ames Archives.  If they all come to fruition, I’m going to be a busy little boy!

Peter