After a slow start (the football season went gloriously long, and yet somehow, not long enough--great season, 'Cats!) I am nearly done with NaNoWriMo 2022!

If you're not aware (and why would you be?) of NaNoWriMo, it's National Novel Writing Month, a fun little challenge writers set themselves. The challenge is to write 50,000 words in the month of November on a novel. 

My first successful NaNoWriMo was in 2011, with "Stonethinker," then three years later in 2014 with "Chiron's Orphans," then two years later in 2016 with "Gift of the Moth," then 2017 with "Debt of the Moth," then 2018 with "Orcs Can't Play Quarterback," then 2019 with "Untitled Reality" then 2020 with "Beltrunner II: Aftermath," then 2021 with "Reality P.D." 

The current project--one on which that I am just over 43,000 words--is yet ANOTHER attempt at this "reality cop" story I've been working on for, well, as you can see, several years. 

Also of note is that my 2020 project is the same one that I signed the series contract for a few days ago. So in my case, yeah, NaNoWriMo does result in some published work!

Anyway, with just three days to go I've got about 7,000 words left! 

​Be seeing you!

Here we are again!

I just sent in the series contract for Beltrunner: Aftermath, which is the unplanned sequel to Beltrunner from 2018. I hadn't planned on a sequel--in fact, as far as I was concerned, the story was over. Collier's arc was done. Oh, sure, I left a lot unsaid, but I've always hewn to the "leave 'em wanting more" theory. Or maybe it's the "learn to shut up" theory, whatever.

Anyway, I wrote Silent Manifest in the intervening years, and even completed a still-unpublished trilogy that I quite like, before turning back to Collier and Sancho and their misadventures ("adventures, old friend!"). I don't have that many reviews of Beltrunner (as of this writing, somewhere around eighty on Amazon) but a number of them kept saying "Can't wait for the next one!"

"Next one? What next one? Are you people insane? The story is over!" I heard myself cry. Then my publisher arranged for an audiobook for Beltrunner, and for the promotion I wrote a little short story prequel folks could only get if they pre-ordered the audiobook, and wouldn't you know it, pretty soon Collier and Sancho were back in my head.

Mild spoilers ahead.

It took a little while, but I found a new story for them which tied up some loose ends while creating some more new ones, and I found revisiting those two and their new relationship. They were just as fun as I remembered them, and so I finished Aftermath. The publishing world works slowly, so it was a little while after I'd submitted it before it was accepted, but eventually it was, and now we begin the process all over again.

Spoilers done.

Here's the thing, though: the contract my publisher sent me was a SERIES contract, which I'd never seen before. I don't know about what it's like in the big leagues but down here in Triple A ball a series contract is a lot like a regular contract except that the next book(s) in the series have to go to this publisher first. Well, yeah. Who else would touch this?

Hang on.

The next book?

I guess I'm still not done.

Be seeing you!