Updates and Goings On

Wow. It’s been a year since I’ve posted anything. That’s not very nice of me. What the heck have I been doing?

Well, as I’ve mentioned in the about section, I earned a PhD in CS with a focus in artificial intelligence, and I’ve had a very busy couple of years pursuing my interests in computer science. During that time, I’ve worked with nearly a dozen PhD-candidate students in one of the finest universities in the world, and it’s been very stressful, busy, and also fulfilling. I’ve traveled a bit around the world (Berlin this year) and the US with trips from coast-to-coast. All that traveling and also my wife quitting her job meant that money was a bit more tight and cutting back on publishing costs became pretty necessary (Lucifer’s Odyssey’s production costs were in the thousands, and I don’t want to produce a poorly revised, edited, and created work).

In that time period, I’ve talked with people from diverse backgrounds, heard their stories, and also caught up on a lot of movies and television shows. I can’t claim it’s all been focused on writing because writing has definitely found its way to my back burner, but during all of these interactions I’ve thought of stories.

I’m still writing fiction in a much reduced mode right now. My main writing outlet has been via open source coding projects and building middleware and software libraries in my primary field of study. But writing fiction is still there as a creative outlet (even if video games like World of Warcraft are invading my limited free time).

I apologize if waiting for the final chapter of Lucifer’s Odyssey has been frustrating. It’s been pretty frustrating for me too: not because I don’t love the characters and story but because so few other people appear to and it’s so expensive to get such a complex book right. It’s more likely that my next book will not be the final chapter of the Primal Patterns saga, but instead the first chapter of Alex Winter’s story. I did extend the rewrite of the Winter Phenomenon/Cold Winter by another 1k words or so this past weekend while my nieces were visiting my wife and I.

Why am I working on Cold winter and where is it going right now? Well, with what I see in book sales and pop culture, the romantic angle is more likely to resonate with new readers. The story is likely to be more simple and less chaotic. I mean, I enjoy Chaos a lot and believe life really does have a delightfully random nature to it, but I’m trying to tone down my randomness a bit. I think it will make readers feel more comfortable and more willing to take a chance with the next chapter or even the next book.

Is it the right move? No idea. I don’t think finishing the Primal Patterns series is going to really boost its sales much at all. The first book is just too hard for the majority of book readers to get into and love. People won’t make it to the third book, and the third book is going to be so vastly different in tone, emotional anchoring and direction that someone who loved the first book may not even like the third. I have no idea.

Anyway, that’s where things stand. I have no idea when either book will be out of first draft, but it’s likely that no novels will be released this year. My financial situation has improved somewhat, and I may be able to afford a cover artist and editing in shorter works. But novels are a lot of work, especially given my time constraints. We’ll see.