It's A Journey

The last couple of weeks have sure been crazy, and I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about. Between Thanksgiving and all of the travel, menu planning, angst when families gather, etc., holidays are often a mixed bag.

This year was different for my wife and I, as we got to travel back to Illinois where she’s from and have the holiday with her family for the first time in twenty-five years. Great food combined with love, laughter and more than a bit of Jameson made for a lot of fun. From us to you, I hope your holidays brings a smile to your face.

Workwise, I’ve been lighting it up. Book 2 in our series The Gangrel War is done and has been edited. War in the Shadows is the title, and it’ll be released in early 2026. Book 3 will follow mid-year.

I’m working on completing Book 1 in a different series altogether, and it will be ready for edit by the end of December. We hope you’ll enjoy this new series as well… more to come on that a bit later in another blog post.

One of the things I always want to give in these blog entries or newsletters is information to those of you who aspire to write but aren’t certain as to how you get going. I really want to encourage you to reply to these entries with questions or even anecdotal experiences that add to the collective knowledge here. I promise to respond, and I will always try to answer quickly. If I don’t know the answer, it’s probably one I should, so I’ll find out and share what I discover.

It's a journey, after all, right?

One thing I will share is simple: Tell a story. It’s just like sitting with your friends around the table and listening to them while they talk. You say something, and they engage with a reply. Pretty soon, you have a scene you could write.

Writing is no different than that, except that the people (or aliens) you’re sitting at the table with are ones you created. Personalities, looks, backgrounds, education, experiences, etc., are what you give them. Do that and then listen to them. They will, I promise, surprise you with stuff about themselves you didn’t know at all. My wife always asks if I hear those voices in my head. I chuckle and say, “Yes, but don’t worry. They all like you…well, except for that one and no one listens to him anyway.”

I get an eye roll and a headshake. I Sure am glad those voices really do like her!

One piece of info to pass along to new writers who are serious about getting published is this: Find a good publisher early on in the process. It’s not easy, but it can be done. I guess it depends on how badly you want it, right? Just like anything else in life.

There are ways to go about this. How it happened for me was to reach out to several authors of work I enjoyed. In the genre I write in, military sci-fi, I shot emails to four different authors. I told them truthfully that I enjoyed their work and gave them specific examples of what I liked. I advised them that I was writing myself and asked if they had any advice. I also asked if I could send a short story to get feedback.

Surprisingly, I had two very positive responses. The others appreciated the email, and answered personally with a couple of pieces of advice while begging off any further real assistance. Whatever their reasons, that’s fine. It’s their world they inhabit, and I appreciated the response.

The two who responded gave sage advice, and one’s turned into a bit of a mentor. He hooked up me recently with another author of science fiction with almost 60 books published. This new guy and I are co-authoring a brand new series with a request from his publisher for a minimum of five books. (Remember what I said about finding a publisher? You just discovered how I found mine moving forward.)

So Cyd and I are moving ahead with plans and projects across a couple of different fronts. It’s exciting, and, bluntly, some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a professional atmosphere. Remember what I said about questions… if you have any, please share them with me. I promise to respond. The coherence of that response will most likely depend on my caffeine intake, but, hey, whatever.

I’ll leave you with this. If you have the desire to write, or as I call it the itch, do it. Scratch it. Just get started. The time spent writing stories that didn’t exist until you told them is never wasted, and I promise the experience is one you will treasure.

See you around the web, everyone.