Since a picture is worth a thousand words, plus or minus an ALT tag:

The tentative title is “to Arise In the Fall“; It’s not perfect, but it’s got the right vibe.

This one almost came out too fast. I’m going to need to let it sit for a couple days and then go back over it for all the “senses” stuff that should be in scenes. But, the core story is there, including the two primary conflicts; internal and external. So I’m figuring it’ll pick up another ten thousand or so words.

I usually multi-pass everything to the point where first draft is just a spell check and a grammar check away from being last draft. I do a couple of read-alouds looking for missing words or overly-complex sentence structures, fix that up, and then get it into to the hands of someone I trust as an editor.
This one didn’t work that way, at all. I was a bit more like I was transcribing an audio recording; lots of dialog, not a lot of imagery. Odd, but whatever.

So, I’m going to need to go over it a couple of times, I can see, and that’s going to make the process a bit longer / weirder than I’m used to. I think it’s a good story, it’s just not up to my standard yet.

Both “Afterliving for Guys” and “to Arise in the Fall” are both para-normal romances, blended into other genres. Both are set in the heady days of the mid-nineties, with all the silly cultural refernces to

“Afterliving for Guys” is a Buddy-Cop / murder mystery, with some courtroom drama at the end. It’s got some high-tech thriller mixed in as well, just because I needed those elements as part of the world building. If you like discovering new settings, then this one is has a lot of that, too. I’m hoping to have it out on Amazon Kindle, at minimum, for October first of this year.

“to Arise in the Fall” hits notes of a coming-of-age story, with a bit of early hacker / chatroom culture thrown in. As well, it touches on themes about the kinds of social pressures that complicate romances from different cultures. I’ve literally known a Witch living with a devout Evangelical, as well as a Jew married to a Muslim, so cross-culture stuff and how everyone tries to make their way of living work — from meal ingredients, to which way the bed points in a room — fascinate me. I’m hoping to have this one done and out on Amazon Kindle, at minimum, for December first of this year.

I don’t yet know if there is a third book coming soon. I’m mentally tired right now of the writing process. I’ve nailed out over 170,000 words since mid-July, which is an average of 3800 words a day. Additionally to that, I built a complete world setting and lore, plus all of the research I do for anything I write. I want there to be a third book, but I’m not convinced that writing it at this point is the correct move for me.

I suspect what will happen is a bit of gear grinding, and taking the time to capture my setting over on World Anvil. So far I’ve just been using that site for managing the common-knowledge content of my TTRPG game settings, but the support they have for Authors is amazing, too.

I figure that by the time I get artwork for all my characters, a sketch-map of Glitterville / Glitter City (I need to make up my mind about that. I can’t pick) made, cultural notes, glossary, plus all the lore and time-line nailed in, I’ll likely have tripped over The Thing that makes the next story happen. And, if not, that’s okay too. Hopefully someone else will look at it all and have their Big Idea. That’s the fun of it, right?

Thanks for reading along. Do stay tuned here, for the eBook cover-reveal for “Afterliving for Guys“. That will be the Canadian Labour Day weekend. This Monday, I’ll be setting up with the artist to get the full wrap cover version done, and I’ll be flapping about that as soon as I see the first draft.

In the meantime, here’s a tease: