Well, it’s time to get back to work. Not that I didn’t work during the past few months, my day job only has 6 days of holidays and it kept me busy for 8-9 hours each day. A few holiday events, a week of food poisoning, and two weeks of fighting the flu meant something had to give and that was my writing. I usually slow down at the end of the year, but not as much as I did the past few months.

I did spend time looking back over the last year to make plans for this year and I hope you will enjoy what is coming down the road. I plan on making this blog one of my primary vehicles for introduction of new material. Some of this material may never find its way into a novel, some might. You may find a series introduced on this blog and then stopped all of a sudden for various reasons. It may be that I have lost my way with the series and don’t know where to take the series. It may also be because I find out that no one is actually reading the posts and stop spending time on the series. It may also be that I really enjoy the posts and want to put them into a novel I am currently working on. In this case, if you are not signed-up for the newsletter – you may not get to see how the series ends.

Let me explain that last sentence by explaining what I am planning on doing this year.

The Website:

The website is going to get an overhaul in the upcoming months. I picked the current theme a few months ago and am not really happy with the current look. The current theme I am using seems to be a little hard to navigate and doesn’t do everything I want the website to do. So in a month or two, the website will be rebuilt with a new theme and look. Hopefully, I will be able to keep all posts up and the information on every registered user as well. All you may find is a few broken links and some brief periods of downtime on the website.

The Blog:

For those who visit the website or subscribed to the blog postings, you will find a few other changes this year. I plan on posting general blog posts with material I will probably never use in a novel. These blog postings will be accessible by anyone who navigates to the site – registered or not. I plan on at least one of these blog posting a week, but reserve the right to increase the time between these postings as I get busier.

Another thing I have worked on in the last month is how to make a blog posting restricted to those who have registered on the site. I’m planning on using this functionality to post material which will be in a novel one day. Give you a little something extra for taking the time to register.

I am also thinking about creating a web-only series which is only available to those who register on the website or subscribe to my newsletter. These posts will eventually form the basis of a new book at the end of the year or next year. This series will be nonfiction homesteading, prepping, survival “How-To” wrapped up in a fiction story. I’m still working on the title, but it will along the lines of “The School of Prepping”. I haven’t found a title I like yet. Maybe some of you can offer a few suggestions. I’m hoping to be able to keep up with a weekly posting for these restricted items.

The Newsletter:

The third piece of this website will be the newsletter. At this time, I want to do a weekly newsletter but I may change my mind and change the newsletter to only come out twice a month instead of each week if I get busy. I encourage you to sign up for the newsletter, in addition to registering for the website. There will be extras contained in the newsletter you will not see on the website or in the blog postings. The newsletter will contain a summary of general viewing blog postings since the last newsletter, the text of any restricted blog postings written since the last newsletter, and as a special treat. I will include pieces of one of the novels I am currently working on in each newsletter. You will get to read a scene or maybe even an entire chapter before anyone else. It may be a rough draft, but it will be material that should be include when the book is actually published.

Those who take the time to sign up for the newsletter will also be entering a monthly drawing for a free book in addition to any other free book offerings I have included in my books or on the website. The free book can either be one of the currently published titles or I can put you on a list to get a free copy of one of the books I am currently working on, once the book is completed. You will have to learn how to “side-load” the book into your Kindle, but I will send you instructions on how to download the Kindle book file and load the file directly into your Kindle if you do not know how.

The Novels:

I have been slack over the last 6 months in completing the novels in my queue. I vow to do better this year and actually complete several novels I have planned and have been talking about for the last 6 or more months.

The Meltdown

I have started the third novel of the Out of Gas series several times, but have not like where the novel has taken me. I would scrap the entire thing and start over again and outline a new one. Start writing off the new outline and then stop again. Some of you may know this already, but I’m not into the violence found in most post-apocalyptic novels. I will mention mutant zombie biker gangs, but don’t spend a lot of time writing out fight scenes. Just not me. Unfortunately, The Meltdown, has tried to take me there several times. I find myself getting deeper and deeper in some gang war as I wrote from my old outlines. I’m hoping this last outline will allow me to keep with the themes of the series without becoming a war novel.

Jonathan’s Journey Season 1

I spent several days in July traveling the route from Madill, Ok. To San Antonio, TX that my character, Jonathan, would have to travel in the rest of the season episodes. I made pages of notes and have worked them into something to use for the next 5 episodes.

The second episode of this season is underway and hopefully will be out the door in the next month or so. The next 4 after soon after that. Whether there will be a season 2 is still up in the air.

Spider Wars Season 1

Many of you probably don’t realize that I had completed my first attempt at a sci-fi book last summer. I really enjoyed writing the first episode of this book, but stopped the season once I realized no one was downloading and reading the first episode. I told myself two months ago, I would finish the season this year, even if no one reads the episodes. I enjoyed writing the first episode and want to get the rest of the book out of my head. That is a problem I have, some story gets in my head and I have to get it out or I can’t work on anything else. One of the reason why I have the beginnings of 5 books stored on my computer. I’m great about coming up with the idea and writing the first 2 or 3 chapters. Then something else pops up and takes over and I never finish the ones I have already started. Who knows, I may just put all those unfinished book chapters into the newsletter and blog over time and see how people like them.

Other Changes

I’m also going to start including periodic updates on the works-in-progress on my website, in the blogs, and in the newsletter. I’m hoping some of you will harass me about why there seems to be no progress on a particular title you are waiting for. Go ahead, harass me. Send me an email or make a comment on a post. Do something to keep me on task. I won’t mind and will probably give you a free copy of the title if you harass me enough to actually finish writing it.

Here’s the link to my contact page. You can use the contact form on the page to send me harassing emails or use the newsletter form on the page to sign up for the newsletter.

Here’s my email if you would rather send me something directly: [email protected]

Thanks for reading my books, my blog postings, and for listening to me spout off today. I hope you enjoy the upcoming year.

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