C...B: Blog

For the five or six poor souls still actively following the progress of my Make the Cut series, I have news.

Progress is still being made on book five, Cut to the Quick, and this morning, I ruffled the papers of the manuscript to see that the word count is well past one hundred, twenty thousand words, not including the ever-increasing ten thousand word glossary.

This iteration of the story is entering its concluding part so if I had to guess, I'd say the novel will wrap up around 150k, the largest yet.

Without giving too much away, the focus is still on our old friend, John Abrams and his loyal sidekick Ohmu. Dozens of new characters are now along for the ride, including a few non-humans.

When will book five be done?

I can't say with certainty but I am targeting late fall or early winter. Queue the excuses so skip the next if you don't want to read my sniveling pity party. Back in November I started a new career as my day job. I've been struggling to master the new demands of said career and its taken most of my creative energies. Thus, my writing times are broken and disjointed which makes for slow progress.

But, BUT! its getting better. I swear! I've started marking steady progress almost daily. Its not much but it adds up and over the past month, I've written twenty or thirty thousand words.

My editors have been patient but are still working with me. One of them even says the story has promise! I have two at the moment and when I finish the story, could use another to review the completed manuscript all at once.

So, in conclusion, I'm still alive and active. Be patient and as always, your support is most appreciated and humbling. Sincerely, thank you for reading my stories and even this blog.

Good news and bad news with this update.

The bad news is that book five is plodding along much slower than I'd hoped. The storyline is in my head and ready to be written but real life is tossing every roadblock it can think of in my way.

The good news is that a few side projects I've also been working on have reached their end states. Today, over on Bookapy, I've published a short novella-sized book which contains two short stories. This work is titled "Short Cuts" and numbers over 26k words for the price of $1.29. Find it by searching in the SciFi section.

The first of the two short stories is "Shelter". Shelter tells the tale of a young girl, Hannah Crather, who survives the end of the world including almost a year of the aftermath when everything in chaos and everyone is dying. This work was published on SOL over a year ago. I've added a new second chapter to Hannah's story which is included in the version in "Short Cuts"

This second part takes place after the events of Book three and continues her story. This second part her story will be posted on SOL in the near future as chapter two of the previous published work.

The second short story in "Short Cuts" is "Endings and Beginnings". The story also takes place shortly after the events of book three and after the new part to "Shelter".

John Abrams Prime is the focus of this story although a few others from the four books are included. "Endings and Beginnings" will be posted on SOL sometime in late spring or early summer.

As always, I am blown away by your support and feedback. I seek to improve my writing and hope to increase my output if real life can stabilize a bit. Thank you!

Hello all. Followers of my Make the Cut series might remember that there is a side story Shelter that takes place along side the early timeline of the first book. It is a short tale of a young girl caught up in the end of the world and who suffers terrible hardship.

That girl, Hannah Crather, is seen again in book four. She will also play a larger role in the upcoming book five. Soon, as in the next week or two, I will be adding a part two to Shelter. Part two takes place immediately after the events of book three and will give us more background into her life.

I've also written a second side story which takes place after book three and before book four. This side story will have John Abrams Prime as its focus. I plan on posting it here in a month or two. I also will put both complete side stories up on bookapy as a short anthology for the readers who wish to support my efforts by buying my stories. Thank you! if you are among that group.

Book five Cut to the Quick is still churning along. Progress is slow as I am a few months into a completely new career and I am putting most of my mental efforts into learning that. I've began writing more now though as time has gone on.

Congratulations to all the Cliteroid nominees. I had been hoping to see my story "The Caretaker" nominated in the erotic mystery category, but you know what, there is no erotic mystery story category! haha. I must have dreamed that or something.

Its been a good year for the most part. I started the year strong with the finishing of book three of my "Make the Cut" trilogy.

After that milestone was completed I took a break from writing. My excuse was that I had outside chores to do for the spring and summer. The real reason was that coming up with a worthy story and committing to write it down was a hard and scary prospect.

Finally, after nearly three months off I started writing book four. The story came fairly easily during the early summer and reached final editing in August. The timeline in the book advanced the story nearly two centuries which was a gamble for anyone expecting a direct continuation.

I did it so as to not be predictable. I also shook up the expected plotlines a bit to keep a sense of mystery. Did it work? Yes and no.

I've gotten a lot of positive feedback but the total numbers reading the story continue to decline. I suspect is due to narrow genre'd nature of the subject matter along with many growing tired of the story and my style of writing. It is what it is and I can deal with the outcome.

Book four sold fair on Bookapy and I thank those of you who shed coin for the story. The previous books still surprise me with their continued interest and sales. I take their sales as a form of thanks from my readers and I sincerely appreciate that thanks.

Onward into 2022 I am continuing to write the continuation of the plot lines started in book four. Book five will be a direct sequel and continues onward from the minor cliff hang ending of book four.

I'm more than half way through the story. Depending on how the second half of the book goes we will see the story wrap up again at five books. Could it go six and form a second trilogy... I'm not sure yet.

When can we expect book five? I wish I could say 'soon' but it will likely take until summer before something is published. Real Life is hitting my muse hard. Nothing like switching careers after three decades following my first one.

Look for more updates in the coming months. Thank you readers! have a good and safe New Year.

I want to thank my loyal readers for your patronage this past year. As the year wraps up and as my fourth book nears the end of its posting run I find myself in a dilemma. I have three chapters left to post but only two weekends left before 2022. What to do!?

So, to wrap things up in a tidy manner I'm going to accelerate the posting schedule a bit for the holidays. Chapter eighteen will post Thursday, December 23rd. Chapter nineteen will follow Monday, December 27th, and the final chapter twenty will drop Friday, December 31th.

Thanks again and have a good end-of-year holiday season.