A New Year's Update

After a year that included some "real life" challenges, I'm preparing for 2024 with a renewed focus on writing and con appearances.

As I mentioned in some of my recent stacks and social media posts, I had to set aside my writing and publishing goals temporarily to address some personal life challenges.

Those challenges, sadly, ended in a loss among close family. As anyone who’s had that experience knows, it can be emotionally and physically exhausting, and the aftermath (including the need to resolve affairs) prolonged and time-consuming. Fortunately, we’re slowly getting a handle on all of that. As a result, I’m finally able to begin freeing up some time to get back to writing again, and to growing my author career.

On that note, I wanted to share some news about my upcoming plans for 2024.

The plan I wanted to mention first, because it’s coming up soon, is to start “getting myself out there” as an author by attending a series of science fiction and fantasy fan conventions. That’ll begin in January with MarsCon in Virginia Beach. And I’m excited to announce that for the first time, I’ll actually be attending as a guest. The program is still being finalized, but as of now I’m slated to sit on three panels, mostly related to writing fantasy. I’ll follow up with details once the schedule is announced.

MarsCon is, of course, just the beginning. As of now I’m registered for two more cons: FantaSci in Raleigh-Durham in April, and LibertyCon in late June in Chattanooga. I’ve applied as a panelist to each, and am pleased to announce that I’ve been accepted as a guest at LibertyCon. I’m still waiting to hear from FantaSci, but I’m optimistic. I’m also looking into attending ConCarolinas in Charlotte in late May / early June, and BasedCon in Michigan in September.

I’m also happy to announce that I’ll be joining the team at EPIC Indie in the new year. EPIC’s a great site and community for fans of science fiction and fantasy, or SF/F for short. I’ve been a member for the last year and a half, and I recommend it highly. I’ll mostly be writing articles on issues and trends in SF/F genre fiction and gaming, with some occasional reviews and whatever else the team needs me to help out with.

The second of my major plans is to get back to writing Crucible of Heroes, the next volume in the Sanctum of the Archmage Saga. It’ll be a trilogy that will begin with Wrath of the Peregrine King. Given the number of things I’m juggling right now I expect the first half of Wrath to be released on my website by the summer, and the full book to be in stores by the fall. I’m hoping to be able to settle in to a more frequent publishing schedule after that.

I did expect Wrath of the Peregrine King to be the most difficult of the books I’m planning to write over the next few years, though, and that expectation’s turned out to be spot on. There are a couple of reasons for it. The first is that Wrath is the one book in the series that I hadn’t already worked out the plot and story for in developing the Sanctum of the Archmage game modules. The second is that Wrath really needs to be a strongly philosophical book that establishes themes that will carry through the rest of the saga. So I’m being very careful in plotting and writing it, to try to get all of that right.

Those who’ve played the Sanctum games should have recognized Dawn of Chaos as an expanded version of the backstory to The Sight, as told by the player’s conversations with Robin and Orion. The Hidden Valley (the book after Wrath) will include the early scenes of the game version of The Sight itself. The story behind The Labyrinth of Creation will also be familiar to the game’s players, from the adventure ballad Robin sings in the picnic scene as Nimrod and the Heroes of Glorn.

After that the next three volumes, The Sight and The Miracle Worker, will tell the rest of the story of the game versions of The Sight and The Quest, along with the (still unfinished) games modules Mission to Rayche and Treason. So given how much of the story I’ve already worked out (and in some cases, even written, in game form), I expect to be able to write the subsequent volumes much faster once Wrath is completed. That is, if life doesn’t throw me too many more curve balls. :)

The last of my new plans is to begin writing cultural and political commentary as Parallel Author. This is the most tentative of my ambitions, given how full my dance card is already, and how much I can follow through on it will depend on my available time. But 2024 is a year in which a great deal will need to be said on those subjects, and I do have a good deal to say about them.

So that’s my “New Year’s Resolution” agenda for 2024. I think it’s going to be an epic year, and I hope to see all of you on our journey through it!