So, a while back, I decided that I was going to revamp my website. The old one was slow and kind of buggy in places. Well, one thing led to another and I never got back to it. That mostly translated into me having no author website instead of a slow author website. Always a solid move for a novelist, am I right?
So, fast forward a few months and here we are. I’ll freely admit that I despise the new, virtually mandatory, WordPress site editing tool. I hate it with an intensity that verges on the holy. It’s not designed with end-users in mind. It was created with website designers in mind. Given that I have some working knowledge of front-end development and still hate this editor should give you a sense of just how utterly unusable this site editing tool actually is.
I told you all of that to tell you this. Building this new site is taking 20 times longer than it should because I’m having to work around the native WordPress tools instead of with them. Even so, I’m going to keep muddling through and get the essentials up and running as soon as possible. That means listing my various completed and in-progress books (and short fiction), as well as some updates on planned future projects.
I will try to add a progress bar somewhere on the site, but adding widgets is unbelievably, frustratingly difficult with the new editing system. So, it might take me a while to work out the logistics of that. Until I get that sorted out, I will try to post blog post updates on my various works in progress.
Right now, I have two main projects on my plate.
Project one is finishing the edits/revisions that I’ve been promising my infinitely patient publisher on my space opera novel, Rinn’s Run: Zeren Intrigue. It’s the first book in planned series called The Rogue Bloodhand Saga. Right now, I have ideas for around 5 books, but I’d like to make it a 10-book series ultimately.
We’ll have to see if the first book sells enough to justify writing more. In case you ever wondered why authors wrote books that seemed to set up a series but never wrote any sequels, that’s the answer. If the first book doesn’t sell, you have no reason to believe that subsequent books in the series will do any better. As a general rule, you actually lose some readers between the first and second book, but things generally stabilize after that.
My other big fiction project right now is finishing an urban fantasy novel called Jericho Lott. This is also the planned first book in a series. Right now, I have ideas for three books, so it may just end up as a trilogy. I’m publishing the chapters for this one over on Royal Road. It’s up to about 30 chapters at present. You can head over there to check out the chapters. They’re free to read while on Royal Road, but I will eventually turn it into a regular ebook/paperbook so readers can get copies they can keep.
Aside from that, I do plan on cherry-picking some of the most useful of my old blog posts and republishing them here. Although, that’s something of a longer-term project.
That’s the news for the now.
You must really hate that editing tool! No updates?! I think unintended cultivator deserves an update post! Loved it! Keep up the good work!
I really, really, really hate the editing tools on WordPress. I hate them so much. There are truly no words to express the depths of my loathing.
When will you get back to Samuel branch story book four Runs, it’s been almost a decade since the last book came out and 4 years since the omnibus, I know your busy with other stuff but please let me know if it’s on the schedule somewhere it ended on a really sad cliffhanger so I just really curios.
Thanks good luck writing
Yes, I do intend to get back to the Samuel Branch books. I think it’ll take two, maybe three more books to wrap up the current story arc. I don’t have a firm date in mind for them just yet, mostly because they’re a passion project that will probably never turn a profit. So, I work on book 4 as and when I can.