Wow, I’ve really been terrible with keeping up with this. Marketing (including blogging) has never been my strong suit. Well, here I am to make an update and I’ll try to pick up where I left off over the summer.

I believe the last thing I posted was that the cover of Darling Orphan: The Case of Lucy Stewart was completed and I was hoping to get back into finishing the manuscript. Good news: I did. I just started the first round of edits a few weeks ago, but since I’m taking a winter course, I don’t have the entire five weeks of break before the spring semester begins–just one, and it’s coming up as of the 14th of this month. More good news though: not getting to it right away has allowed my eyes (and mind) to be far enough away from the book that looking at it now seems to go smoothly. Even the parts I’ve read a million times are tolerable for a millionth and one pass. That said, I will see what I can knock out during the upcoming week I have free for it. At this rate, I’m hoping to pull off an early summer release.

The manuscript for The Doll Collection: Volume Two is ready to go. All illustrations are also completed, so I’m just waiting for the cover art at this point. As I may have mentioned, Felix Eddy-McLean is doing this once again, so it will be amazing for sure.

A few weeks ago, I finished a short story called “Shape Up Or Ship Out” for a Crazy 8 Press anthology called Bad Ass Moms. That should be out in early July. Speaking of Crazy 8 Press: I was also invited to submit a short story for the second volume of Thrilling Adventure Yarns (in the fashion of old pulp novels), and coincidentally, I just finished a story called “Dead Drop”, which I’m pretty excited about. Just working on tightening that one up. I may have to cut about 4k words, but we’ll see how it goes.

Those are the major pieces I’ve been able to work on here and there. Sadly, I had no new releases in 2019, which means I need to really get cracking for this year. As previously mentioned, I’d love for As Fate Would Have It: Eight Tales of Certain Absurdity to be one to come out this year. Six out of eight of the illustrations are completed, as well as two of the stories. All the rest are in progress, though I’ve got to find a way to get back in the mood to write them. Dark comedy does take a special kind of inspiration.

Whatever else will be released this year is anyone’s guess at this point. I have quite a lot of irons in the fire (The Pound, TDC:V3, TDC:V4, TDC:V5, and many others), so I guess as usual it will be a matter of what’s clamoring to be completed. Could be something already in progress, could be something brand new. With a few new (and really great) muses on the fore, new projects could start stacking up quickly.

Additionally, there is looking to be some travel in a few months. Three events are already confirmed and on the books, so I’m looking forward to all of that. A change of scenery could spark even more ideas and I sincerely welcome all of it.