I decided to take a break from my fiction to provide a general update on my writing and announce a new series.

As some of you may know, I am what I call a burst writer. Some people call this a ‘sprint writer,’ but I don’t like that. To me, the term is too easily confused with timed sprints for a given activity… like writing or coding. Regardless, it means that I have periods of rather prolific productivity interspersed with periods when I write… well… not at all.

The last half of this year is an excellent case in point. I believe I mentioned in an earlier post that prior to starting the “Spring to the New Year with Kris” challenge, I had written a grand total of 11,648 words since the end of July.

Now… my current total for the year is 295,464 words. I have not cracked 300,000 words since 2021, and I am so close to doing it now that it is as much of a drive to write as the challenge with Kris. Matter of fact, given that my writing goal today is 10,000 words to get caught up to Kris (I didn’t write a word the first day of the challenge), I might even crack 300,000 words today.

We’ll see.

I don’t think I’ve had a 10,000-word day since 2021-ish, but I might be wrong about that. I don’t really feel like going back through all my Writing Logs right now. And… well… prior to 2022, I’m not confident in the Logs’ accuracy. It was still a new habit back then, I’m afraid I missed more than I hit.

Here’s where I am right now:

Those of you who follow my posts will probably recognize the section of the graphic from December 19th. December 20th, I went to visit family up in Fairmont and was pretty tired when I made it home. I still have no idea what was going on December 21st; I had a helluva time waking up the entire day. I didn’t want to not write, though, so I threw at least some words at the page.

Starting yesterday, though, you can see that my project changed… which brings me to the new series announcement.

On Mom’s birthday last year, I started a new Sci-Fi story. And it wasn’t just a new story. It was also a new series.

I know, I know… a lot of my readers would love for me to go back to Cole & Srexx, and honestly, a part of me would love that, too. But I still get a little nauseous at the thought of going back to that series, so for now, it’ll have to remain as it is.

But I digress…

I titled the story, The Shepherd, and it starts out as my take on the old ‘alien abduction’ yarn.

I finished The Shepherd… oh, I don’t know… back in May? It’s already been through my go-to reader, and yesterday, I received the first-pass audio of it for me to proof. Tia Rider is an awesome narrator, by the way; she’s the first I’ve actually been able to listen to, as most just mess with the movie in my head and create horrid cognitive dissonance. As things stand right now, I can’t imagine ever hiring anyone else to bring my stories to life.

But once again, I digress…

I decided to title the series, Shepherd Security Services, and Colfyr–the project I’ve written on today and most of yesterday–is Book 2 of that series.

I even have covers for them.

At present, I’m planning to publish The Shepherd on Knightsfall Press’s online store as soon as I have finalized audio in January. At the same time, I’ll be setting it up as a March 5th pre-order everywhere else. By that point, I should be far enough along with Colfyr to have a rough idea of when it will be in a position to publish and will absolutely have it up for pre-order when The Shepherd goes live everywhere.

In addition to writing on Colfyr, I want to re-visit the back cover copy for The Shepherd. I’ve been told it doesn’t communicate that the story is Science Fiction. I personally feel that the cover does an excellent job of that, but what do I know?

So, that’s a quick update of where I am at the moment. I’ll probably wait until tomorrow before I announce my success (or failure) to hit 10,000 words today.

I hope the days treat you and yours well.

Stay safe out there.