11:41pm

Since I’m starting this with just nineteen minutes before midnight, this will probably end up being posted at 11:59:59, which is code for “I’m a wordy little cuss and wrote way too long and had to edit the post date and time afterwards.”

Right, then… moving on!

This is the first weekly update for 2025. My intent is to share my writing progress with anyone who cares to read these and do a better job than I have in the past of giving interested readers an idea as to what I will publish next.

As I believe I wrote in earlier posts, I am attempting to devote each month to a specific book, and unlike my original plan (back when I erroneously thought I could bring Cole & Srexx back from the dead), this month’s book is Tribunal, Sorcerous Pursuits #3.

I want to go ahead and be upfront with you. Sorcerous Pursuits will probably be trilogy… and only a trilogy. I wanted the series (at least the first three books) to set Hyperion up as a one-ton gorilla for cameos in other series of the Draco-Verse shared world, and I feel Tribunal will achieve that. Accordingly, I see no reason to extend the series beyond that.

There… reader expectations managed.

I have never made any secret of the fact that I have struggled to establish a consistent, daily writing habit for a handful of years now. Many writers achieve this, including my professional role models, so I see no reason that I can’t do the same.

I thought my dissatisfaction with Cole & Srexx was subconsciously holding me back, which was why I decided I would bring the series back from the dead. All that achieved was zero new fiction words for all of November and December, 2024.

Hopefully, it goes without saying that such result was unacceptable.

So! I sat down and looked over my Writing Log for 2024 and 2023, and I decided that 3,500 words per day was a nice, comfortable pace. I have coasted along too much in my life, so I opted for a daily word count goal of 3,850 words.

And, folks… I am four for four!

I will confess I was struggling with Tribunal today, and to make achieving my word goal easier on myself, I hopped over to write on Lynxeen, the next story in Shepherd Security Services. I’ve been thinking about how I want that story to unfold, so it was fairly easily to round out my writing day by finishing Chapter 2.

I will spend some time between now and tomorrow’s writing thinking about how I’m going to arrive at where I want Tribunal to go, so that I’m refreshed and ready to put all of tomorrow’s writing towards it.

As long as we’ve brought up Shepherd Security Services, let’s talk about February, March, April, and possibly May.

My original plan for 2025 was to alternate months between Fantasy and Science Fiction. However, that presupposed that bringing Cole & Srexx back from the dead would actually succeed. As it did not, I find myself needing a new flagship Sci-Fi series for my promotional efforts.

And damned if I don’t have a new Sci-Fi series at hand!

So, for at least February through April, I will aim to write one Shepherd Security Services novel each month. I might extend that to May for reasons that would spoil future stories, but the reasons are admittedly almost laughable, very minor, and 115% personal.

This four-day streak I have going on feels really good, and I’m going to do everything in my power to maintain it. By the end of tomorrow (assuming I keep the streak alive), I will have over ten percent of my monthly estimated words for January.

I hope the new year is treating you and yours as well as possible. I offer you my best wishes.

Stay safe out there.