Author Notes Vol 5

Alien Abduction Progress

As mentioned during my last Author Notes i’ve been working on editing what i’ve already written for my new book rather than writing it all the way through to the end. I’ve now fully caught up to where I was and am feeling much better about the story. Everything feels more in place and connected. More coherent. The story that was in my head is now really starting to come to life on the page. It was a needed detour in order to get the second half of the book right as everything relied on the setup.

Having caught up I’ve now began writing that second half of the novel and have added a couple more chapters since the last update. I’m at around fifty thousands words now, which while only ten thousand more than the last update feels significant better in quality (at least to me)

I have very high hopes for this book. I haven’t worked out how i’m going to get any one to read it yet, but I do thoroughly believe it will represent my best work to date. The book has been a challenge with more characters than anything i’ve written before, and it still being early days within my Sci-Fi work, but i’ve enjoyed that challenge. The idea is always to become a better writer after each book and this one is definitely going to contribute towards that goal.

I’m still looking at a release date of around June/July for the book, but I’m in no rush. That’s the beauty of Self-Publishing, all my deadlines are self-imposed.

Reading

I’ve also been reading a lot more this month. Tackling some bigger books and stories that have sat on my shelf for a little while. It’s been an absolute joy reading a lot more serious work over the last year. Going back into the past and catching up on some of the classics of the genre while occasionally dipping into some new exciting work. I feel like reading is becoming more important to me than ever before.

Cinema was always my escape In the past, and it still largely is, but the commitment of sitting in my little corner with the lamp on over my head and my glasses on while a read a paperback has started to become a big part of my day. It’s relaxing. Makes me smile. And is incredibly enjoyable. I’m getting more sucked into the stories than I use too. It also makes me look at my a lot phone less and slows down the days, two things that I need more of because life has moved too quickly of late.

At the time of writing this I’m reading Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter’s Time Eye, What i’ve read so far feels like it should have become a massive TV show at some point. The more I read, the more I realise how lazy and dumb it is to keep remaking the same old thing when there’s so many other fantastic stories out there waiting to be told. I mean I already knew that, but this last year has been confirmation.

I’ll be writing and scheduling the review for Mockingbird by Walter Tevis after writing this update too and that was one of the most beautiful books i’ve read in a long time. Some authors just get you.

Short Stories

I managed to edit the two shorts I was working on last month and one of them (Popsicle) is already available on the website. I think it’s a fun short and there might be a bigger idea there one day. The other will be out at the end of May and is tonally quite different from the last few i’ve written. I’ve put aside some time this coming weekend to begin work on the next batch as I want to continue publishing a short story every month here.

While I haven’t been giving Shorts as much attention of late I do love writing them and want them to be apart of my life. They’re not getting too many reads, but they’re out there now for people to look at if they want, and one day I can put them all together as a collection.

I have also written a couple of other shorts for a different project, but I don’t know how that’s going to go and isn’t worth really going into at the moment. One day… maybe.

What’s Going On In May?

Hopefully over the next month i’ll pretty much finish my second sci-fi novel, my alien abduction story, There’s still a lot of work to be done but I feel like I have some decent momentum at the moment and a good mindset. I had hit a little bit of a wall, but have got past it now and can see the home stretch. As I said, there is still a lot of work to be done so the writing of it may cross over into June, but either way massive progress will be made within the next thirty days or so.

I’ve also designated days for Writing Articles and Author Notes for the website, along with the aforementioned Short Stories. I’ll always be writing the Reviews as well. So, the plan at the moment is to keep everything active on here and produce more work. I just want to write as often as possible and i’ll figure out how to get people to read the work at a later date. Naive maybe, but that’s my mindset.