Stranded Shaping Up

Howdy. Now that we are well into the Christmas holiday season, I hope that you and yours are doing well. My family is doing as well as can be expected. My oldest is within a year of earning his Aircraft and Propulsion certificate, and my second oldest wrapped up his first year of college (we started him a bit early). I think my wife finally understands and accepts my desire to write novels. That only took a couple decades.

There’s a theme here: education. I’ve always been a fan of learning, even if school and I still eye one another suspiciously. I love doing things that teach me something new, or things that help me to beat my own ignorance. That’s one of the reasons I binge-watch YouTube. There are so many informative videos, such as Tom Clancy speaking to the National Security Agency in the mid-1980s, or an insightful video on early warning signs of cancer.

This week marks the end of 52 weeks since I resumed writing. If you visit my website, you will see a chronological heatmap. It shows which days I wrote, and how much I accomplished that day. You can mouse over to see for yourself.

This year, I embarked on a new series. It’s an alternative history (either phlebotinum-steampunk or gaslamp fantasy starting) in 1760s rural Pennsylvania. I thought it would be neat to inject some phlebotinum-based technology into the watershed moment that ensured the American Revolution would happen. Pontiac’s War in the Summer of 1763 was that pivotal event. Writing in this period has been fun because I’ve read so much on the period. It is an idea I started with in August 2018. I may not be as well versed as reenactors, especially on daily living. But, I find the period fascinating. I just finished the first draft of the first book in the Stranded series.

I’m so excited to finish these four novels and see what you think. My plan is to rapid-release them next Summer.