One of the things I always wondered about when I first made this site was how often I'd actually keep up with it. I did well for a while, and then it kind of fell by the wayside thanks to the loads of other stuff I've been doing. Well, I doubt that's going to get better any time soon, but I did at least do a few updates to reflect my release schedule for the rest of 2019 and 2020, and the current projects I'm working on. Here's a few more details.
First, it's NaNoWriMo, which means I'm buckling down on a project for that. I'm doing a sequel to DAMNATION TRAIL, tentatively called SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN. If things work out, I'll end up self-pubbing this at some point, just like I did with DT.
Second, I've been picking up some freelance formatting jobs, which has taken up some time, but brings some extra money in, always a good thing.
Third, I'm also working on my arachnophobia novel, INFESTED. I paused for NaNoWriMo, and plan to get back and finish it next month.
I'm also doing a collaboration with Armand Rosamilia called THE PRICE. I've got it at the moment, and will send it back to him as soon as I do my chapter. Still a ways off from being done, but it is a lot of fun.
On the release front, there's a lot going on.
First up, on December 10, 2019, HIDDEN HEARTS comes out through Silver Shamrock Publications. It's been retitled THE CORRUPTION OF ALSTON HOUSE, and details are on the Bookshelf page.
Then, on January 24, 2020, CONSEQUENCES gets a facelift, a foreword from Bryan Smith himself, and a full-scale re-release through Poltergeist Press. The old version goes out of print on December 1, 2019, so watch for information on the new one in paperback, eBook, and--for the first time--HARDBACK(!!!) very, very soon.
Later in 2020, I have two more novels coming out. SAVAGE MOUNTAIN will likely be first, from Grindhouse Press, followed just before Scares That Care Charity Weekend, VA by the second Cochran Investigations novel, ONE LAST DANCE. There are a couple of other things in the fire, but nothing ready for discussion yet, so let's leave it there.
As you can see, I've been busy. Hopefully I get better at updating this site, but don't hold your breath.
Showing posts with label Cochran Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cochran Books. Show all posts
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Monday, December 10, 2018
Over the Horizon - Upcoming Event Announcements
December, and the year 2018 with it, are almost over. Now the time begins to look forward to 2019 and beyond! In that spirit, here's a few things you can expect from me in the coming year.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
An Ending and a Beginning
I'm kind of dealing with some mixed feelings tonight. I just finished the first draft of Cochran #4, called The Perception of Reality. On one hand, that's a good thing. On the other hand, this is the last Cochran book I have in mind. The ending leaves room for more, but I just don't have any real workable ideas for another one. Not right now, at any rate.
See, what's been happening is I'd finish a standalone book, then work on the next Cochran book, and back and forth and so on and so forth. Now I can't do that. And that feels a little strange to me.
Not that I don't have any more ideas for stories. Quite the contrary. The question is which of the ideas I'm going to tinker with next. For this one, it's an idea I had while on vacation in the Smoky Mountains this past weekend. Which is weird, because before that idea came to me, I had three other options to choose from. Well, technically four but one is still gestating in the brain and not quite ready for exploration. So it's not like I'm going to stop writing or something stupid like that.
Still, I've come to love these characters like family in the six months or so I've spent with them. I always dreamed of doing a series of books, and these guys allowed me to do that. I'm going to miss playing around with them and seeing what kind of new trouble they're going to get up to this time. My only hope is that I've done them justice for their present send-off.
Of course, the publishing industry being what it is and how it works, once they start coming out no one may notice the gap if I end up with a good idea and do another one. It may be a continual stream that will make me look back at this post and shake my head at my lack of foresight. After all, if there were a fifth book, I already know who the client is and I know what one of the subplots would be. So who knows?
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
See, what's been happening is I'd finish a standalone book, then work on the next Cochran book, and back and forth and so on and so forth. Now I can't do that. And that feels a little strange to me.
Not that I don't have any more ideas for stories. Quite the contrary. The question is which of the ideas I'm going to tinker with next. For this one, it's an idea I had while on vacation in the Smoky Mountains this past weekend. Which is weird, because before that idea came to me, I had three other options to choose from. Well, technically four but one is still gestating in the brain and not quite ready for exploration. So it's not like I'm going to stop writing or something stupid like that.
Still, I've come to love these characters like family in the six months or so I've spent with them. I always dreamed of doing a series of books, and these guys allowed me to do that. I'm going to miss playing around with them and seeing what kind of new trouble they're going to get up to this time. My only hope is that I've done them justice for their present send-off.
Of course, the publishing industry being what it is and how it works, once they start coming out no one may notice the gap if I end up with a good idea and do another one. It may be a continual stream that will make me look back at this post and shake my head at my lack of foresight. After all, if there were a fifth book, I already know who the client is and I know what one of the subplots would be. So who knows?
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
A Quick Progress Update
Hopefully I can do this one without rambling too much. Just a quick little note about how everything's going.
The third Cochran Investigations book, Blood Games, is on track to have the first draft finished by Thanksgiving at the latest. It's looking like it'll be the shortest of them so far, but it still might surprise me. I've wrapped up most of the subplots aside from the final acts on them, and am well into act three on the main plot, so hopefully this one is racing toward the finish line.
Once that one's done, I'll be starting on another standalone. This time it's a haunted house tale I'm really looking forward to digging into. The initial working title is Hidden Heart, and if it plays out like I expect it to, it will be less blood and more subtle creep factor. At least that's the intent. I suppose I'll know for sure once that first draft is done.
The second draft on The Journal of Jeremy Todd is finished, and if I get a full manuscript request I'll just have to format it and send it out. I personally can't believe I finished this draft this fast, and I swear I hope to never have to try that again. My brain was hurting by the time it was done.
Since that's finished, I'll go back to the edits on One Last Dance to try and get the second draft of that one done as well.
OLD and Journal are both in the hands of beta readers now, along with Demon at the Window, so I'll be waiting on feedback there before I start on any further drafts of those.
Since I need to take a break before starting the edits on Blood Games, I'll use my normal editing time to try and get Homecoming finished up.
On the submission and potential publication fronts, since the open submission period for Sinister Grin runs until the end of the month, I'm not expecting to hear back from them about Journal until sometime after that. They didn't give a lead time on their guidelines page, but I'm figuring up to six weeks there. Consequences is now past the halfway point in the waiting period on it (December 9 will be 12 weeks, and I could have to wait up to 16), so I'm not out of the running yet. I know the publisher was going through some editorial staff changes in regard to their horror line, so I don't know if that will affect anything or not. I've seen nothing on their site to indicate it, so I have to assume the original wait time remains in effect until I hear differently.
And that's it, you're all caught up! I'll update again once I finish Blood Games, or if I get a publisher response I can talk about, whichever comes first!
The third Cochran Investigations book, Blood Games, is on track to have the first draft finished by Thanksgiving at the latest. It's looking like it'll be the shortest of them so far, but it still might surprise me. I've wrapped up most of the subplots aside from the final acts on them, and am well into act three on the main plot, so hopefully this one is racing toward the finish line.
Once that one's done, I'll be starting on another standalone. This time it's a haunted house tale I'm really looking forward to digging into. The initial working title is Hidden Heart, and if it plays out like I expect it to, it will be less blood and more subtle creep factor. At least that's the intent. I suppose I'll know for sure once that first draft is done.
The second draft on The Journal of Jeremy Todd is finished, and if I get a full manuscript request I'll just have to format it and send it out. I personally can't believe I finished this draft this fast, and I swear I hope to never have to try that again. My brain was hurting by the time it was done.
Since that's finished, I'll go back to the edits on One Last Dance to try and get the second draft of that one done as well.
OLD and Journal are both in the hands of beta readers now, along with Demon at the Window, so I'll be waiting on feedback there before I start on any further drafts of those.
Since I need to take a break before starting the edits on Blood Games, I'll use my normal editing time to try and get Homecoming finished up.
On the submission and potential publication fronts, since the open submission period for Sinister Grin runs until the end of the month, I'm not expecting to hear back from them about Journal until sometime after that. They didn't give a lead time on their guidelines page, but I'm figuring up to six weeks there. Consequences is now past the halfway point in the waiting period on it (December 9 will be 12 weeks, and I could have to wait up to 16), so I'm not out of the running yet. I know the publisher was going through some editorial staff changes in regard to their horror line, so I don't know if that will affect anything or not. I've seen nothing on their site to indicate it, so I have to assume the original wait time remains in effect until I hear differently.
And that's it, you're all caught up! I'll update again once I finish Blood Games, or if I get a publisher response I can talk about, whichever comes first!
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Another One Done, Another Begun: A Status Report
The Journal of Jeremy Todd has now officially landed in the "Completed" category. It ended up weighing in at just over 64k words, or just enough to make it hard for me to classify. I'm going to stick with "short novel" instead of novella, since the formatted and printed version I gave my wife to read (since she gets 'em all first) was right at 200 pages.
As with the Cochran books, there's no release date set on this one yet, though I think it will be the next one I submit to Samhain once they give me a response on Consequences. Time will tell. I'm going to let it settle for a while before I start on the second draft, mainly because it ended up being such a dark book that I need to play with something lighter for a bit.
To that end, I'm now working on the third Cochran book. It's called Blood Games, and the case is already laid out. Now Cochran just has to see it through.
On the later draft fronts, I've finished the second draft of Demon at the Window, and am now working on the edits for One Last Dance. Once those are done I'll go back and do the third draft of DatW since I should have some feedback from the betas on it.
If you're curious, here's my timeline for what I'll be working on, and when it might be finished. Pay attention to that "might" in there, since I'm not actually setting deadlines for myself yet. These are only estimates based on what I've been doing up until now:
Blood Games, First Draft: Expected completion around the beginning of December.
One Last Dance, Second Draft: Should be done sometime around Thanksgiving.
Untitled Standalone Novel, First Draft: The idea's there, and I'll start on it right after BG, so let's say New Year's at the earliest.
Demon at the Window, Third Draft: shooting for Christmas to have this one done.
The Journal of Jeremy Todd, Second Draft: It's shorter, so the second week of January is likely. I'm also thinking this will be the final draft of this one. If I fiddle with it too much, I think it'll stop feeling like it was written by the narrator.
Untitled Cochran #4, First Draft: I've only got the barest idea of a story for this one, but hopefully it will manifest by the time I'm done with the standalone. Let's go with the beginning of February on this one.
One Last Dance, Third Draft: Also shooting for late January / early February on this one.
As you can see, I plan to stay busy for a while.
Now for a couple of not-so-good news announcements.
First, as you can see by the removal of it from the progress meter, Justicar is back in a holding pattern. I don't want to abandon it entirely, but I've got too much running through my mind in the horror genre to be able to fit it back into my work schedule. If nothing more demanding pops up, I'll try and get back to it after Cochran #4, but no promises, either to you or to myself.
Also, at this point it looks like Cochran #4 will be the last of them for the foreseeable future, as much as it pains me to admit that. There's only so many stories I can tell with those characters before it starts feeling like it's cliche or I'm repeating myself. I'd rather keep them fresh and fun. If I try and force it, I'm going to destroy both of those things. I love these characters, and hate to think they've got a final tale on the horizon, but that's how it's starting to look. On the bright side, I do have an Alexis-centric short story I want to tell when the time's right. It'll be a Christmas present to you guys at some point in the future, that's all I'll say about it.
And that's it for now! Another night of productivity complete, now on to the next!
As with the Cochran books, there's no release date set on this one yet, though I think it will be the next one I submit to Samhain once they give me a response on Consequences. Time will tell. I'm going to let it settle for a while before I start on the second draft, mainly because it ended up being such a dark book that I need to play with something lighter for a bit.
To that end, I'm now working on the third Cochran book. It's called Blood Games, and the case is already laid out. Now Cochran just has to see it through.
On the later draft fronts, I've finished the second draft of Demon at the Window, and am now working on the edits for One Last Dance. Once those are done I'll go back and do the third draft of DatW since I should have some feedback from the betas on it.
If you're curious, here's my timeline for what I'll be working on, and when it might be finished. Pay attention to that "might" in there, since I'm not actually setting deadlines for myself yet. These are only estimates based on what I've been doing up until now:
Blood Games, First Draft: Expected completion around the beginning of December.
One Last Dance, Second Draft: Should be done sometime around Thanksgiving.
Untitled Standalone Novel, First Draft: The idea's there, and I'll start on it right after BG, so let's say New Year's at the earliest.
Demon at the Window, Third Draft: shooting for Christmas to have this one done.
The Journal of Jeremy Todd, Second Draft: It's shorter, so the second week of January is likely. I'm also thinking this will be the final draft of this one. If I fiddle with it too much, I think it'll stop feeling like it was written by the narrator.
Untitled Cochran #4, First Draft: I've only got the barest idea of a story for this one, but hopefully it will manifest by the time I'm done with the standalone. Let's go with the beginning of February on this one.
One Last Dance, Third Draft: Also shooting for late January / early February on this one.
As you can see, I plan to stay busy for a while.
Now for a couple of not-so-good news announcements.
First, as you can see by the removal of it from the progress meter, Justicar is back in a holding pattern. I don't want to abandon it entirely, but I've got too much running through my mind in the horror genre to be able to fit it back into my work schedule. If nothing more demanding pops up, I'll try and get back to it after Cochran #4, but no promises, either to you or to myself.
Also, at this point it looks like Cochran #4 will be the last of them for the foreseeable future, as much as it pains me to admit that. There's only so many stories I can tell with those characters before it starts feeling like it's cliche or I'm repeating myself. I'd rather keep them fresh and fun. If I try and force it, I'm going to destroy both of those things. I love these characters, and hate to think they've got a final tale on the horizon, but that's how it's starting to look. On the bright side, I do have an Alexis-centric short story I want to tell when the time's right. It'll be a Christmas present to you guys at some point in the future, that's all I'll say about it.
And that's it for now! Another night of productivity complete, now on to the next!
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Off to the Betas
The second draft of Demon at the Window is officially complete. Strangely, this one came in a little longer in length than the first draft did. I did add an extension to one scene to clarify something I mentioned and never fully answered, but I thought I'd still cut enough to make it shorter, like normal. Oh well.
The next step is to get this one formatted and then it goes out to the beta readers for feedback. While I wait for that to come in, I'll still be working on the first draft of The Ideal Companion Journal and will be starting the edits for the second draft of One Last Dance.
I'm moving through this stuff pretty quickly, but that's how I want it, the more that I've thought about it. If I do end up self-publishing this stuff, my goal is to release a book every three months, for a total of four a year. I'm not going to say that's how it will pan out, but that's the goal. I still plan on Consequences being first, and I suppose from there it will depend on whether or not I submit the Cochran books for publication or decide to do them on my own.
We shall see, I suppose!
The next step is to get this one formatted and then it goes out to the beta readers for feedback. While I wait for that to come in, I'll still be working on the first draft of The Ideal Companion Journal and will be starting the edits for the second draft of One Last Dance.
I'm moving through this stuff pretty quickly, but that's how I want it, the more that I've thought about it. If I do end up self-publishing this stuff, my goal is to release a book every three months, for a total of four a year. I'm not going to say that's how it will pan out, but that's the goal. I still plan on Consequences being first, and I suppose from there it will depend on whether or not I submit the Cochran books for publication or decide to do them on my own.
We shall see, I suppose!
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
And Another One Down
I just typed the final words on the first draft of One Last Dance. It weighs in at just over 89,000 words, and 290 pages in MS Word format. It also now holds the distinction as the fastest first draft I have ever completed. Makes me think I actually should try the whole thing where you're supposed to do a novel in a month for a competition thing.
This is kind of a strange one, as I'm not sure how people are going to react to it. The subject matter is a little, I don't know, different from what I've done before. It's still a horror novel, but there are some subplots that actually get pretty emotional instead of scary. There's much less gore than Consequences or even DatW, so we'll see. I guess from here it'll be up to the beta readers to decide how far off course it is.
Here's what's next. Demon at the Window is almost to the completion mark on its second draft, then it goes out to the beta readers. This one, strangely, is more in demand than either of the other two I've done, so I suppose it will follow relatively soon. Once it's formatted, off to the beta readers it goes.
Which will be strange for me. I'll have two books in the hands of beta readers at the same time. Some will be the same, but there will be some new ones reading OLD that have not read DatW yet. While it's a bit unnerving for me to consider, it makes sense. I want the Cochran books to be a series, yet still accessible no matter which point you jump on board. By having people read this one before reading its predecessor, I can gauge how well I'm hitting that mark.
If you're waiting on it, give me a couple weeks to get it ready to go out. If you're not a beta reader and you're waiting on it, you'll have longer to wait. At least three more drafts and two other books to come out first.
Up next for me will be making the Cochran books a trilogy. The next one is tentatively titled Blood Games, and will resurrect the original case that came to mind when I first met the character years ago. I'm not sure exactly when I'll be starting on it, since I still have the prewriting phase to go on it (research, notes, etc.), and I do want to get back to Justicar at some point.
What I do know is that since I didn't take any during this one, I will take a couple of days off to let the old gray Duracell recharge. My "To Read" and "To Watch" lists are growing longer every day, and with precious little time for such things (since I devote most of my free time to actually seeing my family or working on my writing), I should take the opportunity to shrink them back down to manageable size. Who knows, maybe I can actually post a couple more blogs of reviews in the next couple of days.
Just don't hold your breath. Knowing myself as I do, I'll be writing again before I intended to. Ah well, I can sleep when I'm dead.
This is kind of a strange one, as I'm not sure how people are going to react to it. The subject matter is a little, I don't know, different from what I've done before. It's still a horror novel, but there are some subplots that actually get pretty emotional instead of scary. There's much less gore than Consequences or even DatW, so we'll see. I guess from here it'll be up to the beta readers to decide how far off course it is.
Here's what's next. Demon at the Window is almost to the completion mark on its second draft, then it goes out to the beta readers. This one, strangely, is more in demand than either of the other two I've done, so I suppose it will follow relatively soon. Once it's formatted, off to the beta readers it goes.
Which will be strange for me. I'll have two books in the hands of beta readers at the same time. Some will be the same, but there will be some new ones reading OLD that have not read DatW yet. While it's a bit unnerving for me to consider, it makes sense. I want the Cochran books to be a series, yet still accessible no matter which point you jump on board. By having people read this one before reading its predecessor, I can gauge how well I'm hitting that mark.
If you're waiting on it, give me a couple weeks to get it ready to go out. If you're not a beta reader and you're waiting on it, you'll have longer to wait. At least three more drafts and two other books to come out first.
Up next for me will be making the Cochran books a trilogy. The next one is tentatively titled Blood Games, and will resurrect the original case that came to mind when I first met the character years ago. I'm not sure exactly when I'll be starting on it, since I still have the prewriting phase to go on it (research, notes, etc.), and I do want to get back to Justicar at some point.
What I do know is that since I didn't take any during this one, I will take a couple of days off to let the old gray Duracell recharge. My "To Read" and "To Watch" lists are growing longer every day, and with precious little time for such things (since I devote most of my free time to actually seeing my family or working on my writing), I should take the opportunity to shrink them back down to manageable size. Who knows, maybe I can actually post a couple more blogs of reviews in the next couple of days.
Just don't hold your breath. Knowing myself as I do, I'll be writing again before I intended to. Ah well, I can sleep when I'm dead.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Getting Back on Track
So the crazy stretch at my day slave job is finally reaching its end. What that means is that I will finally be able to get back into the routine I had been using to get my work in this, the fun job, done. To that end, here's a few progress updates, all thrown into one big soup.
Consequences: Not much to report here, I'm still waiting. Yesterday was the one week mark since submission, so the concept that I would have heard anything by now, one way or the other, is just wishful thinking. That's okay, though. See below for what I'm using to try and keep my mind off it.
Demon at the Window: If you remember from a previous post, my normal routine for editing was that the bulk of it was completed on Mondays. Well, since my day job killed that for a couple of weeks, I still have yet to officially begin the edits that will make the second draft of DatW. Now that I get them back, I can get going on this full steam. I'm setting a tentative target of Halloween to have the second draft finished. That may change, especially since I'm not in as much of a hurry since Consequences needs to do its thing before I consider anything more concrete for the timeline on DatW, but at least it's better than what I had (which was nothing, in case you were wondering).
Justicar: I'm starting to get a general idea of what the next scene for the story is, so I will probably get back to this one in a couple of days or maybe a week. Right now it's still gestating, so my main focus is elsewhere, but fret not! This one is not forgotten, just taking a nap.
One Last Dance: If you haven't figured it out by now, this is the next Cochran book. I've got the concept firmly in mind and have been churning away with it for almost a week now. The majority of the cast of characters have been introduced, and it's time to start plugging away at Jack's actual investigation . This is the stage where thought has to come into it, so I don't reveal too much too soon, so it may rest a bit so I can get back to Justicar while the pieces fall into place. And if by looking at the progress meter you have the idea that I'm further along in this one, keep in mind that as a fantasy story, Justicar is projected to be much longer than OLD, so the percentages will be skewed accordingly.
And that pretty well catches me up. I still have some time left on my indentured servitude for the day job, so I need to get to sleep. I will try and do a couple of other posts in the next week or so that have been rolling around in my head, some things that are either not related to writing at all or only loosely so.
Until then, sweet dreams!
Consequences: Not much to report here, I'm still waiting. Yesterday was the one week mark since submission, so the concept that I would have heard anything by now, one way or the other, is just wishful thinking. That's okay, though. See below for what I'm using to try and keep my mind off it.
Demon at the Window: If you remember from a previous post, my normal routine for editing was that the bulk of it was completed on Mondays. Well, since my day job killed that for a couple of weeks, I still have yet to officially begin the edits that will make the second draft of DatW. Now that I get them back, I can get going on this full steam. I'm setting a tentative target of Halloween to have the second draft finished. That may change, especially since I'm not in as much of a hurry since Consequences needs to do its thing before I consider anything more concrete for the timeline on DatW, but at least it's better than what I had (which was nothing, in case you were wondering).
Justicar: I'm starting to get a general idea of what the next scene for the story is, so I will probably get back to this one in a couple of days or maybe a week. Right now it's still gestating, so my main focus is elsewhere, but fret not! This one is not forgotten, just taking a nap.
One Last Dance: If you haven't figured it out by now, this is the next Cochran book. I've got the concept firmly in mind and have been churning away with it for almost a week now. The majority of the cast of characters have been introduced, and it's time to start plugging away at Jack's actual investigation . This is the stage where thought has to come into it, so I don't reveal too much too soon, so it may rest a bit so I can get back to Justicar while the pieces fall into place. And if by looking at the progress meter you have the idea that I'm further along in this one, keep in mind that as a fantasy story, Justicar is projected to be much longer than OLD, so the percentages will be skewed accordingly.
And that pretty well catches me up. I still have some time left on my indentured servitude for the day job, so I need to get to sleep. I will try and do a couple of other posts in the next week or so that have been rolling around in my head, some things that are either not related to writing at all or only loosely so.
Until then, sweet dreams!
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