Last week, I:
I haven’t been blogging a lot lately, but hopefully that’s going to change soon, as there are a lot of thoughts and updates that I ought to share.
Last week, I:
Last week was kind of crazy. My in-laws were gone for half of it, and we did a deep clean on the house before they came back. We also did a whole lot of Easter stuff as a family, which was fun, but it kept us very busy (hence the near total lack of blogging). And finally, our two year-old son who has zero pain tolerance came down with hayfever and barely slept at all, which was much less fun. But in between all that, I managed to:
Last week, I:
This post is a day late because I sprang for the paid version of ChatGPT over the weekend, mostly to generate… er… images of my wife. For research purposes. But here are my five bullets.
Last week at work, I:
This is another great cover by James, over at GoOnWrite.com. I’m really happy with how it turned out! I’m working on the AI draft right now, but should have it done very soon. If all goes well, I’ll be publishing it either in July or August. Here is the working back cover copy:
To save his orphaned daughter, the ghost of the greatest wizard must depend on the lowest thief.
Corin has never been more than a street rat and a petty thief. But he can also hear the voices of the dead—whether he wants to or not. Usually, the dead leave him alone after they realize he has no power to help them. But when the former court magician begins to haunt him, nothing that Corin says can convince him to go away.
Lyra, the magician’s daughter, has been delving into the dark arts to find her father’s killers and avenge his grisly death. But the very people who killed him are grooming her for a devious purpose, and the intrigue of the court has put her in more danger than she knows. Her father is the only one who knows enough to warn her, but without Corin’s help, he is powerless to save her.
To save her, Corin must be more than merely a ghost whisperer: he must rise above his circumstances and become a man worthy of trust. But will that be enough to convince Lyra to turn back to the light before her thirst for vengeance consumes her?
It’s new year’s eve, finally! Another year, another voyage around the M-class dwarf star we call Sol!
A lot of other writers and podcasters are doing recaps of their year, highlighting some of their best moments as well as analyzing what they learned and what changed. Generally, though, these people are either single or have producers and assistants to help them with their content. Since neither of those is true for me (I literally just put my son down for a nap, though it sounds like it will be a while before he falls asleep), I’ll just write a quick blog post with some off-the-cuff thoughts.
It’s been a very busy and eventful year for me, writing-wise, though most of that probably won’t be visible from the outside until about the middle of next year. I’ve totally reworked my writing process in ways that should start yielding a lot of new books around then, and hopefully continue to yield them for the forseeable future. If successful, I will probably write a non-fiction book about it sometime, but that’s still in the nebulous future.
I published four novels this year, all in a new series, and I’m currently writing two more in the same series (the Sea Mage Cycle). Interestingly enough, it’s one of my best rated series, which probably shows how much I’ve improved as a writer since I first started indie publishing. Also, it’s much more of a fun adventure fantasy series than some of my other stuff, which either tends toward sprawling, ambitious space opera or sober dystopian think-pieces, both of which tend to take themselves a little too seriously. But I’m happy writing fantasy adventure, so if it turns out I can carve out a comfortable niche in this subgenre, I’ll certainly enjoy leaning into it.
Four novels in a year is about four times what I typically produce, but I was starting to feel a little burned out, so after taking a break to write some AI-assisted short stories, I decided to take some lessons from the experience and spend the rest of the year reworking my creative process. It didn’t take long for me to learn that writing quality AI-assisted novels isn’t that much harder than writing quality AI-assisted short stories—indeed, in some very key ways, it’s actually easier. So since novels are much more lucrative than short stories, I decided to stop writing them and to focus exclusively on novels.
I still plan to keep putting out a new title every month in 2025, just like I have for the last several years. Until now, most of those titles have been short stories, simply because I wasn’t able to write fast enough to regularly publish anything longer. But this year, I’m hoping to put out at least five novels, perhaps more, especially if I can get to the point where it only takes a month to write them. On the off months, I will republish old short story singles, so if there are any that you remember that you want to see again, let me know and I’ll put them into the publishing queue.
I’ll have to write at length with how I’ve reworked my writing process, and not just from the AI angle. I’ve also figured out how to hack my ADHD so that a lot of the things that used to be liabilities (a hyperactive, easily distractible mind, a hunger for novelty, a constant desire to start new projects or to chase new ideas, etc) are now assets instead of liabilities. But to really get into that, I first need to write about how I hacked my ADHD to read more books—which would probably make a great blog post for January 2025, since I’m sure many of my readers are making resolutions to read more books. I used to struggle to read more than thirty or forty books in a year, but now I consistently finish a book every 2-5 days, and have been for the last year and a half. So that should make a very interesting post.
On a more personal note, my big resolution for this year is to hike Mount Timpanogos at least once, and be in good enough shape that it doesn’t totally wipe me out. It should be too hard. I enjoy hiking, but I’ve put off hiking Mount Timp for years, assuming I would get around to it some other time. Well, I’m 40 now, so if I don’t do it soon there’s a chance I may never do it. Besides, it would be great to get back into hiking again, and perhaps even tackle some truly difficult mountains, not just the big local one that’s emminently doable. But for this year, it’s Mount Timpanogos (and maybe Mount Nebo, if Timp isn’t enough of a challenge).
The kids are getting older, and we’ll probably have to figure out homeschooling before the end of this next year. We’re also moving back into our house in Orem, after my wife gets her PhD. Before we do, I’d like to build a little free library that we can post on the corner of our property, and maybe even a bench, if I can get around to it. But the library is definitely something I want to finish before we move back in. Should be a fun woodworking project.
So that’s what we’re up to around here. Definitely looking forward to another long trip around the sun!