Writers Cantina was this last weekend. I had a great time! It was really good to catch up with my local writing friends, and there were some really great panels too. My wife was also able to come up with me on Saturday, so we had a good time together. Great little local convention!
Probably my biggest takeaway from the convention was that I should rethink how I do my blog and my newsletter. Instead of selling a book with each newsletter, as I’ve been doing for nearly the last ten years, I should only be selling every 4-5 emails or so. So instead of doing a monthly newsletter with the whole kitchen sink, I think I should channel some of my blogging energy into the newsletter and make it a shorter, weekly thing. Which shouldn’t be too hard, if I blog only 4x a week instead of daily.
So that’s something I’m going to try out, moving forward. I’m going to have to make some other adjustments, too, because my wife is going back to full-time work this week, leaving me to take care of the kids. We’re also starting homeschool next month, so that’s something else I’m going to have to figure out.
Lots of changes coming, which means a lot less writing time each day. But I’ve mapped out my current WIP (Lord of the Falconstar), and I’m reasonably confident that I can have it finished before the end of October, even at a slower rate of progress. Just need to figure out the new routine for myself and the kids.
I hope you had a great 250th fourth of July! We had a bunch of family in town, so things were kind of crazy all last week. Then, on Monday and Tuesday, I buckled down and finally finished the ongoing home improvement project I’ve been working on for the last couple of months: installing new shelves in my basement office / writing den!
Those shelves are just common 10″x1″ pine board, bought at the local home depot. They each span 11’2″, which is the length of the wall. I sanded them down and stained them, then installed them all on shelving brackets that we bought on Amazon. Each bracket pair is rated for 100 lbs, so it may have been overkill to get three pair per shelf, but this way I don’t have to worry about the kids hurting themselves by doing something stupid like trying to climb up the shelves while I’m gone.
Total materials cost for the project was around $560. It would have been cheaper just to buy the BILLY shelves at Ikea, but from what I can tell from the recent online ratings, they’ve been using cheaper materials in order to keep the cost low, so nowadays those selves only have a lifespan of about a year. A new set of higher quality premade shelves would have been around $800 at Home Depot, so I figured it was better just to build them myself.
It feels so good to have all of our family’s books up and available to browse! Ever since we moved back into our Orem house, they’ve been sitting in boxes in the spare bedroom in the basement, taking up space. But with the way our family’s growing, we’ve been needing to get that de facto storage room set up as a girl’s bedroom. So the books needed to find a new home.
Next step: fix up the basement bathroom, and install a desk light in the spare bedroom, so that our oldest can move downstairs. I also want to get an easy chair, to turn this writing den into a reading nook. If we bring in a desk or an easel for the other side, we can use this room for homeschooling, too. It would be really convenient to be able to work on my writing while my daughter is in the other corner, working on schoolwork.
So yeah, things are taking shape very nicely. As far as the writing goes, I’m working hard on Lord of the Falconstar now, trying to get as far into it as I can before my wife goes back to full-time work. She goes back into the office next Monday, so I really need to buckle down and make as much headway as I can.
Last week, I finished writing The Unknown Sea, the sixth book that I’ve written so far in the Sea Mage Cycle. Here are the stats:
Total Chapters: 16
Total Scenes: 53
Total Words: 50,069
Total Process Words: 457,791
Total Writing Hours: 91.1
Total Writing Days: 71
This one went a lot faster than I thought it would, though it took nearly a year before I finally buckled down and did it. I had the initial idea for it way back in December 2024, and finished the outline in January 2025. But I put it aside until July, then worked on it off and on for the next three or four months, not really making much measurable progress. So it wasn’t until I buckled down in May and really sat down to finish it that I finally pounded it all out.
This is the sixth book I’ve written in the Sea Mage Cycle, but it’s the second book chronologically, taking place about ten years after the events of The Widow’s Child. As with all the Sea Mage Cycle books, this is a standalone. I will probably write at least another two books in the series, just so that I can round out another four book omnibus edition. It’s going to be a little while, though, as I really want to pivot towards the Soulbound King, releasing the first three books within a year of each other. Also, I need to finish my two open sci-fi trilogies: The Outworld Trilogy and the Falconstar Trilogy.
So my next big WIP is going to be Lord of the Falconstar, which I plan to release in May 2026. The outline and rough AI draft are already finished, so ten months should be sufficient to get that done, even with my wife going back to full-time work in a couple of weeks. We’ll have to start going to bed early, so that she can get more sleep, and I can wake up at 4AM to write. In the meantime, I plan to send The Unknown Sea off to my editor, and format and publish that as soon as he gets back to me with the edits.
By the way, The Unknown Sea is already up for preorder! You can get it here:
I am doing everything I can to finish this book today. It is so close to being finished that if I buckle down and do it, I think I can have it done. But that means I need to get back to writing. This blog will probably be sparse for a little while.
I’ve been making good progress on The Unknown Sea, and now expect to finish it before the end of June—which surprises me, because before I passed the 2/3rds mark on the rough human draft, the numbers simply didn’t add up. But they do now, so I think there’s a very good chance I’ll have the final draft finished by the end of next week, and ready to send off to my editor. Here is where everything is currently at:
Final polished draft: 47%
Revised human draft: 54%
Rough human draft: 67%
Final AI draft: 84%
I’ve written enough books to notice this pattern: that whenever I’m between the 35% and 65% marks, it feels like the book is taking longer than it should to write. The numbers don’t just add up, and every day, it feels like I’m falling further behind. But then, around the 2/3rds mark, things turn around, and suddenly I’m in a sprint to the finish, with everything falling into place quite nicely. Which just goes to show you that the way to climb a mountain is to take one step at a time, and the way to eat an elephant is to do it one bite at a time.
We’ve got a lot going on this next week, with family in town, but I think I can carve out enough time to make good progress on this book. Which means I need to get to work now, but I’l leave you with this flash sale I’m currently running on the Sea Mage Cycle, exclusive to my online store. For the next week, Omnibus I is available for just $4.99. That’s four books for the price of one, in the same series as The Unknown Sea. Check it out!
This omnibus edition contains the first four books of the Sea Mage Cycle:
RESCUER’S REWARD All Jason ever wanted was to sail the Azure Sea as a merchant ship’s captain. But money problems have him up to his eyeballs in debt, and if he doesn’t return to port with the gold, his dreams will be dashed forever. So when the princess of a far-off kingdom is kidnapped by pirates en route to her wedding, Jason merrily takes up the chase, staking his future on the reward for her safe return.
THE WIDOW’S CHILD Elara left everything behind to raise her magically gifted daughter in the isolated safety of a lonely homestead. But they can’t stay hidden forever, and it’s only a matter of time before evil men find them and seek to exploit her daughter’s gifts. To find someone to help her, Elara must open her heart, even if it means risking everything she has sacrificed and worked for.
THE WINDS OF DESOLATION All Alex ever wanted was to be a sea mage like his father. But though he is gifted with magic, the wind and the waves refuse to answer his call. So when a storm shipwrecks his crew on the barren shores of the Lands of Desolation, Alex must unravel the dark mysteries of this forsaken land, discovering its connection with his own latent powers. But will Alex master the magic within him before the curse upon the land consumes them all?
THE CALL OF THE TIDE After dropping out of the King’s Fleet, Samuel didn’t think he would amount to much. But when an ancient and secretive cult comes after him, he learns that his particular kind of magic set him apart. An ancient artifact known as the Tidecaller’s Amulet is the key to unlocking a great evil, and Samuel is one of only a few people who can use it—or destroy it. With the help of a flamboyant privateer captain, he sets out to find the ancient artifact before it—or he—falls into the wrong hands.
Just plugging along with my current WIP, The Unknown Sea. As of right now, I’m 28% done with the final polished draft, 32% done with the revised human draft, 46% done with the rough human draft, and 73% done with the final AI draft (the rough AI draft is already complete).
I’m cycling through all of these drafts at the same time, which is why each one is at a different stage. It’s an experiment to see if that’s a better way to write, as opposed to working on the one draft until it’s completely done, then reworking the whole book until the next draft is done, etc.
The important number is the 28% of the final polished draft, which marks the end of the writing stage. Once that’s done, I’ll send it off to my editor, accept/reject his edits, and then put it in the publishing queue. The preorder is already up at most ebookstores, but I still have to upload the final version by December, which shouldn’t be a problem as I expect to have a finished book by August or September at the latest.
So that’s what I’ve been up to. My wife’s birthday/anniversary is coming up, too—we were married on her birthday, so I’d better not forget it! But since both days are the same day, I don’t think I ever will. Then again, I’ve become a lot more forgetful the older I become. Half the toys our kids own, I have no idea where they came from or how they got here. Is that normal?
In any case, that’s what I’ve been up to. Back to writing!
Every month, I try to rotate a couple of titles in and out of the Vasicek Free Library. This month, I’m republishing my old short story “Prison of Dreams,” and setting my novella In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight to free. Check them out!
Prison of Dreams: A Short Story
A boy, a girl, and a starship gone mad.
As the colony mission's historian, Hazel thought the voyage would be as uneventful for her as going to sleep and waking up on the new, alien world. She was wrong.
It's unclear whether the ship's AI is crazy or merely lonely, but for whatever reason, it is convinced that it needs to feed on her dreams. But the colony mission is still centuries from arrival, and Hazel will live out her natural life and die alone if she cannot convince the ship to put her back into cryosleep.
There are alternatives, however. If the ship manages to awaken the right person for her, none of them ever have to be lonely again.
A boy, a girl, and a starship gone mad.
As the colony mission’s historian, Hazel thought the voyage would be as uneventful for her as going to sleep and waking up on the new, alien world. She was wrong.
It’s unclear whether the ship’s AI is crazy or merely lonely, but for whatever reason, it is convinced that it needs to feed on her dreams. But the colony mission is still centuries from arrival, and Hazel will live out her natural life and die alone if she cannot convince the ship to put her back into cryosleep.
There are alternatives, however. If the ship manages to awaken the right person for her, none of them ever have to be lonely again.
Joe Vasicek fell in love with science fiction and fantasy when he read The Neverending Story as a child. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Genesis Earth, Gunslinger to the Stars, The Sword Keeper, and the Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic at Brigham Young University and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus Mountains. He lives in Utah with his wife and two apple trees.
Some of the links in the page above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. You will not receive any additional charge.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil!
When Captain Victor Andrecek and his crew of down-and-out smugglers respond to a deep space distress call, what they find shocks them to their very core. The victim is dead, his EVA suit nailed to a cross and launched on the head of a repurposed missile, with the words of an ancient scripture burned on a plaque at his feet. And he is not the only one.
The madman behind the murders is a privateer known as Zedekiah Wight, and the reward on his head is more than enough to tempt Andrecek and his struggling crew. With it, they can finally get back on their feet again—not to mention, rid the galaxy of a very dangerous man.
But Andrecek can't help but wonder: what was Zedekiah's reason for crucifying those men? With the showdown rapidly approaching, the answer might make the difference between being in the right, or being dead.
Joe Vasicek fell in love with science fiction and fantasy when he read The Neverending Story as a child. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Genesis Earth, Gunslinger to the Stars, The Sword Keeper, and the Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic at Brigham Young University and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus Mountains. He lives in Utah with his wife and two apple trees.
Some of the links in the page above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. You will not receive any additional charge.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
So for the last week, I’ve been having some long reflections with ChatGPT (I say “reflection” instead of “discussion,” because generative AI is more like a sophisticated mirror than a mind) and crunching a bunch of the data that I’ve accumulated over the course of my career. It’s fascinating, because one of the things that generative AI is surprisingly good at is crunching large amounts of data and extracting interesting patterns from it. It’s less good at drawing useful conclusions, but that’s what God gave us humans a mind for.
One of the more interesting data points is that the ideal frequency with which to release new full-length novels is once every 3-6 months, ideally every 3-4 months. After 6 months without a novel release, sales tend to fall off, and after 9 months, they fall completely off of a cliff.
From this, I’ve decided to rework my release schedule, so that every January, May, and September, I have a new novel coming out. The goal is to have the next novel ready and up for preorder before the current one goes live. Between new novel releases, I plan to rerelease short stories, bundle and release box sets, or release new original short stories and novellas, with something coming out each month.
It’s an aggressive release schedule, but with the way I’ve incorporated AI into my writing process, I think I can manage it. It took me about 120 total writing man-hours to write Captive of the Falconstar, and with practice I can probably get that down lower. During the school year, while my wife is teaching or researching and I’m generally the one watching the kids, I can only get about an hour of work in each day, but I can do more like 2-3 hours in the summer, so that’s when I plan to catch up. That comes to about 400 man-hours of writing time in a given year, which is more than enough to write three 120 man-hour novels.
I’m going to try to give myself a bit of a buffer, though. After Captive of the Falconstar comes out in July, I plan to wait 6 months and publish The Unknown Sea in January 2027. The next release will be Lord of the Falconstar in May 2027, concluding the Falconstar Trilogy. After that, I plan to launch the Rise of the Falconstar Trilogy in September 2027 with The Soulbond and the Sling, following up with books 2 and 3 in January and May 2028.
My big summer project this year is The Unknown Sea, which I will probably finish sometime next month. After that, I’ll work on Lord of the Falconstar with a goal of finishing it well before the end of the year. Should be very doable. And since the AI draft of The Soulbond and the Sling is already complete, it shouldn’t take more than a few months to finish it. So by the time January 2027 rolls around, I may be more than halfway done with my September release for that year.
That’s the plan, anyway. I may want to experiment with crowdfunding some of these novels, especially The Soulbond and the Sling—which is another good reason to push it back to September 2027. But we’ll see how it goes.
I’ve been making good progress on The Unknown Sea this week, pushing forward at a very good rate now that my wife is at home watching the kids. She’s got the next couple of months off for the summer, allowing me to write full-time, and I plan to take advantage of that as much as I can. This was the first week of that, and while I still feel like I’m ramping up to full speed, I did get quite a bit of writing done.
Right now, The Unknown Sea is at about 50% for the AI draft, 28% for the rough human draft, 22% for the revised human draft, and 11% for the final polished draft. I’m experimenting with pushing through all of those draft phases at once, obviously with different parts of the novel being at different stages. If everything proceeds according to my outline, the final draft will clock in at around sixteen chapters, 53 scenes, and between 65k to 70k words (or around 180 – 220 pages).
I probably won’t be able to finish it before the end of May, but I do think I can finish it by mid-June. It’s going to take a lot of work, but I’ve got the time now, so it’s mostly just a matter of buckling down and making it happen. It’s about the same length as Captive of the Falconstar, which took about 120 writing hours to finish, and I’ve already put in about 50 writing hours. To finish The Unknown Sea by May 15th, I need to average about 3.5 writing hours per day, which is going to be a bit tricky since 1) I still have a bunch of publishing tasks to work on, and 2) we have a family trip to Coeur D’Alene in the middle of that, but I think I can manage it.
I would really like to have it sufficiently finished so that I can start work on Lord of the Falconstar before Captive of the Falconstar releases in July. That way, I can estimate how much time I need to finish Lord of the Falconstar and have it up for preorder. But I may go ahead and put it up for preorder anyway, just with a long enough lead-time that I know I can have the book done before then.
What I’ll probably do is put The Unknown Sea up for preorder with a release date around October-November 2026, and Lord of the Falconstar up with a release date around January-February 2027. I’ve got a rough AI draft done for Lord of the Falconstar, but not much more than that, and I probably need to update some of the character cards and chapter prompts, which is also going to take time. So Lord of the Falconstar probably won’t come out until sometime in 2027, regardless.
My parents were both high school teachers, and they told me that the three best things about being a teacher are: June, July, and August. My wife is a BYU professor, so she’s got a two month break instead of a three month break, but she can take it anytime over the summer, and she’s decided to start it next week. That way, she’ll be watching the kids from the end of BYU kindergarten to the week after Writers Cantina in July, giving me all that time to write full-time.
I am really looking forward to it! With luck, I can finish The Unknown Sea and push far enough into Lord of the Falconstar that I can put it up for preorder before Captive of the Falconstar is released. It’s going to take a lot of work, but I think I can do it. Captive took me a total of 120 hours to write, and I’m already about a third of the way through The Unknown Sea, so I can probably finish that by the first half of June. And then, I’ll go full ahead on Lord of the Falconstar to have that trilogy well and truly done by the end of the summer.
Looking forward, we have a wedding at the end of May, and a family trip up to Idaho in the first week of June. Coeur d’Alene is a solid 10 hour drive from Orem, Utah, which is one heck of a crazy haul, but we’ve done it before, though not with three kids. We’ll only be there for a weekend. Other than that, we’ll be at home for most of that time. So that’s the plan.
As for The Unknown Sea, it’s coming along very well, but I only have another half hour to work on it before it’s time to put the kids to bed, so I’d better get back to that now.
