So, I’ve had a few people contact me about what my plans are next and given all the back and forth I’ve done over the last year or so, it seems wise to do an update.
My next undertaking will be to return to my long overdue sequel to B4E (Battle For Earth), Legacy of Earth. It’s set roughly a hundred and sixty years after the events of B4E and features Jek, a descendant of Lexa & Lily, as a protagonist. There will be some familiar faces, including one or two that will surprise most readers, and will answer some of the biggest questions left open by the first story.
I posted a blog about it waaaaaay back in March of 2017. The excerpt that I posted then, hasn’t changed much in these last three and half+ years, but needless to say it will definitely have received more grammar editing when the final version goes live on the website.
I have two parts completed and both total at over 50,000 words each. I’ve begun work on part three which will be about the same length. At this point in time, the plan is for four parts, but I am terrible at determining length so it could go longer. I was aiming for about 80k words for B4E (if I remember correctly) and the entire series ended up being somewhere in the neighborhood of 250k. I know some writers set definite goals for story lengths and even force themselves to adhere to them, but I find with my own writing process that those sort of restrictions hinder my creativity.
I will be serializing the story like I have done with my last three tales, but Legacy will be posted in larger chunks (3500-4200 words) through the first two parts. After that it will probably drop down to the usual serial length (about 1,200 to 1,500 words), but it will largely depend on how much I have completed by then. Look for the first part of Legacy of Earth sometime in the next week or two.
I’m going to be completely honest and upfront with you, someday soon I am going to begin monetizing my stories. I’ve already talked with Erin and Cat at Bigcloset Topshelf and things have been put into motion to begin publishing one on Amazon Kindle through their publishing arm DopplerPress. I’m starting with Battle For Earth. So at some point, it will no longer be available for free here or elsewhere. Likewise I’ll be doing the same for both Psyren’s Redemption and The Fall of Kruhl. I don’t plan on monetizing Virtually Twisted or Hunger Pangs as they’re set in shared universes which I did not create. Likewise, some of my short stories and flash fiction pieces (in particular the ones which were part of anthologies) will remain free, but some may make their way to Kindle in one form or another.
I do have plans for future installments of my Exemplar Universe, Onryo’s Revenge and Shadow of Arkana, which will be part 3 and 4 respectively, already have tentative titles and cover art, but I’m also planning a fifth story. Both will be origin stories. Part three will deal with the repercussions from Psyren’s Redemption, will be intertwined with the events in the Epilogue of Kruhl and Alexandra will be the love interest for the protagonist. Part four will deal with some of the repercussions from The Fall of Kruhl. Part five will be less an origin story, but have more to do with intertwining threads from both three and four.
I am also mulling over a complete rewrite of my Ragnarok Rising trilogy. I took a look at it yesterday and saw a lot of things I’d like to improve upon. Many readers disliked the journal format and I really think the story would work better in third person. There are some things I’d like to expand or even add in and I’d like to lengthen the first two novellas into full novel-length stories. Plus, I’ve mentioned in the past I want to write a prequel centered around Morgana Le Fey which would intertwine Arthurian legend and the Ragnarok Rising mythology.
I don’t know which of these projects I’ll tackle next, but they are definitely a high priority for me. I’m split on whether or not I’d serialize any of these future stories, but needless to say they will be finding their way onto Amazon either way. Worth noting, I’m shifting my writing away from shared universes and toward projects set in my own universes, so my plans for another Morpheus’ Twisted Universe story and the sequel to Hunger Pangs (which is set in the Enemyoffun’s DarkRealms Universe) probably aren’t going to see the light of day. I know some people will be disappointed by this news, but I want to start bringing in more money to help offset the costs of my transition.
Everyone have a deliciously demented weekend,
