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I haven’t posted any updates here in a while, so I thought I’d pop in and let you all know how Transition is coming along.

This morning I finished chapter 14, so I’ve got two more chapters to go in this one and then I can start editing.  Two specific things have slowed down my writing as of late.  The first is that we’ve had some friends of ours staying with us for about the past month, and both they and we have new border collie puppies, which means I’ve had to spend a lot of time watching them, taking them out to pee, etc….

Then I had that little incident yesterday…

See, I was sitting here writing, and I was almost done with chapter 14 when one of the puppies went under the desk and turned off the UPS my computer is connected to.  Needless to say the computer died instantly, and I hadn’t saved yet since I’d started writing, so I lost it all.  Then I spent the rest of the day pissed off about losing everything I’d written, so I had to walk away from it and get a good night’s sleep before I was able to come back to it again.

Anyway, that’s what’s been going on.  I haven’t been able to write anywhere near as much or as often as I normally do with all the craziness and distractions going on around here, but I am making it a point to at least write some every single day.  I’ve already got a perfect ending for this book that’ll tie in perfectly with the next one, Travelers, which will be released on the same day as Transition since it’s already written and edited.  After that, I’ve got definite plans for two more books, and then we’ll see where things go from there.  I’m thinking that after two more I’ll either end the series, or put out one more book of short stories as a companion to the series.  We’ll just have to see how things go.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  I’ll try to be better about posting more frequent updates in the future.

Funny how ideas can just sort of hit you out of nowhere.  I’ve been talking about ending the series and what not, but then I got an idea for yet another story that takes place after Travelers, in addition to the ones that I can write just anytime.  This idea revisits something that happened earlier in the series, but looks at the results of it about two-hundred and forty years later and will really force them to become the gods they claim to be.

Anyway, I’ll keep writing the series as long as I have story ideas.  That’ll be the next one that comes out after Transition and Travelers come out together.

Yes I’m alive and I’m still working on Transition.  I’m writing chapter 10 right now and so far I’m really happy with how it’s coming out.  The writing has slowed down somewhat because we have house guests right now, but I’m trying to get some done every day.

Now, what does the future hold?  Well, the plan is to release this one and Travelers together as books 16 and 17 of the series, and then book 18 will likely be a novel chronicling the life and experiences of Jack Wilson, who was the key to everything that the characters in the series became later on.  His return with an amulet allowed them to rescue Jarrod’s family and to collect more amulets, which they then used to free others, which in turn led to all the other events that happened subsequently.  He’s always been a key element of the series, even though he only appeared in one scene in the first book as an old man.

After that, I’ll probably be writing a book of short stories from the Unseen Things universe.  Some of the stories will include main characters while others will have completely new characters.  The time frame of these stories will be all over the map as well.  Some may be based on things that were mentioned in the series but never delved into, while others will be things from the characters’ pasts.  The great thing about writing a book like that is that not only do I have total freedom to explore things that will only enhance the backgrounds of some of the characters, but I can also break new ground, which may lead to future books in the series, or even single story companion novels that take place in the same universe, but are stand alone books.

I go through times where I think I should just end the series with Travelers as I had originally planned, but then I come up with new ideas and get reinvigorated again.

Spoiler…

At the end of Transition there’s a big jump ahead in time to the point where they all move to the Nathalis dimension, which will then lead into Travelers, which takes place over 230 years in the future.  I may come back to the original characters after I do those other two books and continue with them in the Nathalis dimension if I feel inspired to do so at that point.  We’ll just have to see what happens between now and then.  If I do, there’ll be some crossover between them and the characters in Travelers here and there, because I’d really love to write those characters some more as well.  At least Jake and Lana anyway.  I loved writing Jake and Lana, so you can definitely expect to see more of them, even if it’s just a prequel book to Travelers about their experiences after the invasion.  Hell, I may even write that one and release it before Travelers.  That’s the great thing about being an author.  I can do whatever the hell I want. 😉

I just finished doing the cover and all the other graphics for Transition.  I also got the book file all set up, so I’ll probably start writing it either today or tomorrow.

I got really sentimental doing the graphics.  Unless something in this book leads to events that will have to be handled in another book, then this will be the penultimate book of the series, with Travelers, which I’ve already written, being the final book.  Transition will, at least at some point in the book, jump forward in time to the point where they finally make the decision to pack up everything and move to the Nathalis dimension.  They’ve mentioned many times that the day would eventually come when they’d leave the human dimension for good, and as of Travelers, that’s long since happened.

The cover has the four main characters spending one last night on the beach together before they leave.  Even thinking about it gets me sort of teary.  It’s been such a long ride, and now things are coming to an end…sort of.

Why sort of?  Well, the main storyline for the series will (probably) end with Transition, and then Travelers is like an end cap to the series.  There are still more stories that can be written however that take place in the Unseen Things universe.  What form they’ll take I have no idea.  It could be full books that continue on with the series if I happen to come up with some ideas for where to go with it after Travelers, or it could be a book of short stories.  I honestly don’t know, nor do I really want to call Travelers the “last book” because I honestly don’t know if it will be or not.

Is that vague enough for you?  Good, it is for me too.  The great thing about a series and about having characters that you know better than members of your own family is that there are always more stories to tell with them.  Just because I’ve kinda hit the end of the road for now doesn’t mean I haven’t had thoughts about where things could go in the future.  We’ll just have to see how it goes.  Once I get transition and Travelers published, which I’ll be doing together, then I’ll start thinking about what the future holds.

I’ve just finished publishing book 15 of the series, Infestation on all the usual sites.  It’s currently available on Smashwords, Google Play and Omnilit.  It will be available on Amazon in a few hours as well, once their system finishes reviewing it.

Synopsis: When someone steals the Zethichtalarin portal generator from a secure Nathalis storage facility, Karth and Commander Arthwal put their best men on the case.  Neither of them could have imagined however that the portal generator would be used in a plot that would lead to an invasion that would span across all four of the Nathalis’ dimensions.  An invasion that would force the humans, blue fins and all the others to put boots on the ground, standing side by side with their Nathalis friends to fend off an infestation that threatens to destroy everything.

Back in the human dimension, when Derek, Jarrod and Logan pry Charles and Richard out of the lab to go on a little trip to the planet Gilese 667C c, they end up finding a crashed ship and a dead bridge crew from a parallel dimension that leads them to uncover a tale of revenge against a massive and corrupt corporation.

And finally, now that Logan and Darla’s relationship has gotten serious, he makes the decision to bring her in on everything.  However, Tina, Sarah, Stephanie and Alarwyn have a little test for her before he does so, just to make sure she’s suitable to join the team.  Also, when Logan asks Derek to see if he can find her father that had disappeared years earlier and was presumed to be dead, what he finds in his search leads to yet another mystery that begs to be solved.

You write a full length novel.  You put your heart and soul into it, and then while you’re editing it, you suddenly realize there’s a seriously major plot hole that pretty much invalidates the last four chapters of your book.

Is there anything more devastating to an author than that?  No, not really.  How do I know?  Because it just happened to me with Infestation.  Honestly, when I realized what I’d done, I was ready to hang myself in the closet.  This plot hole would have invalidated everything I wrote and left me with nothing.  I sat here racking my brain trying to figure out a way around it that would save the story, and I was getting more and more desperate as each idea I came up with to fix the problem had holes of their own.  Fortunately, I’ve come up with a way to work around it that’ll only take a small bit of rewriting, which was about the biggest relief you could possibly imagine.

Basically, I had two choices.  Find a way to explain the plot hole and make it work, or just go ahead with the story as is and hope that no one would notice it.  Unfortunately, there are people out there that can spot the most miniscule of plot holes, and then they bitch about them endlessly to anyone who’ll listen, so this was something I absolutely had to fix.  Yes it’s setting me back a bit in my editing, but honestly, I’d rather have it right than to put out something ill conceived that would eat at the reader every time they read the book.

So that’s where I am as of now.  I’ve got 13 chapters edited so far, and after I fix this plot hole, I’ll go ahead and finish up the final three.

Phew!  I seriously can’t tell you how relieved I am that I figured out a way to explain this and make it work.  I would have had to have dropped the whole part of the book that involved the infestation if I hadn’t have, which would have absolutely destroyed the story.

Anyway, I’m going to take the rest of the evening off to get myself past the stress of this whole thing before I go back to editing again.  I’m going to smoke my pipe with some Evening Stroll tobacco from Milan Tobacconists and maybe watch a movie or something.  I’m not sure yet.  Whatever I do though, it’ll be away from the computer, which is exactly what I need right now.