There is some seriously nasty cold going around here that everyone seems to be getting, including me.  I’ve been sick as hell for a week and a half now.  Whatever this is, it’s really bad, and it seems to have three stages.  The first day and a half or so it’s pretty mild.  You may even think you’re getting over it.  Then near the end of the second day, it hits you like a damn freight train and turns into a severe head cold.  The following day you lose your voice.  For three days you’ll barely be able to talk, and then for ages after your voice will slowly start to recover, but only very slowly.  Then about a week into it, it changes into something else entirely.  You start feeling completely dried out, and you get a dry cough that often leads to serious coughing fits that’ll make you wish you were dead.  There’s something going on in the throat too that makes it feel like you tried to swallow a pill that got stuck in there and won’t shift, even though there’s nothing there.

Oh, and on top of all that, I got a flare up of gout in my left foot as well. 😛

Despite it all, I somehow managed to finish chapter 2 in my next book today.  Progress on it has been extremely slow for a variety of reasons, including work, illness, and general life issues that I’ve had to deal with.  Don’t worry though, I’ll never give up on it.  It may be slow going, but I’m going to try to be more on top of working on it now.

Anyway, I haven’t posted an update in a while.  That’s what’s been going on here.  Oh, and on the 23 / 24th of this month, the site will be down for a while.  I’m changing internet providers and getting new static IPs, so things will be down until the new ones propagate.

I finally finished the first chapter of Retribution.  It’s been really tough for me finding the mental energy to work on it because of all the editing and other work I’ve been doing for my job, but we had a writing sprint workshop at my writers group tonight, and I managed to blow through most of the rest of the first chapter.  I just finished it up now.  It’s always slow going with new stories because you’re creating an entirely new cast of characters from scratch, which also entails a whole lot of character development that has to take place.

This is also the first time I’ve written horror / suspense, so I want to make sure I do a good job with it.  This isn’t a genre I’ll write often I don’t think, but it is one that I wanted to explore.  I’m pretty sure my next book will be a paranormal novel of some sort, but I’m not sure what form it’ll take.  I’ll think more about it as I get closer to finishing this one.

Anyway, I just wanted to post a little update.  I’m pretty excited about this one.  I just need to find the time and the energy to keep myself in the cycle of working on it daily.

My job has been draining away most of my mental energy, and I’ve been really busy with it lately, so I don’t have a lot left for working on the next book.  I have started it though.  I’ve written the first scene and most of the second.  I’m going to get back to work on it today, and then I’m going to try to divide my time better so I can get back to a daily schedule on it.  It’s just going to take some balancing of things on my part, but I’ll figure it all out soon enough.

I’m very happy to announce that Genesis, the final book of the Unseen Things series is now available!  It’s currently published or in the process of publishing on the following sites: Amazon, Amazon UK, Smashwords, Google Play, OmniLit, Official Site

It will appear on other retail sites like Barnes & Noble and Kobo within the week.

Synopsis: When you have the literal power of gods, the ultimate accomplishment would be to use that power to create a living world out of a lifeless hunk of rock.  This was the idea behind the Genesis project.  There’s just one catch.  They need to find a lifeless hunk of rock to use for the project before they can set their plans in motion.  When a stranger named Gerald shows up in the village however, the source of their god-like powers soon becomes all too clear.

Not trusting this amiable stranger in the slightest, Jarrod opens a time portal and travels far into the future.  When he returns a few seconds later however, he refuses to tell anyone where he went, or when for that matter.  Their concern for him grows even deeper when he starts suffering from debilitating headaches that only seem to get worse as time goes on.

Also, during the search for a suitable planet to use for the Genesis project, not one, but two old enemies are discovered and must be dealt with.

Sadly, all great things must come to an end.  Genesis is the final book of the Unseen Things series, and a fitting send off for the characters we’ve all grown to know and love.

Genesis is book 21 of the Unseen Things series.

I’ll begin work on my next novel at some point in the next week or so.  It’s called Retribution, and it’ll be my first horror/suspense novel.

I finished editing Genesis and I’m really happy with how it came out.  I truly believe it’s a fitting end for the series, and I can’t wait to get it published.  The only thing I’m waiting on right now is for my wife to finish reading it, so she can double check it for me and catch any little errors I might have missed when I edited it.  She should be done with it at some point this weekend, so as soon as she is I’ll get it published.  Tomorrow I’ll start work on my next book, Retribution, which will be a horror / suspense novel.

I just finished editing chapter eight of Genesis.  I’ve still got eight more chapters to go, but I’m having to mix editing that with editing another book I have to do for work, so it’s going slower than usual.  It is progressing though, and I’m really happy with it all.

I’ve also created the cover for my next book, and I’ve been thinking about how I want it to play out.  It’s definitely going to fall in the horror/suspense genre, but it’s more or less going to be just a one off.  I don’t typically write in that genre, so after I get done with it I’m not sure what I’ll be doing.  As a writer, one of the most exciting things you can do is to expand your abilities by tackling different genres.  So far I’ve done contemporary fantasy, sci-fi, and romantic comedy with just a hint of mystery thrown in.  Now I’ll be adding horror to the mix, so I’m really going to have to think about what I want to do after that.  Perhaps something more paranormal.  I dunno.  I guess I’ll just have to see what comes to me down the road.

As for the next book after Genesis, it’ll be called Retribution, and the cover is awesome as hell, if I do say so myself. 😉

I probably won’t post any more updates until I publish Genesis.  Just know that I’m working diligently on it and I’ll get it published just as soon as I can.  I’m hoping to be able to have it done by next weekend, but we’ll see how it goes.