Some More Updates

Since I moved back here from my static site, I set up the same pages my previous home had, and you can see the links on the navigation menu. I'm keeping the book galleries as well since that's a fun project for me to divert myself with (and provide visitors to this site extra info on my new long novellas). But there will be, of course, the blog posts about them as I go.

Another update I need to share involves the fate of Madrigal, which was a planned book under the Grotesqueries heading. I was hoping to write a gothic horror take on the "Pied Piper of Hamelin" folktale, which is one of my absolute favorites, but so far none of the possible plots I've been brainstorming stuck the landing. So I pulled the title from my book list, and maybe I'll get back to it when something strikes me, but it's safe to say that book's not going to happen. Alas.

You'll see on my Book News page the publishing calendars I have for the next two years:

2024 will see the release of both Nightshade's Emporium and the last book (ever) for my Ghosts and Tea collection, The Dubious Commode. I've also said a few words about that collection on the Book News page. And once that book's out, I'll be focusing solely on writing for the Grotesqueries collection. All those books will continue to be long novellas of 50K words long, all of which will be released in print and e-book formats.

2025 will see the release of Voices in the Briars (my gothic gay retelling of "Bluebeard") and a book that's going to take the place of Madrigal. 

Along with the expansion of my focus from just ghost stories to vampire fiction, reincarnation, and mythology (so far!), I'm also branching out to comedy, which is what Nightshades Emporium is. It's a contemporary fantasy that's also my take on Greek Mythology, and it's a bit of a coming-of-age deal for one of the gods. More on that when the book nears its release date, of course.

So I'm planning to balance out the more dramatic gothic horror elements with dark and dry humor (the kind of humor I'm used to -- and enjoy -- writing) as well as contemporary fantasy. The end of the Ghosts and Tea series doesn't mean the end of epistolary fiction for me. There'll be plenty of opportunities for more of that narrative form, whether it's dramatic or comedic. 

And speaking of comedic, it looks like 2024 will be a year of comedy from me. Yay! Yay? That said, I'm not going to force a one-drama-one-comedy yearly output because that'll only be a recipe for disaster, and you bet inspiration's going to freeze over when I lock myself into something like that. I'll write what I feel like writing, but at least I'm not going to be stuck on just one tone. 

So that's it for the updates for the time being. I'm sure I'm missing a few others from the previous site, but I'll post them here if and when they come.