The last quarter of 2019 has turned into the best three months of my writing career. Over the past ten years (yes, it’s been a decade), I’ve worked my guts out to get where I am today. Along the way, I’ve had a good deal of help, support from a long list of fantastic friends, and opportunities galore as a result of one busy convention season after another.
The past ten years have borne some pretty amazing fruit, with the best of it coming to fruition in the waning months of 2019.
On October 28th, the book I wrote with the amazing Marc Alan Edelheit, Reclaiming Honor, was released and continues to do well in Amazon’s rankings. We’re already working on book 2, Forging Destiny, and we expect a release date in August or September of next year. We’re under contract to write at least the first three books in that series, and we have high hopes that the story garners enough interest to write a second series at a minimum.
I must add here that I’ve learned a lot from working with Marc. He has become a friend, partner, and mentor, all wrapped up in a fantastic author who is redefining what success means in the indie publishing world. Thanks to you, man, for everything.
The week before Reclaiming Honor came out, a Chris Kennedy Publishing anthology came out that included one of my novelettes. The antho is Salvage Conquest: Tales from the Salvage Title Universe, and the my story was entitled Vorwhol Dishonor. The story has been so well received that they’ve asked me to write a follow-up novel featuring those same dragonkin characters. I have to admit, I’m stoked about the opportunity. I loved the characters (three siblings) as well as the setting. It’s definitely “science fantasy” with what I hope are considered to be the best elements of both science fiction and fantasy. Look for that one some time in 2020. I’m also currently committed to writing three more novelettes under the CKP banner, and I suspect there will be more to add to the list as 2020 unfolds.
November is going to be just as exciting as October was. The other co-authored novel I wrote this year–this one with Kevin Ikenberry–is entitled Enforcer, due out November 29th. Ikenberry and I had a blast writing this one. The story is about Hr’ent (who appeared in another of Ikenberry’s Peacemaker novels), and how Hr’ent became an Enforcer. I loved writing this character. He’s part Captain America, part Chewbacca, part Punisher, part Hulk, and part Judge Dredd… all wrapped up in three meters of a raging, purple, bear-like alien called an Oogar. Ikenberry pretty much let me take the gloves off, and really let loose on creating a character capable of ripping a guy’s arm off and beating him to death with it.
I simply cannot express how much fun I had writing this one.
Next year promises to be even better than 2019, but if I’m being honest, I have to say that this year has been the best year of my life, and that’s not including the fact that I just got married to the most wonderful woman in the world. Here’s to Victoria Machado Allen, who continues to make so many things possible and who has made be better person with each passing day.
So, here’s to a great 2019 and a fantastic fourth quarter therein. Here’s also to 2020, which holds all the promise of rainbows and pots of gold and sunny days and a life worth living.
If you’d like to stay tuned to all the amazing things that are going to be heading my way in the coming months and years, please go ahead and follow me here on my site. There are so many great things ahead for me, that if I listed them all, I wouldn’t have time to actually write the books that need writing.
And to everyone who read this, thanks for sticking with me over the years, and thanks in advance for reading my books in the future. I couldn’t do any of this without you.
