I hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey Day, filled with family, friends, great food, and amazing traditions. With Christmas and the New Year looming ahead of us, may everyone take a moment to rest and recover from the hustle and bustle of the wonderful meal. While I don’t deal with the commercial side of Thanksgiving, at least not on Black Friday, may those who enjoy shopping for the deals find the gifts they’re hoping to secure for their loved ones.

The moment I finished Departure and Hidden Treasure, I turned my attention to my patrons’ last story for November, a drama. Unlike the comedy, I knew where I wanted this story to go...

When I finished Departure, I started thinking about the next genre for me to write, a comedy. While I’ve tried my best to write comedies every time my patrons requested one, it’s still a week genre for me, in my mind at least. Each time, I push myself to find an idea for the story and then examine the initial idea for places to insert the comedy. However, this time, as I sifted through my favorite comedies, looking for inspiration, nothing was rushing forward to fill the void. Even after I tossed my story cubes, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was about to skip the comedy and write the drama when I saw a YouTube reaction to Who’s on First pop up on my feed...

Despite knowing that there is only a limited amount of time to any day, it’s amazing how I’m constantly trying to add more work into the same number of hours and somehow expect the output to remain consistent. Because I’m chasing another venture, I failed to deliver my patrons their tales at a relaxed clip. Yet once again, I’m forced to deliver them all in the last few days of the month. While I’d prefer a more predictable cadence, I will always deliver these stories to my wonderful patrons. As a result, I’m taking a break from preparing the turkey and other courses for Thanksgiving dinner, so I’m able to finish and publish the first story for November, a fantasy...

Aside from the redrafting and republication of my debut novel, Dead Man’s Hand, I’ve had another project that has been stealing a lot of my attention. However, it required a little more expertise than my writing, so instead of backing down and giving up on the destination, I dove headfirst into the handful of skill sets needed to bring it to the world. A couple of those skills weren’t entirely foreign, yet they still required a substantial amount of work. Despite putting in plenty of effort, I’m still not where I was with them previously. However, I’ve leveled up those skills to be serviceable for this new project...

When I finished Dueling Notes and Legacy, I turned my attention to the last story of October, a tale of suspense. As with both of my previous stories, when I sat to outline this tale, I didn’t know what I wanted to highlight. However, after Dueling Notes, I knew another duel would be fun, but I wasn’t sure who to use for this fledgling story at first. As October’s end drew near, an idea popped into my mind, and I latched onto it immediately...

The moment I finished writing Dueling Notes, my mind leapt to the second story for the month, a ghost story. While I’ve built up a collection of fun characters for this genre, I’ve been reminded recently of one of my earliest entries in this genre, Journey of Thanks. While I’ve continued to return to this format over the last six years, Tully’s story has a special place in my heart. The idea of a ghost being guided through the city to discover the impact of their lives makes for wonderful stories...

While I thought life would calm down with the re-release of Dead Man’s Hand, I should have realized the marketing and promotion of the novel would be just as intense as the final round of editing. Despite weaving together several options to get my book out in front of people, the most exciting is the scheduled book signing at my local Barnes & Noble on January 4th. This is not only the first book signing for one of my novels, it’s the first book signing I’ve ever attended. And despite being a little over two months out, I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve, waiting for Santa to slide down the chimney and deposit my presents...

After completing Security Audit and Warrant’s Execution, I turned my attention to the final story of the month for my patrons, a tale of science fiction. Shortly after pulling the results of the genre poll I sat down and came up with the rough idea for all three stories, granted I abandoned the initial idea, but when I was ready to work on the final seed, a previous story of the Drifter’s crew flew into my mind, and competed with a story from Firefly...

With Security Audit finished, I turned my attention to the second story for my patrons, a mystery. When I sat down to create the prompts for all three stories, I originally wanted to go down one direction, but after the alteration of Security Audit’s ending, I revisited the first prompt I had for this mystery. So instead of an unconnected tale, I chose to highlight the tail end of Kyle Rickman’s investigation. While I could have detailed the entire process, I bypassed the actual investigation, which would have been a little dry, and focus on an interaction with the primary suspect...

A couple of years ago, I logged into my KDP portal and explored the system, searching for a way to retrieve a manuscript. I needed to do that because I’d lost it a long time ago. Thankfully, my search proved useful, and I scrapped the contents of the kindle edition several pages at a time. However, instead of trying to create a hardcover edition, the grammatical and structural issues looming over me depressed me. At that moment, I knew I needed to redraft the book, but I didn’t know how I was going to accomplish that, so it languished in the back of my mind for some time...

After completing Delivery and Resupply, I turned my attention to the last story for my patrons, a horror tale. While I didn’t know what kind of story I would craft, I knew the character who would help me explore this upcoming narrative. While I’m lucky to have fallen into this character, thankfully, I’ve fallen into a wonderful one when I penned Open House. Despite not naming him in that installment, the next time I needed to write a horror story, he jumped to the front of the line and, by his third story, he warranted a name...

With Delivery finished, I turned my attention to the second genre selected by my patrons, a historical fiction. The moment I found this genre amongst the top three for the month, my mind started whirling, seeking to find a story to explore the world of my dragon riders, such as Solomon. Despite grounding this series inside America’s past, specifically the late 1800s, I’ve injected some color by weaving both magic and dragons into the narratives. While these allow me to leverage some flair and a slight shading of the historical norms, I try to lean into the history...

With yet another fresh start, I’ve mostly followed my schedule, and that’s only because the first Patreon exclusive was delayed by a couple of days. While I still have a long way to go to juggle all the things I’m trying to keep afloat, this early success gives me hope that I’ll be able to get there provided I improve a little each day. However, with that said, let us turn to the topic at hand, the Drama for my patrons...

It has been far too long since I’ve posted an update to my stories over at WattPad. However, a simple to-do list uncovered extra time buried deep inside my hectic days. And with that discovery, I took hold of those precious minutes and dove into the latest installment in my Mounting Tensions series. Luckily, revisiting the storyline revealed both unexpected progress paired with major holes in the brief story. It’s strange to be ahead and behind, but armed with my to-do list, my overactive imagination, and a determination to resume work on these stories, I completed the final editing rounds to complete the tale while also propelling the larger narrative of the series...

With both of Darren Gilbert’s tales, Wanderer and Successor, finished, I turned my attention to the last story of the month, a Ghost Story. While I enjoyed exploring the note tales, I wanted to return to the world of Benjamin and Marcus. Despite having a base understanding of their last tale, I had nothing more than rough guidelines as to the shape of the narrative. In the end, I knew I needed to flesh out the results of the ghost’s surveillance, but that still gave me a lot to think through...