An October Update on My Writing Projects

 

I thought it might be time to update my legion of readers on what I'm working on, writing-wise. I'm always reluctant to talk about birds in the bush, i.e. stories I'm working on but are still at a stage where they might not work out and could be abandoned. However, once I have the first draft of a story done, god willing and the creeks don't rise, I'll see it published. Having two birds in hand, I am willing to lift up a corner of the curtain for a peek at the two, stories I have in hand. Both are potboilers.

The first story is the novella I've talked about before; The Founders' Tribunal. Save for any corrections from my beta readers, it is done and almost out the door. It's up for pre-order on Amazon for release on the 6th of November 2025 to be precise. I will, however, likely release the story a few days earlier on Draft2Digital since it takes a few days for books to be added by various bookstores. At the same time, I'll likely release it on Google as well, both as an ebook and as an audiobook. Audiobooks on Amazon will follow within a day or so of the release date, and someday, maybe, on Apple Audio as well. You never know about Apple audiobooks. This is an ebook only release.

I'm calling this story a potboiler, not because I wrote it to pay the rent, but because I wrote it just to keep writing after I set aside the novel I had started early this year. (One of those birds in the bush.) I had written some 25,000 words in that novel, only to find that I wasn't happy with what I'd written. I went back and rearranged things, but in that process, I lost a bit of enthusiasm for the story, along with having some serious doubts and questions about it. I was far from certain it would be interesting enough for anyone to read. Thus, I decided to put it aside and come back to it, hopefully with fresh ideas, and, you know, an actual plot. 

So, in order to keep writing, I decided to write another Red Hu/Wine mystery story. It didn't have to be a novel, just any sort of story - something to fill the first hour of my day when I do my fiction writing. However, the story I had in mind, was not actually The Founders' Tribunal. The story I had in mind - and it was mostly just a locale - would be set during the summer. I felt the time gap between The Daval-Mers Dossier and this story idea was too long. So I got to thinking, and came up with a little story to bridge the gap, that being the novella The Founders' Tribunal which I set in Lorria's winter holiday period, with the idea of releasing it in November, prior to our own holiday season. I am happy to say, that plan has worked out.

Then, having wrapped up that story, and not yet ready to tackle my abandoned novel, I continued on with tha tother Red Hu/Wine story. It has proven to be either a long novella or a short novel.  40K is considered a novel in science fiction, but the usual ebook novel is more like 50-60K. I'm currently working on its second draft which clocks in at 39K words with 20 pages to go this draft. It'll be 40K plus. Some people refer to going over a story as "editing" but I just consider them drafts, as I go over the entire manuscript with each draft. The process involves going through the story fixing up sentences, filling out dialog and description, etc, and if I have to fix something more major, I'll do it now, in the second draft. I'll follow this with a third draft in which, hopefully, I find nothing more to do than smooth things out few sentences here and there. If there are too many, I'll do a forth draft. These drafts only take a week or less, so things move a lot faster than the first draft, and they're a lot more fun. 

As I said, I wanted to write a summer story, and I've always wanted to write a story set in the countryside of my youth. Originally, I though this story might be an excuse to do so. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the mystery element of the story would not support a novel length story without a lot of side plots, that might come across as "filler".  Thus, I've scaled back my ambitions along those lines, fitting in just one dairy farmer's co-op picnic into it.

I decided to set this mystery story on the Isle of Autumn, which is the main locale of Chateau Clare. However, this being a pre-Second Founding era story, that island is only home to several mansions at this early date. It is mostly just a rural countryside devoted to dairy farming and making cheese, with tourist summer camps along the shore of the River Fair. 

Its title of this story is; The Isle House Ghost. 

I've not set a solid release date for The Isle House Ghost yet, but I'm thinking February 2026, in order to keep the ball rolling. This will also be an ebook only release. However, at the same time, I'm planning on releasing a paperback book titled Two Cases of Red Wine, that will include both these novellas, just for something to put on my shelf, and the selves of my beta readers.

I consider The Founders' Tribunal and The Isle House Ghost my Project 2028 (a) and project 2028(b) projects, (or Two Cases of Red Wine as project 2028) so I'm at least two years ahead of my one book a year schedule. But I write because I like to, so hopefully I can push on. But on to what?

That's the ten dollar question. And a couple of days ago I had written;

There is that novel I started. I will give it another go. It's another Lorria novel, set a year after Glencrow Summer. Once again, it has new characters, along with a cameo appearance from one of the characters from Chateau Clare to tie it to the first two. This one, however, is something a little different. It's a more ambitious book, in that it's not a mystery, nor an adventure story. Nothing or no one out of the ancient past will turn up at the end. Basically, its literary fiction, or as close to that as I care to approach that style. It's a story of ordinary people living ordinary lives, from the beginning to the end of the story. Making such story interesting to readers, is the challenge I've set for myself. We'll see if I'm up to it. 

But yesterday morning, while laying around in bed waiting for the time to get up and get working, I thought of another story that I really liked. Another Red Wine story. A direct sequel to The Isle House Ghost that would take place just a week after the conclusion of that story. I don't think it would be more than a long short story, sort of an encore for that story. But I do think it works better on its own an extension on to The Isle House Ghost. We'll have to see how long it turns out being before I decide how to release it. (Assuming I write it. This is one of those birds in the bush that I usually don't talk about.) But if I do write it, it would certainly be included in the paper version, which might then become Three Cases of Red Wine. Or maybe 2/1/2 Cases of Red Wine? And I might simply include it as a bonus story in the ebook version of The Isle House Ghost. I won't decide until, or if, I have that bird in hand.

I am, however, also toying with a substantial idea, which doesn't have any plot attached to it. It would be some sort of novel set on a new world in a city very much like London in 1930. For 50 years I've wanted to write a story set in that period of London. I've stared at least one 50 years ago. These days I don't want to set it in London, for the usual historical deterministic reasons, but I'd like to set it in a city something like London. But without a plot, it's just desire.

Well, I need to finish the last two drafts of The Idle House Ghost, perhaps write that little sequel to The Isle House Ghost, and then I'll likely go over what I've written on that abandoned novel. Hopefully I'll have enough confidence to push on with it. If not, something new. Stay tuned.