Well, BS&K just celebrated its first birthday not too long ago! And, well, the site and the Instagram page haven’t seen much growth over the past year, but I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I’ve never been great at marketing myself, and even if I were, I don’t have much to sell. No published books and one short story published six and a half years ago isn’t exactly a winning marketing formula for a would-be writer. Success begets success, and all that.

But oh well. I’m working to change all that. As I’ve said before, even getting published can take a long time, but I’m taking the steps. I’ve got a plan. How the plan turns out, well, that’s yet to be seen. But the plan is there.

Part of that plan involves Nightmares Inc., which at this point is the closest of my books to being in a publishable state. I’ve been doing another edit of that one: once more, I’ve found a lot to change, a lot to fiddle with, a lot to refurbish. Once I’m finished with this latest pass, my hope is to get a set of professional eyes on the book early next year, just so long as my financial situation holds up. I’d like to get a Developmental Edit done: this is a more in-depth edit, focused on tightening the plot structure across each chapter. Of course, being more in-depth, this type of edit is also more expensive, but I’m hoping I’ve got enough money saved up to afford one of these.

If not, though – if the quotes I get are higher than I expected, or if I have a financial emergency that forces me to dip into my savings – then I might just stick with a less in-depth, more summary editorial assessment. Even getting that done would be better than nothing; it’d be another pair of eyes on that book at the very least, which is something I don’t think I’ve done with that book yet.

Eagle-eyed readers might notice I listed Nightmares Inc. as my book ‘closest to being in a publishable state.’ Some may wonder: “wait, Eric, didn’t you not long ago describe both Nightmares Inc. and The Ravage that way?” Well, not long after I finished Procurers Draft 1 and went to Can-Con, I sat down with The Ravage again and tried to expand it. And, well…the more I tried to expand it, the less certain I became over the direction I was taking the story. I’m not as confident in that book as I was just a few months ago. My plan with The Ravage now is to give it some time and space, then maybe go back to it around the same time I give The Procurers my first editorial pass.

Beyond that, two other projects have kept my attention: Blueblood and the Kosan rewrite. I’m a few chapters into Blueblood, and while I really like the chapters I’ve written, I haven’t been able to get back into a consistent workflow with this one like I’m usually able to. After some agonizing, I think I know why: I’m clear on where to start with this book, but I’m not entirely sure where I’m going. And while I’m not 100% an outliner, I usually need to at least have an idea where I’m going in order to make good progress. I can and frequently do deviate from my outlines – when it comes to George R.R. Martin’s two writer archetypes, the Architect and the Gardener, I’m about 50/50 – but it helps me to have the outline there in the first place.

And so for the past few days I’ve stopped producing fresh copy for Blueblood and started crafting an outline. Again, I may well deviate from it as I write – new and better plot points and character arcs may present themselves as I go along – but I think it’ll help to at least know where I’m going. I’m enough of an Architect to at least need that plan.

Until I have that plan in place, my focus will be on the Kosan rewrite. And honestly, that might be a blessing in disguise. I had it in my head going into this semester that I’d be able to keep a consistent schedule: work on Kosan rewrite in the morning, work on school-related tasks in the afternoon, then work on fresh stuff (Procurers, Blueblood, what have you) in the evening. But, alas, I’m not a morning person at the best of times, and everything else I have going on has put a strain on my creative energies.

All this has combined to slow progress on the Kosan rewrite to a glacial pace. It hasn’t helped, either, that I’ve been rethinking some fundamental story elements, too, to the point where the rewrite, when it’s finally done, will look very different from the version I had before. But hey, that might be for the best: the version I had before was rife with issues, after all.

There’s a lot more I could say, but I think I’ve blathered on long enough. As ever, the work goes on. The next big milestone will be showing Nightmares Inc. to a pro editor. I doubt the feedback will be all, or even mostly, positive. But what it will be is a chance to learn more about the craft. To make the book better. And, by extension, make all the other books I’m working on better, too.

And I do feel like I’m a better writer now than I was even a year ago. Much as the pro editor feedback I got in early 2022 hurt at the time, it also taught me lots about not just what I still have to improve, but how I can go about improving it. And I still believe, with enough work, I can write something as good as the books I love to read. I mean, I’m still not even close to that yet, but I feel a bit closer than I was a year ago. And at the very least, an editor’s feedback on Nightmares Inc. should get me even closer.

But who knows? Maybe that’s just an optimistic delusion. Maybe I really don’t have “the sauce.” Maybe my books will only ever be appreciated by two or three people.

Lol. Welcome to the writer’s rollercoaster.

OK, time to end things for real now. I’ll see you all next time.

Have fun, stay safe, keep reading.