Writing Progress Report

Now that it is a new year, it’s time for a progress report. I have sent a sci fi novella, Nowhere to Go But Mars to my editor, and completed another draft of a manuscript which has proved rather challenging (which I’m hoping is the close to the final version) to a potential editor.

I’ve twice published the opening story of Nowhere to Go But Mars, which has now been expanded into a novella length. It’s an immigration to Mars tale, taking a view of Martian colonization from the perspective of the huddled masses. I’ve been working on this tale for years and hope to publish it in the next few months, but I may seek to use it to test out BookFunnel, offering advance reader copies first, seeking additional feedback and reviews before I release the book. My plan is to do a sequel novella, and perhaps another. We’ll see based on the feedback of this first one.

The novel that I’ve been rewriting for years now earned me a caution from my long-time editor, who felt it wasn’t close to ready… So, I reworked the parts I thought were problematic. I like the new draft a lot and hope I’ve succeeded in straightening out all the issues. It is not part of any of my existing series, so it’s taken up a lot of my time. I’m hoping to release it in May of this year.

What these two stories have in common is that the opening stories both earned my Honorable Mentions in the Writers of the Future Contest a number of years ago. And, for me as a writer, I love both stories and hope what I’ve created will capture readers imaginations as much as these characters and stories have grabbed me by the collar and demanded that I get their stories just right.

That they both have a satiric bent hopefully won’t go unnoticed, either.

Now that both are in editors hands, I can go back to focusing on the draft of Hands of the Highmage, Book 5. All I’ll say is I plan to take readers into life at the Imperial Mage Academy at the most dangerous time in the Empire’s history, sharing a part of Highmage that was never published. And that’s only part of what will be in store.

Oh, one last thing… Highmage’s Plight will be free on Kindle beginning Saturday, January 11, 2020 for a few days. If you’d like a copy of the first book in the series, then will be the perfect time.

Dare to Believe,

D.H.