It's been a long, long time....
It's been so long since I've finished something, posted it for sale, or just got something done.
I'm sorry for that.
Very few, I mean less than 7% of living authors, can make a living solely off of writing. With the weird shit Amazon does to authors (pulling reviews, making it near impossible to find works unless you know exactly what it is called or the author name, which makes is VERY hard for new readers to find you, and charging their ungodly fees, not to mention, pulling titles and keeping your revenue for whatever reason), and how difficult it is to get into traditional publishing without an agent that takes 15% min...
The list is ever growing.
That's why I started Geeks on Ink. I was tired of traditional publishing houses that did look at my work and considered it telling me to whitewash my characters, to remove certain things like non-straight characters, to force-feed a religious foundation and structure to support the characters for the readers.
Yeah, not happening.
They wanted me to make Ari white and blonde, not to mention Christian instead of Japanese (which is a huge part of her story and culture) and Algerian. They wanted Slevin straight. Viggo couldn't be Jewish. Zane couldn't drink or smoke...
In essence they wanted AOT to be anything but what I wrote.
That could be why I haven't touched it in so many years.
That's something to get back to later.
On a person level, I had to get a different day job that the hours hinder my writing because it's a 9-5 in essence that leaves 1 hour to make dinner, another hour to get the boys' lunches put together, Pher's lunch for work done, get them all wrangled and in and out of the shower, clothes laid out, etc. By the time 7:30 comes around and they are down for the night, I'm the walking dead! Aside from that, I've been battling some medical issues. Unimaginable wrist pain that they cannot find the reason/cause of. It could be my EPP, it could be how much I type, they don't know. I've done tones of tests, they injected me with God knows what, and yet they had no answers and just said I have to live with it. The pain gets so severe that I cry, and I never cry from pain. I naturally popped out two kids, one being over 10lbs! And I was cracking jokes and talking shit the entire time.
Pain I can handle.
This was to the point of not being able to handle it and having to medicate in creative ways since traditional pain medication doesn't work in the traditional means. I've had EPP from birth so I can handle pain, I have a pain tolerance that surprises the shit out of the doctors, but this pain was beyond anything I had ever experienced. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't think. Could barely work and even that was a struggle. Braces, bandages, taping, icing, electructing, soaking, massage, cupping... Nothing worked.
The wrist pain is still there. Not as bad as it was, but I think that's because I haven't been writing as much because of the pain.
Go figure.
I've gotten the starts to a few stories done.
I have a plan for the next few projects.
I'm working on getting one or two out this year, which is racing by.
Others I'll be working on as well, and some oldies but goodies will get edited, revised and re-released.
Between writing, working, wifeing, mothering, and everything else, I'm going to take some courses on screenplay writing. I'd like to pitch some screenplays/ideas to movie houses, Netflix, Hulu, etc. They take open submissions, so why not?
Hopefully, as the year goes on and into next year, I'll get it figured out and get more out and often.
As always, I am truly honored that you've stuck by me all these years, have shown unimaginable patience, and ask for very little in return.
In return, here is Episode One in Chain of Deceit.
I'm hoping to pitch it as a series. They are short reads that are set up like a TV series where the storyline continues but pieces and puzzles are solved in each, leading to the bigger reveal in the end.
Sorry it's a cliffhanger, that's kind of what happens with a TV show.
Download your own copy. Please don't repost, modify, or pirate it. I'm giving it to you as a thank you gift.
Episode One - The Corridor Killer
EPUB (Nook and all other e-readers)
It won't let me Mobi so here's PDF
