Well, the second book is in editing now. It won't be long before I can resume work on that other manuscript. So far, this blog is continuing, but I believe it's mostly wasted effort in a sea of blogs that resemble nothing so much as a school of fish. Maybe the first few gain some attention, but the rest are so close together that they just don't stand out for anyone.

Well, on top of having another manuscript to edit after getting the first one out at last, now I've got the results of the P&E Readers Poll to verify and consolidate. All of these activities are slowly convincing me that this blog may have to be discarded. If so, I'll post a note first before it gets deleted.

Well, what I thought would be through the editing last weekend came back with more edits to review. Anyway, for those who are checking on this blog, it's not dead yet.

On the bright side, I've gained more respect for myself as a writer. In other words, there hasn't been much that was wrong on a serious level. At least, it looks that way to me. I could be way off on this but I found the story entertaining and the changes put in place so far haven't really done any harm to the story.

Interestingly enough, I think more readers are ready for stories that switch among multiple scenes and characters even when those don't appear related at first. When I started this series that the manuscript belongs to that's undergoing editing, it wasn't typical, at least to my sight, that such a style was typical. However, I've seen it in a number of recent programs on TV and can easily believe it happens in many books. In fact, it's a style that I first saw decades ago in a Zane Grey book so I know it's not new. I just hope I'm doing it justice.

At any rate, I'll try not to ignore this blog too much while the editing is ongoing.

Well, somehow, two posts from my other blog fell into this one. I just found and deleted them today.

Well, the good news is that the editing on the second book is nearly complete. Looks like it should be finished by sometime next week according to the editor. If so, that will permit me to get back to writing for a week or two before the third book needs attention.

I haven't forgotten this blog. Of course, I'm still occupied with the proofs for two manuscripts so posting here will still be infrequent for a while longer.In the meantime, I've been making some progress on another work other than Karmic Warrior. I've encountered situations like this before where I found myself caught in how to decide which direction to go with the story line. Yes, I often use outlines and know where the story is going, but using those doesn't create a written-in-stone direction that I'm required to follow. There have been times before where I could see that changing the ending or just the direction could result in something better. It's deciding which is better that creates a problem.
Anyway, it's also been my experience that working on something else will usually give me the time I need to better evaluate the direction if only because it gives me some distance so that I can see both the forest and the trees. So that's how it stands for now.In the meantime, I'm working on a sequel to Redwing, Dragon Detective published by Double Dragon Publishing. Why? Well, first off, I came up with some ideas that should be fun. Second, I'd like to make that work a bit longer than it is. After all, it's just barely novella length. Right now, what I've got written can stretch it to novel length. Of course, it probably won't be added to it. Instead, I anticipate it becoming a second book. Maybe someday the two will become parts one and two in the same book. But that can be looked at later. For now, I'm having some fun with a story that was fun before even though I'm not working from an outline on it.

Well, the first manuscript that tore me away from writing about Karmic Warrior has been through the proofs and is now available. It has a nice cover, though it's nothing remarkable but I believe that's because the story is about the people rather than the landscape so I'm not complaining. In fact, trying to capture the essense of a book in a single picture is just about one of the more difficult tasks anyone can attempt.

So, does this mean I'll be back to writing KW? No, because I was also notified that two others would be following shortly which have to take priority.

Now these two that are coming up are manuscripts that I particularly look forward to seeing in print. For one thing, they're more recent so they reveal, I hope, some improved writing skill on my part, not that I don't still consider myself a hack. I think this is probably a true appraisal. Sure, I come up with some good ideas for stories, but I'm not the most charismatic writer around. Otherwise, I'd be knocking on the doors of the bestsellers asking them to come over for a party celebrating my latest million-seller book. Now I might improve to that level, but it's going to take time, effort, and practice on my part. Am I aiming for that? Well, yes, but I won't be disappointed if there's not enough room at the top or my improvement proves to be too slow to reach that pinacle before I grow old and croak. Why not? Well, I'm enjoying myself because I still find my own writing quite entertaining and there are some readers who apparently agree that some of my work is fun to read.

In the meantime, while the editing is going on an older published book has finally resulted in a sequel. For several years now one of my favorites seemed doomed to remain a single standalone book, a novella in fact. Well, today I came up with a positive manner in which to reuse the characters. In fact, I realized that quite by accident I provided just the right clues in the first book to justify what happens in order to continue the story. So now there's going to be a sequel that I'll probably limit to similar size.

Karmic Warrior is still on hold. This doesn't bother me since I've had to put manuscripts on hold before. In fact, one time I didn't realize that two different stories were actually the same story just at different times and with different character names. However, once I reached that conclusion, it was rather easy to do a search and replace for one set of characters and then put the two halves into one manuscript. After that, I liked the results. Also, it solved the problem of both stories reaching a deadlock that I couldn't otherwise resolve.

Plus, the editing on the one book is back with the editor and I expect to have to set everything aside when the last few concerns are addressed. Then I expect one or two other manuscripts to also come from the editor. So, it's obviously going to be a slow process and likely I'll gain some inspiration or new ideas for Karmic Warrior or perhaps the new manuscript tentatively titled Cold Wind.