Happy Winter Solstice!

 

art by Cynthia Reece from Pinterest

And so we've reached the point linking my two favorite seasons (Autumn and Winter), which means the night will be growing shorter and shorter from this point onward. Bah, humbug!  

Doppelganger has turned into a quieter and subtler ghost story, which echoes the season -- however, don't be fooled by this. The backstory's kind of heavy and tragic. The projected completion of the first draft still stands, and then I'll be back to arguing with myself over moving release dates yet again. The most problematic thing about my brain when it's in full creative mode is that it keeps spinning idea after idea until I've got so many unwritten books lined up that the calendar's looking like a decade's worth of publishing. 

All right, so I'm not quite there yet, but you know what I mean. 

Anyway, I do believe I have a new title for the-book-formerly-called-Eidolon. I'm leaning more and more on Liminal Child for it, but I'm still on the fence as to whether or not to change character names since it's going to be an overhaul with the plot turning down a completely different direction. It's also going to be scheduled after A House of Profane Gods, which means not for another couple of years -- depending on whether or not I mess around again with my calendar. 

In other -- more mundane -- news, I've been abusing my library card left, right, and center the past few months. I used to be so timid when it came to that, checking out one book at a time and also feeling guilty for borrowing two books. No more! I've been borrowing 2-3 books at a time and renewing the due date for my queue since I average a book a week (or a book and a half sometimes), and to keep my momentum going, I've been putting multiple books on hold as well.

It's been a terrific way of removing myself from my entrenched world of gay romances in my e-reader app and rediscovering a wider world out there. It's good for the creative juices, you know, because I'm starting to feel like my go-to stuff is calcifying. There are popular authors and unknown ones whose books in my favorite genre are keeping my brain fed and inspiring me in ways I've never considered before. There are also those classic books that were on my reading bucket list, and I'm trying to get to them while I still can. 

The War of the Worlds is one. I'm not a sci-fi fan, but I love me some Victorian sci-fi (or, ideally, Victorian steampunk!). I haven't gotten around to exploring that genre as I've been fully immersing myself in ghost fiction anthologies, historical mysteries, and urban fantasy like the Dresden Files. 

With all this library borrowing, I'm also turning to print books for that purpose and retraining my attention when it comes to reading. Digital books are great, yes, but it's easier for me to focus on the printed page when I read, and I think my ability to block my environment in order to sustain a lengthy focus on text needs further exercise. Or beefing up, however you look at it. At any rate, it's another good variation for me, and it helps me find balance after X number of years reading nothing but digital books. 

Of course, in the meantime, I'm adding to my digital library whenever a site-wide sale comes on at Smashwords, and the list is slowly growing. I won't be short of choices when I decide to change tack and take up the next e-book for reading. 

But, man, I love how books are just everywhere. May 2026 be just as bountiful -- or more so. 

So We're Down the Home Stretch

In terms of the month, the year, and my WiP. How ya like dem apples? Granted this year's been a mess in more ways than one, but as far as my protective bubble of writing, everything's going swimmingly. Therein lies the real benefit of doing this -- not for a living, no, but more like a labor of love at this point. It's very healing, writing books on subjects and themes I love to read and explore, and I'm always proud to share them with the rest of the world.

Anyway, as the year draws to a close and I'm clean out of promos to post, howzabout basic updates? Yeah, I can do that.

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DOPPELGÄNGER -- I'm down to the last 19K words, which is always a point in my writing progress that catches me off-guard and then cranks up the background anxiety. It's a marker reminding me that I only have less than 20K words left for the first draft, and I've got to make sure the climax is placed where it can give the resolution enough space to unfold. So I have to be doubly mindful of how each chapter leading up to it needs to move, but the penultimate moment for Alec is going to be in one of the next 2-3 chapters. 

I'm basically looking at the last weekend of the month or the first weekend of the next month / next year when the first draft will be completed, and then it's circling back to revisions and edits. 

Incidentally, a previous blog post discussing this book noted a couple of Elton John songs that have been my musical inspiration for this book. But that's now all changed because I needed to start over and do a complete overhaul, and the inspiration is now very, very different. What started out as a contemporary story is back to being a historical fantasy.

Also another big revelation -- or make it a painful reminder -- is that I suck at writing first person POVs in a modern setting. Did that once with Primavera, and I tried again with the first attempt at Doppelgänger, but no more. If I'm going to write in the first person again, it'll be historical fantasy because I have a pretty dated style of narrative. Now we're back to a third person POV, which is my comfort zone.   

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THE SHADOW GROOM -- The next book on the calendar is already enjoying quite a bit of visual inspiration collection, if you will. I've put together a folder and am saving every image I'd like to play with as prompts. 

It's meant to be another historical fantasy and a comedy like The Twilight Lover, and it's also just as obvious as a romance with hefty doses of folktale elements. The main plot's already laid out: it's a retelling of another fairy tale, which is "The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was". Damn, that title's a mouthful, but I've only known it as "The Boy Who Didn't Know How to Shudder" as a kid. That was the title given to the fairy tale in the book I once had, anyway, so that's what I remember. I do love the story, though, and it's one of my favorites. 

Oh, and speaking of myth and folklore retellings, I do have a new one in mind involving the Cupid and Psyche myth. I looooove that story to bits, and I think it's a great one to take apart and retell using the genre that's closest to my heart. I've yet to come up with a title, but that story's a solid contender, and I'll be posting more about it here as more ideas on it come up.

I do want it to come out like Compline, which I'm ridiculously happy with. Yes, it's pretty damn dark, but the original fairy tale is very, very subtle and requires the reader to pay close attention to the story elements that hearken back to the Pied Piper story. I'd love to do just that with the Cupid and Psyche retelling as well. Or re-imagining, I suppose, which would be more appropriate given what I hope to achieve. 

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EIDOLON -- Or the book formerly called Eidolon, anyway. It's going through some initial tweaking, idea-wise, and I do have a good angle for the ghost story now. The title hasn't come up yet, but it'll happen once I'm ready to tackle it. But it's another solid contender for my publishing calendar, which means there'll be some adjustments yet again. 

My pace of writing at this point now depends on not so much my energy levels (which have recovered and are being strictly maintained because I don't want to work myself to death, thank you very much), but by my desire to immerse myself in my therapeutic bubble. Even if I only write on the weekends (3 - 4 hours per day), it's a strategy that's worked nicely so far. 

I don't know how 2026 will unfold, but I'm still hard at work on my books, so at least I've got something to offer folks who want to escape the world for a short time. And if things end up working better than expected, I very well might just give in and tweak my releases again, giving up the 6-month calendar in favor of shorter gaps. 

Because I'm obviously good at making a liar out of myself, know what I mean? 

'The Glass Minstrel' and Strange Visions

By chance, I saved the hardest book for last. The Glass Minstrel was one of three realistic historical novels I wrote (the others being Icarus in Flight and Banshee), and I honestly was so drained after finishing this that I decided historical fantasy was more aligned with my preferences. 

The book actually started out as a short story, and (ironically) the story was a fairy tale (read: historical fantasy). It revolved around a glass minstrel that comes to life when Christmas rolls around, and while other ornaments and toys celebrate the season, he's burdened by the grief his creator (a toymaker who lost his son) infused in him.  

And to go even further back, a very specific song (and a very specific rendition of it -- see: embedded video) somehow called to mind a scene which involves an old man bent over his worktable, weeping over a glass ornament that he'd designed to represent his dead son. Pretty strange, isn't it, that something so specific would inspire another extremely specific thing in my head? But that was how it all started.

Fast forward several years later when I decided to expand that fairy tale, strip it of its fantasy elements, and reshape it into a more realistic plot -- while at the same time hinting at those lost fairy tale elements with the use of Christmas and toys as significant symbols (even metaphors, if you will) that weave in and out of the day-to-day lives of three main characters. 

While I spent a lot of time looking up information on 19th century Bavaria (the setting of the story), there were still obviously a number of things I had to use my imagination on. I think that also kind of added an extra layer to the fairy tale touches. 

It was a difficult novel to write, yes -- not only logistically, but emotionally. I'll admit I cried here and there while working on this, especially the final chapters. This is a book that I hold dearly, dearly, dearly in my heart largely because I had to dig deep and scrape so much of myself out and lay it all on paper, and it hurt like a MF in more ways than one. 

The Glass Minstrel is the final book that's up for a 50% discount in e-book format. Go here for more information and a list of stores where you can purchase a copy.  

December Backlist Bonanza: 'The Glass Minstrel' (How Apropo!)

We have a solo act for the final month of the year, folks. This December, the following book is 50% off in e-book format from online stores: 

THE GLASS MINSTREL 

It is the Christmas season in mid-19th century Bavaria. Two fathers, Abelard Bauer and Andreas Schifffer, are brought together through the tragic deaths of their sons. Bauer, a brilliant toymaker, fashions glass Christmas ornaments, and his latest creation is a minstrel with a secret molded into its features.

When Schiffer sees Bauer's minstrel ornament in the toy shop, he realizes that Bauer is struggling to keep his son's memory alive through his craft. At first he tries to fault him for this, but then recognizes that he, too, is seeking solace and healing by reading his son's diary, a journal that reveals, in both painful as well as beautiful detail, the true nature of Heinrich's relationship with Stefan.

Fifteen-year-old Jakob Diederich is the son of a poor widow. The boy is burdened with his own secret, and he develops an obsession with a traveling Englishman who stays at the inn where Jakob works. The lives of Bauer, Schiffer, and Diederich intersect during the holiday as Schiffer tries to focus on his family in the present, Bauer struggles to reconcile his past, and Jakob copes with an uncertain future.

Echoing the sensibilities of melancholy 19th Century folktales, lyrical prose and rich period detail quietly weave a moving tale of redemption, hope, and haunting, but timeless, themes.

The book choice is coincidental given the season. I ran my backlist through a random number generator and ended up with the sequence of books as I posted it since January. Anyway, my only Christmas novel is the final title on the block, the solo act due to the face that Eidolon was pulled from the list, and it left a space. 

Anyway, there it is, and I'll be posting stuff about it later this month. 

 

Maybe Not Dead, After All

No, that post title doesn't refer to me. Yikes. It's in reference to my much-lamented book, Eidolon, which I delisted and pulled completely from all stores. 

I've been thinking about it on and off lately -- though the "on" bit is a lot less than the "off" bit, I'll admit -- and I do think something can be done with it. The story itself falters once Emerick grows up, and the POV shifts to his entirely, so I'd like to go back, take the earlier chapters (however many I can salvage, anyway), and work with those for a new story.

Or at least a new angle to Emerick's curse. 

One thing I'd like to do is to continue the POV from his parents', which I've always felt was a stronger position from which to tell the story, but this is one example of not listening to one's instinct and the less than stellar results of that move. Not that I'm excusing my choices, mind you, but since I was trying to force the book into the Curiosities mold, I was obligated to change the POV to the character most affected by the cursed wish. 

Shouldn't have done that. Well, you know what they say about hindsight.

Anyway, I'd like to salvage those chapters from the fateful night of the mother's misguided wish through to the moment the family immigrate to a different country and take it from there. Of course, there'll be a hell of a lot of rewriting -- not revising, no, but an overhaul without completely sacrificing the story from Valentin and Hanke's perspective. It's going to be tricky, but I can do it. At least the groundwork is there, and I just need to spend time picking through what's usable and what isn't until the foundation is completely set.

I think it's the only way to give the story the vindication it deserves now that I've accepted my mistake and am willing to make things right. The story will be part of the Grotesqueries collection, naturally, and as for what the new title will be (definitely won't be Eidolon) or even the story's tone, it's all going to come out down the line. The calendar might shift again, I don't know. 

For now the six-month schedule looks good, but I'm also progressing pretty rapidly with Doppelgänger, and I might be tempted -- because I'm weak that way-- to tweak my publishing calendar again. If that does happen, it's more likely going to be a five-month schedule and not a four-month one like before because I'm not superhuman. 

Anyway, watch this space.