A quick update on life, writing schedules, and all that good stuff:

1) First, let me assure everyone that I'm not dead and that I haven't dropped any of my stories. I have arthritis and my knuckles swell and ache like mad in the cold months of winter, so I simply just hide under my covers and hibernate as much as possible. I told you guys that I'd be back sometime when Spring rolled around...

Guess what?

IT'S SPRING! I'm back!

2) I want to take a moment to apologize for my long delay on returning. I wanted to sit back down and start writing once again back at the end of March, but I "broke" my elbow. I went to the doctor with it, and it wasn't actually broken; I'd actually somehow pinched the nerve that runs from the shoulder down along the inner side of the arm to the wrist; but it sure as heck hurt as bad as any break I ever had. I was going to type a quick note to let folks know my return was delayed, but it hurt to lift my arm up from where I had it cradled against my chest to keep from whimpering and annoying my wife all the time.

Luckily, much like how that pain mysteriously appeared overnight (I suppose I slept on the arm funny and compressed the nerve somehow), after a couple of weeks, it's finally cleared up and went away. I'm happy to report that I'm now back up to feeling 100% once again. (At least until hay season kicks in in a few months and drives my allergies crazy! Good news with them is I can usually shut the door, hide from the great outdoors, and it doesn't affect my writing like Winter aches and pains do.)

3) So what have I been doing for the last several months? Thinking hard on my stories, working on the plots, characters, and settings, is what you guys would like to hear, right?

HA!!

I've been a vegetable!!

The last several months has seen me binge watch television until I almost went blind, read a million manga, and catch up on dozens of novels which I'd been sitting aside and waiting to finish. I haven't thought about a thing, worked on anything, or worried one single bit about my stories. Out of sight, out of mind, completely holds true in this case.

4) So what the heck does this inactivity mean with my works?

Not much really. I'd like to remind everyone that first and foremost, I write for my own enjoyment. If other folks like it, that's fine; it makes me happy that other people take the time and enjoy the things I write; but I don't necessarily write for the benefit of those other people. (My irratic writing schedule probably proves that as much as anything else I could possibly say.)

I tend to write when the mood and inclination hits me. I don't promise to keep to any specific schedule and I'll focus on whichever story I want just whenever the mood hits me. For the last several months, the cold and the aches and pains which accompany it has meant that I simply didn't feel like writing; ergo, I didn't write. The last month I've really enjoyed catching up with my reading and didn't think too much about writing while my arm was healing; ergo, I didn't write.

BUT...

I've grown tired of watching the same old drivel on the television over and over. How many damn CSI shows are there? Law and Order? I find one show I like and then the next thing I know there's half a dozen spin-offs of that show bombarding the airwaves, which eventually ruins the experience. I like pizza. I like pizza a lot. BUT, if I had to eat a cheese pizza for breakfast, a pepperoni pizza for lunch, and a supreme pizza for supper, EVERY DAY, I'd grow sick of pizza. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and all these other streaming services which let you catch up on whole seasons of a show at once are ruining the enjoyment of the shows for me! Don't believe it? Go binge watch 8 seasons of CSI, then another half dozen of CSI:Miama, followed by a few seasons of CSI:NY, followed by whatever damnable CSI spin-offs there are.... Then tell me you're still interested in watching another episode of the same thing!!

/BLARG!!

I've grown tired of watching the television. I've caught up with my reading. I'm not aching, paining, hibernating or hiding. Once again, I feel that burning restlessness inside which tells me it's time to start entertaining myself once again...

In other words, it's time to start working on my stories once again!

5) About damn time, you guys say? You want to know when you can expect the next actual update to something to come out, and what I'm going to be working on, and what order I'm going to work on it?

Due to my brain dribbling out my ear and drying up over this extended break and excessive time spent pretending to be a potato on my couch, I'm going to take a few more days to refresh myself on my notes and actually READ MY OWN WORKS once again to get the flow/style/storyline and all back fresh in my mind.

Lately, I find myself thinking about "Jason's Tale" (book two of Winter's Tale), and it'll probably be the first one I go back to and work on. Updates for it should begin within the next week or so.

Depending on how much the floodgates open once I sit down and start working on Jason's Tale, I'll swap back and forth between my other works as time and inclination dictates. If I find myself drawn back into Jason's Tale, I might focus on it until I finish his whole arc/book up, before moving somewhere else. If I find getting back into the groove to be a little difficult and I get stuck on what to do/where to go with his story, I'll sit it aside and work on something else...

Like always, it's simply a case of "I write as time and interest dictates". And for now, my general plan is:

Winter's Tale: Jason's Tale -- I'm going to start with this one and we should see updates soon™.

Game On -- This will be the second story I'll add back into my writing rotation, once I swap focus out of Winter's Tale and start divering my attention back and forth again.

The Fallen Ascending -- I haven't forgotten this work either! I still plan on getting book #2 out for everyone soon. Michael's story isn't anywhere close to being finished. It'll be added to my writing rotation after Game On.

Dreambreaker -- This story comes and goes and keeps to its own schedule. I go months without having a single thought about it and then it appears and haunts my dreams for the next month and I have to write it down to purge it from my thoughts. No specific plans for working on it on a regular basis, at the moment, but it has a will entirely of its own. Dreambreaker gets written when Dreambreaker wants to get written -- all other works be damned!

The GOD Chronicles -- Maybe sometime around Halloween. I just haven't been in the right mood or mindset to work on it at all. This is definitely a "niche story" of mine and only gets worked on when the stars align properly and there's nothing else to hold my focus at the time. It's not "dropped", but on "permanent hiatus".

The 8th Day -- I thought I'd hung my pen up on this story, but I find myself being drawn back into it more and more all the time. No promises for the fans of the story, but I have a feeling that I'm going to be drawn back into working on it again before this year is over. I have everything laid out for it, sorted out, and thought through for the next half dozen books or so -- I just got bummed out dealing with a lot of crap from people, the site, and everything else concerning the story, so I dropped it out of annoyance. Thing is, time heals all wounds and I find myself no longer annoyed over those people/comments/events as I once was. As the memory of that frustration/annoyance goes down, the desire to get back and finish the work goes up... Honestly, I do expect that I'll be back to working on it again sometime in the next few months -- but I won't promise anyone that. We'll just have to wait and see...

6) And that's everything I think, except perhaps for an apology for my "quick update" being anything but quick. I told you guys, I'm back in the mood to write and I guess this just proves it!! Even a "quick update" seems to be a whole dang chapter in a story!

Sorry!

7) A quick summary:

A) I'm not dead.

B) I'm tired of watching TV, reading OTHER people's stories, and being a couch potato.

C) I'm writing again and there should be an update out for "Winter's Tale: Book Two -- Jason's Tale" in a week or so. Game On and The Fallen Ascending chapters will be coming after that, with Dreambreaker being updated irregularly.

D) You've finally finished reading this "quick update"!