Six months ago, I thanked everyone who took time to look at my blog, then promptly disappeared.

For that I’m sorry.

Life has a funny way of taking plans and shaking them up in the most interesting ways. The end of 2016 and the first few months of 2017 were a prime example of that.

First, my wife and I bought our first house. The process of initiating, and completing, such a large purchase is an insanely stressful experience, but one that’s well worth it once everything is said and done. And even though it’s been about six months, we’re still settling into the new place (it’s amazing how long it takes).

Also, we had to buy my wife a new car because hers was totaled in an unfortunate accident. Thankfully, she was unharmed.

Enough about my personal life.

Writing has been moving forward at an unrelenting pace. The YA scifi novel that I started last year is nearly finished, but I’m not quite out of the woods yet. With about 30K words left to go, I’m struggling with moving the narrative forward. I have an idea of how I want to complete the story, but I’m questioning the narrative choice nearly every day. So much so, that I had to take a one-month break.

During that time, I used some of the feedback that I received from beta readers to completely rework Infinity’s Heir. The new version of the manuscript is about 20K words longer and completely changes some major aspects of the story. The takeaway is that I’m very happy with the result. I feel like the story is much more robust than it was, and I’ve started sending the manuscript out to agents again. I’m still not that great at writing query letters, but here’s hoping that someone is interested in the new direction the manuscript has taken.

Besides that, the writing gig I landed with imperium.news has evolved into an editorial position. In January, I attended PAX South to conduct an interview with a game developer and, since I did so well, the site asked me to step up and lead a team. Now, I’m in charge of producing video game content for the site by identifying games that would be interesting to the community and making sure that articles covering those games are produced.

On top of that, I’m still writing for the site and have completed a decent number of reviews over the past six months. Currently, I’m writing a series about E3 2017, so if you’re looking for some comprehensive info on what was presented at each of the press conferences, be sure to check it out!

While I’m still not exactly where I want to be (published author!), I’m happy with all of the opportunities that I have to write. And I miss sharing those experiences here.

So, moving forward, I plan on updating Storm at Sea more regularly. At the very least, I’d like to do one post a week, but I hope to have time for more. After all, this blog has helped me keep an eye on my goal. And laser focus is what I need if I’m ever going to see my work on the shelves of a local book store.

See you all soon! 😀