I am ready to say that Jeep Thompson and The Lost Prince of Venus is my next book. I can see my way to “The End” at last.
I even added the book cover to the website’s sidebar with the caption “My Next Book.”
Jeep has been pacing along the sidelines watching me write 1,828 daily blog posts while I nibbled around the edges of her story. One of the first memes I made said, “Jeep Thompson: Coming in 2021.” I’ve had mockups of the trilogy covers done for years, along with working titles, currently Jeep Thompson and The Lost Prince of Venus, Jeep Thompson and The Martian Alternative, and Jeep Thompson and The World Jumpers.
Maybe conceiving it as a trilogy overwhelmed something in me and made me hesitate and procrastinate for months at a time. Maybe it made me overthink certain scenes to try to plant seeds in the first book that would bear fruit later on. Whatever the case, it has taken me a long time to get Jeep back from Venus, but I know how she gets home now, and I know what she finds there that sends her to Mars next.
And I don’t know precisely how, but I know that Jeep Thompson is destined to save the worlds.
This means I’m abandoning my goofy goal to publish 12 books during 2025 — what the heck, through the end of July I’m five books behind anyway. Perhaps I’ll work my way up to monthly in 2026 or 2027.
I’ll keep you posted as I get a clearer idea about when Jeep Thompson and The Lost Prince of Venus is ready. My expectation is that it will be there in time for you to give copies to all your loved ones for Christmas.
P.S. When I posted this post for Saturday morning publication, I saw the WordPress “Related” algorithm presented previous announcements about how Jeep was almost here. I hate to say, “This time for sure,” but: This time for sure.
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As long as I’m talking about my books, please consider my recent bits of fiction — the Christmas fable Ebenezer (also available in hardcover), the Halloween fantasy Dejah & Summer in The Time of Magic, and The Man Who Crossed Whimsy Avenue — or my most recent blog post collections, A Declaration of Peace and See the World! They also would make wonderful gifts and are available now wherever fine print-on-demand books are sold, e.g., everywhere.
