On Saturday I finally fixed the weed whacker and got busy on whacking some of the weeds around here. This time the procrastination actually helped a bit, because some irises and other perennials have bloomed as if to say, “I’m not a weed, please don’t whack me.”
I had so much fun getting my hands dirty at last that I posted this picture of the biggest iris and proclaimed, “I may not bring it all the way back this summer, but I’m going to learn how to tend Grandma’s Garden the way Red did. That, and finishing my novels, are my first two big retirement goals.”
By Sunday morning I was wondering if I really meant it.
I mean yes to the garden. Our place was a flowering Eden when Red was in charge, and I would love to restore it to some semblance of splendor, although first I need to learn a little bit more about how it’s done.
But about those novels …? That’s been a constant whine of mine for a very long time.
Still, there are three sort-of- to mostly-finished novels I really would like to finish someday, and if I buckled down I could probably finish them this year. No brag, just fact. It’s just that I have always had a problem with buckling down.
Their working titles:
Jeep Thompson and the Lost Prince of Venus
No Chance to Dream: A Comfort & Joy Mystery
The Girl, The Alien, and Me
I have left a lot of novels unfinished over the years, but these three haunt me from time to time. I love the characters, and I love where they were going when I inexplicably abandoned them.
Last fall I proved that I can indeed finish a novel, and swiftly, when I wrote Dejah & Summer in the Time of Magic in six weeks, give or take.
What is stopping me now, especially since a) I am newly retired and not bound by an agreement to pour my efforts into a day job, and b) I just proclaimed that finishing those novels is one of my first big retirement goals? Oh, and c) I set a silly goal to publish 12 books in 2025, and that could be three of them?
The only thing standing in my way, as far as I can tell, is me.
I wonder if I should get out of my own way and get down to business?
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Meanwhile, here is episode 13 of the “See the World! Podcast,” daily readings from my forthcoming book See the World! It’s scheduled for release June 10 and available for pre-order by clicking the book’s title.
For some time now, I have approached each new year saying, “This shall be the year I publish a book every month!” I published only two books in 2024, but in my humble opinion they were doozies — Dejah & Summer in the Time of Magic, my October instant adventure, and A Declaration of Peace aka War IS the Crime. The new title fits what I hoped to accomplish better, and the new cover is prettier, but I guess I still don’t expect it to be a best seller, although I hope and pray its philosophy will someday be more universal.
If I published 12 books in 2025, what would they be? It would presumptuous to list the full dozen — circumstances change and inspiration usurps expectations — for the first three quarters of 2024, I had no inkling that I might write and publish a fantasy about my golden retrievers, after all.
But if I had a guess, the books most likely to be published under my name in 2025 are:
1. Jeep Thompson and the Lost Prince of Venus — I have been writing this novel in fits and spurts for nigh on five years, and it is so close to the finish line that I felt like I could wrap it up in a week. The thing is, that particular week has’t arrived in close to a year. I wonder if the reader will be able to detect which parts were written in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, and how much of the last part was written in a 2025 burst of creativity?
2. See the World — I thought my post of that title would make a lovely opening to a book about paying attention to the wonders around us at any given moment — and we are given so many moments every day! — so I have been slowly collecting posts along that theme. As of today it’s a small collection, but it’s almost big enough to be a short book. I would not be surprised to reach the tipping point to comprise a volume in 2025.
3. Write Anything Until You Write Something — I’ve written plenty of times over the years about the art and craft of writing to the point where I could publish a disorganized but book-length collection of essays tomorrow. Two things hold me back: First, they really do need to be organized in some semblance of order. Second: Imposter Syndrome. Many writers who are better and more successful than I have written better and more successful books about writing. Who am I to presume I have anything worthwhile to add on the subject? Fortunately, the first obstacle is more powerful than the second, and so this is the most likely prospective book on this list to see the light of day.
4. No Chance to Dream — Back in 2018 (!?!) I wrote the first chapter of a fantasy detective story featuring the team of Adam Comfort, a rumpled human private detective, and Joy Emerson, a pookha who takes the form of a 6-foot-high skunk on two legs. Then I wrote six more chapters during NaNoWriMo 2019. I stumbled into Resistance when I couldn’t decide whether to determine whodunit before continuing to write or just continue romping along until the answer presented itself. Maybe 2025 is the year I decide.
5. The Girl, The Alien, and Me — Much like Dejah & Summer in the Time of Magic, in 2017 (!!!??!!) I wrote 10 blog posts that could be the first 10 chapters in a novel narrated by Hank Stiller, who meets a winsome young woman who seeks his help in a struggle against, well, Martians. The narrative stopped cold after I found myself killing off a character I really liked. The decision here is whether to go back and write earlier chapters to flesh out the character so the reader really feels the loss, go back and rewrite so he’s only injured and doesn’t die, or suck it up and continue the story after his death. (And as I’m writing this I suddenly OMG thought of a fourth alternative that might be The Answer.)
6-7-8. Myke Phoenix — This might be cheating, but my thickest book is Myke Phoenix: The Complete Novelettes, 700 pages compiling the 16 novelettes and two short stories I wrote over the years about the guardian of Astor City. If I broke them up into three volumes of five or six novelettes each, that could technically be the sixth, seventh and eighth editions in my challenge to publish 12 books during 2025.
9. I have written enough poems to produce a small book of poetry. Whether they’re any good is another story.
10. I have written enough short stories to make a small anthology. Again, I’ve only written a handful that make me think, “Yes. I’m glad I wrote that.”
11. Oh! I almost forgot that I have enough flash fiction to expand my soon-to-be-out-of-print volume 24 flashes and produce 96 flashes. Actually the only obstacle here is whether there’s a better title than 96 flashes, or I could have published it yesterday.
• So there are 11 ideas for books I could publish in 2025. Surely a 12th will occur to me by next Dec. 31.
“God rest ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,” I hummed to myself Sunday night. “Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray — Oh! Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy …”
I don’t have any problem with Christmas carols before Thanksgiving. Heck, like Scrooge I wish we all would keep Christmas in our hearts year-round.
But my mind took a different turn while my mind was on the phrase — Comfort & Joy is the name of the detective agency I stumbled across while trying to conceive a novel a few years back. In fact the first chapter was one of the more well-received bits of fiction I’ve splashed onto the blog pages in recent years.
I made a go at doing a Comfort & Joy novel during my one serious attempt at NaNoWriMo back then, but the train crashed about seven chapters in. But I still think now and then about Adam Comfort, underachieving son of the famous detective team of Adam and Inara Comfort, and Adam’s partner, Joy Emerson, a six-and-a-half-foot-tall pookha in the form of a skunk.
My mind drifted back to the story Steven Pressfield tells of finishing his first novel, running excitedly to his mentor to proclaim his victory, and having the mentor grunt and say, “Good job, kid. Now start on the next one.”
And my mind’s turn completed the connection with a new resolve — Not only will I finish my long-delayed novel Jeep Thompson and the Lost Prince of Venus by the end of this year, but I’m going to start in on the next one. And as long as I’m seven chapters into it already, I may as well make the next one that Comfort & Joy murder mystery.
Jeep by New Year’s Eve and Comfort & Joy by the first day of spring? I’ve heard crazier goals.
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P.S. Did I mention that you can now pre-order Ebenezer: A sequel of sorts to A Christmas Carol as an ebook, paperback or hardcover? No? Well, I should have. Click here for details.
