Hey everyone, it's me again, coming to you with another writing update.  I know I didn't do one for July.  But, as is my usual, if I don't have anything to report, I'm not going to just post simply to post.  I try only to post if I actually have something to post.  Well, I finally do for this month.  So here's the August update for 2024 for you.

1.  Book Update Process - If you've been paying attention to my previous posts I've noted that I'm slowly working towards getting all my titles out into print again.  That's a slow process even in the best of times.  Since it is a slow process, and I have no immediate deadlines on anything, I decided to use that opportunity to begin bringing all my currently released titles up to current writing standards.  By that I mean that all the books that were written and edited back when I wasn't as good of a writer are being brought up to the same writing quality as my newest titles.

Now, not everything can be improved as there are just things you can't fix without doing heavy rewriting of the stories to fix things, and make improvements based around things I've learned since that time.  But, for what I can upgrade, I am, to make the stories more readable and better quality vs what they were when they were originally published.  That, in itself, is a monumental job.  So far, out of the 25 titles I have (counting my last unpublished title that's still under construction) I have 10 of the 25 done, and back out in print.  Number 11, which is "Lion on the Water", is presently being worked on.

The progress status of that is...eh, still in progress. ^_^;;  The last couple passes have done a LOT to improve it immensely, but I'm nowhere near satisfied with it yet.  Since I can only do about one pass a week (roughly), it'll still be a good month before that one is ready to be released in its improved form.  After that will be "Lion and the Fire".  In the middle of this I will be working on "The Rise of Offworld" to get it prepped for its release around November.  Also, as a note, I've taken a preliminary look at books 3-7 of Offworld Chronicles, and those look to be in the best shape, and will likely only take a little bit of work to completely bring up to current standards.

That's primarily because those books are the newest, and thus would naturally need the least amount of work.  Also, I still want to crawl through After Offworld 1 and 2 again just to be sure, but those may not even need to be touched, as they're the absolute newest of my titles, and if so, I could be down to as few as 9 out of 15 titles remaining that need attention.  Will I ever do an improvement project like this again in the future?  Not likely, unless some gross, really important issue is discovered along the way that needs addressing.  Otherwise, once I make them the best I can, they will stay where they are going forward.  But, I at least want to give you guys the best I can, hence this upgrade project.

2.  ROI Wiki - So, um, yeah.  As you guys have already heard, the wiki is down until further notice.  I'm super sorry, but a bunch of a--holes out there have apparently made it their life's work to destroy my Wiki, and take down my server.  I don't know why, though.  Jealous?  Maybe.  Whatever the reason, it's forced me to take it offline until I have time to do a complete overhaul using something OTHER than MediaWiki (probably something home brew at this point).  It'll also require that I transfer over EVERYTHING that I have in that wiki, and if you've seen it, you know it's hurge.  Over 1000 pages at last count.  So it's gonna be another monumental project.  But, once it's done, things will be WAY better.  Trust me.

3.  Print Books - This is moving along nicely.  Two of my titles, "Lion in the Wind", and "The Oort Perimeter" have been laid out, and are just waiting on my friend to do the full covers before I upload those.  I also have "Lion of the Earth", "Destiny's Mission", and the first two books of "The Offworld Chronicles" to him already.  Once he's done with those, they'll get put online for sale in print form.  How soon?  Eh, not sure yet.  I'll know once I have a more definitive date for that.  But I'll update you all once I know, or once they're live, whichever comes first.

4.  Future Titles - Right now I have two books in the "to be worked on" bin.  Those are "Magefall" and "Guardians".  When those will start is not known.  At this point, with the two major projects I have on the plate, probably not until middle to late next year.  I need to finish these book upgrade, and wiki rebuild projects first.  Once those are done, it'll greatly free me up to do other things (the wiki will be important too during the writing process for these books, so it needs to be done first because of that) once those are off my platter.

5.  Conventions and Events - At this point I only have two events for next year.  One is set, and one is still "pending" at this point waiting on my friend to lock that one in.  If he doesn't, then it'll be just one show.  Why only one when I originally had planed for 20+ for next year?  Eh, well, scroll up and you'll see why. ^_^;;  Yes, I'm just flat out gonna be too busy next year to even think about them.  I probably wouldn't even be doing the April show due to my schedule, but my friend needs me there, so I'm going.  Now, that being said, so long as 2026 doesn't go into the trash can, I'll be spinning up my convention schedule then.  But I'll let you all know once I have a better idea of how it's all going to go down.

And that's all for this update.  Also, to answer one small question that's come up, where I was asked, "Why did you go out of print?"  Well, the long and short of it is, 1) my mom got sick, so that killed 3 years of major book stuff.  I still had time to write and publish, but I had to pull everything in and essentially just walk away from almost all of it during that time.  Then 2) the next 7 years left me with no free time for conventions, promotions, etc.  3) I also lost my primary means for print publishing, so the best I could do was put up a couple titles in print via a friend of mine.  But now that I have a primary means for print publication, I'm moving back out into it again, and in the best way possible. 

So yeah, I'm pretty much starting from scratch again.  Also, to answer the question of "If I didn't have time to publish, or do much writing wise, how did I have time to create new titles?"  What do you think I do for relaxation? :)  Even if I couldn't publish, print, and promote it, nothing short of death would've stopped me from continuing to write if for no other reason than to maintain my sanity and help me rest. ^_^  But, anyhow, me finally moving back out into full scale publishing again will be the best possible restart/comeback ever.  Anyhow, thanks everyone for reading. :)