A first draft of Zero-Trust, my next techno-thriller, has been completed! Back in March I was at about 83% (so specific), my goal was to finish by the end of March, before I went on vacation (featured photo on this post). Which I accomplished. Then dropped the draft in a digital drawer for the month of April and stepped away. Distance, like many things in life, is necessary during the writing process to get a better perspective, and realize how much you miss it! May and June I’ll be doing the heavy lifting second draft. Fixing all sorts of plot issues, doing research to make sure everything is believable (up to when the fiction part comes in), and make sure characters are making the right or wrong decisions at the right or wrong times. Then it’ll go to a couple of early beta readers. The real work has begun!
I mentioned back in March that the audiobook for HOST was completed. It still is. I was hoping to review and get it out there by the end of April. I’m still in the review process but plan to crush it this week and get it released this month. So far I’m very pleased (and excited) about it, and can’t wait to get it out there.
During my stepping away time in April from Zero-Trust, I decided to start outlining the next book. Working through story beats and creating a scene breakdown. It’ll be a change of pace for me genre wise, as I’ll be mashing up a western with a little horror. I’m excited about it, and mostly because I’ve put together a western / horror movie, music, book list of content to work through for research. I love this part of the process (I love all of it but this is my favorite, if I had to pick). I’ll share the list of movies, music, and books in a future post, including a couple video games.
After my first book I realized there was a lot of down time between edits / drafts where I could’ve been writing, but had nothing ready. I’m structuring my time differently, filling those gaps where I step away from one project, with work towards something new. For me, it’s a good way to get distance but not so much where I lose momentum. Which is easy for me.
Now, off to watch some westerns and celebrate my birthday.
