Between jury duty and the Nickel City Con I can safely say this month has been PURE CHAOS. A maddening dash from one project to the next without a second to catch my breath.

It’s been a good exercise in endurance, for sure.

Writing Update

DSA Season One

I finished! A few weeks later than originally intended but I made a final sweep of all six books before passing it off to some trusted alpha readers. I plan to do another sweep at the end of July before it heads to the editor for clean up. I enjoyed the binge though. It was cool to see the season as a whole and work on each book through that lens.

This has been an insanely intricate project for me and I’ve enjoyed the challenge. I keep finding areas to tweak, little points to insert, all in the hopes of building a more cohesive final product. Unfortunately, it’s time for me to let someone else tell me what’s missing or where I’ve completely gone off the rails.

Nervous excitement about sums it up for me. Excited to share. Nervous for the reactions. We’ll see how it goes!

Hammer and Anvil

I started the draft last Tuesday. Yes, I realize how backward I am with this one. It was never my intention to have the cover completed before the draft, or even to have it booked with my editor before writing a single word of the book.

Won’t happen again. (I hope…)

Anyway, the draft is coming along. I’m just shy of 20,000 words as you read this. Or about a third of the way to the end.

Not that I write in any linear fashion. Chapter 42 is done. Is Chapter 1? Negative.

The next two weeks are going to be hardcore writing sessions. It’s been awhile since I drafted so the last few days have been rough ones but each new chapter comes easier than the previous one.

Really looking forward to seeing this one come together. There are some great character moments throughout. And Pratchett has a fantastic line that cracks me up every time I think about it. (Good ol’ Pratchett…)

Reading

I don’t typically share my comic reading. I know my audience prefers books to my love affair with four-color heroes. I wanted to share this one anyway.

Bruce Jones wrote the Incredible Hulk from 2002 to 2004. At the time it went over my head. I was a Hulk fan but I didn’t really appreciate what it was I liked about the character. It certainly wasn’t the smashing or the idiotic Hulk Smash dialogue.

It wasn’t until I revisited this run that I realized Bruce Banner was what brought me to the book. He was the hero of the story. The survivor of this terrible ordeal. That’s probably why I’m the only person on the planet that actually enjoys Ang Lee’s Hulk film or why I would have loved to have seen Edward Norton’s version of Incredible Hulk.

Bruce Banner, on the run, losing control, fighting for his life to keep this monster inside. That’s my kind of Hulk book and why Bruce Jones wrote a helluva run on the title. It falls apart in the end but the first 20 issues are an absolute treat to devour over and over again.

Thanks for reading.