What a year!
Achilles tears. Unemployment. Only two books published, one shy of my original goal.
Yet, I survived and I'm very excited about 2020.
Why?
First off, the Horrible Writing Writers Support Group. What an amazing collective of talented writers, especially people like Natalie Aked, Amanda Ward, Jennifer Worrell, Timothy Niederriter, S.L. Baron, M.K. Chester, Cheyenne Bramwell, Nicole Rayne, Nicola Thompson, Dōhai WN, Kate McGinn - Author, Michele Potter, TC Grassman, Bel Nel, and so many more! I have grown because of 20BooksTo50K®, but it is the personal relationships with this collective of almost 800 people that I've been enriched on my writing journey. I've shared my experience with them, and they've shared theirs with me. My aim for that group was to live by the "empowerment through candor" and "lift each other up" principles of my Horrible Writing podcast, and that's exactly what we've been doing.
But as I look forward to 2020, I see the possibilities and opportunities like never before. Within that community and nonfiction podcast, in my Audio Fiction With Paul Sating podcast, and with my books. For the past few months I've been working 14-18 hour days to get my first fantasy series ready. The first 4 books are written and half of them are with my editor (she's getting the next two by February) & I hope to have the pre-orders up in March! The Zodiac Series is a FUN world/story to play in and I can't wait to see how readers react to the adventure.
Next year will also give me a chance to start working on high fantasy with my Thief series. Some of you have heard the first episode of Crown of Thieves (thank you for being Patrons!!!!), which is the precursor to the book series. But I'll be publishing a novelette called Birth of a Thief this spring as well, which tells the story before the story.
I'm in discussions with another cover artist for a completely separate fantasy trilogy that is a mix of stories like The Witcher and Conan the Barbarian. I hope to have those for pre-order toward the winter.
And this doesn't include my dystopian grimdark series I've teamed up with author NJ Boyer to begin work on this year. If you're a Patron or listen to the Audio Fiction podcast, you already have a clue of what this series will be about (how's that for a tease?).
So, 2019 was a difficult year on a personal and professional level, but 2020 looks to be an exciting year and I cannot wait to share more details with you.
I hope all of you have a happy and healthy New Year's week. Enjoy the friends and merriment, resolve to do something in 2020 that is fulfilling, and keep being epic!
Originally Posted: December 2019
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