2021 was a crazy year for me what with launching a website for the books I write. I completed drafts of three novels this year (two to full completion and one to second-draft status). I released two novels.
So what are my plans for 2022?
Well, if you’ll recall, I previously wrote about my future writing plans in a post called “My Novel-Release Schedule.” In it I spoke of two planned releases for 2022: a sci-fi novella and a young adult level fantasy novel.
Today I want to share more about those two projects.
Soulcage
Soulcage was written to be a novella, but as I was toiling away on the first draft I did consider it possible that it could blossom into a full novel should I feel the need to add more. Well, it did become a novel, but not because I made the active decision to add more. I wanted it to be under 50,000 words, but now it is sitting at about 57,000. So, in a way, I can now say with truthfulness that I once accidentally wrote a novel.
I’m finding the story of Soulcage somewhat difficult to categorize. It’s a sci-fi story with a dystopian setting, but ultimately it is a tragedy, a story about loneliness and separation. It has numerous edits to go through yet, I’m sure, but it’s shaping up to be a pretty impactful, devastating book, I hope.
In early 2022 I will do more drafts until it’s finished, and I expect to release it in paperback form by probably June at the very latest and perhaps the beginning of March at the very earliest.
You can read more about it and see some of the cover art on the Books page.
Alixe Morse and the Dual Mirrors
This story is the one I listed in “My Novel Release Schedule” as the “fantasy novel about a disabled girl who sets out to stop a dark lady.” Well, I’m announcing today that the tentative title is Alixe Morse and the Dual Mirrors.
It has no synopsis yet. In fact, I’ve only written three full chapters so far–about 11,000 words. It stars Alixe Morse, an orphan girl with a muscular disease who learns that she was inflicted as a child with a magical connection to a dark lady who terrorizes the Principalities of Milar, Hazil Heartsinger. This magical connection is the reason for Alixe’s muscular disease: Hazil feeds off of her energy. To the surprise of all, it will prove to be the one advantage that the free peoples of the lands of Milar have against Hazil in the coming conflict.
It will be the first fantasy book I’m releasing as part of my self-published career, which is notable because as I’ve stated many times, I plan to write numerous fantasy books–more in that genre than any other.
It’s not the first fantasy book I’ve written, and in fact, Alixe Morse was partly conceived initially as a sort of “new take” on my first completed book, which was a fantasy novel I wrote in high school called The Mirror of Shadows. I think it broke 250,000 words or something. It was a monster.
So anyway, partly out of the economical sense of reusing old ideas, and partly out of satisfying my own amusement, Alixe Morse includes elements that are similar to and/or are playful inversions of, ideas from The Mirror of Shadows.
These include a near identical name to the main character (Alex–Alixe), swapping the main character from male to female (although really it’s just an entirely new character–I kept the name because I find the inversion mildly amusing), a similar wise old character in a certain role of authority (who is also gender-swapped and really a new character altogether), magical mirrors of light and darkness having a significant role…and other similarities and inversions that I may go over someday in a BTS blog post. Ultimately this book is entirely its own thing; the similarities are really quite minor and often superficial. It’s a book about a disabled girl’s struggle for life against the forces of evil.
So considering Alixe Morse is likely to exceed 111,000 words by the time it’s done–if not significantly more than that–I expect it to take a little while. I had tentatively planned for August, but I’m not going to set any specific date until I get further on it. Probably much further.
What’s Next?
After a first draft of Alixe Morse is done, I will move on to the first draft of another project. I’m not necessarily 100% decided on what it will be. It’s between two projects, I think–a sci-fi epic or a shorter fantasy comedy. They’ll both get done, I believe, so it’s just a matter of in what order. Depending on how long and complex Alixe Morse ends up being, it’s not unlikely that I’ll do the shorter fantasy comedy (which hopefully will not break 70,000 words). On the other hand, depending on how tired I get of the fantasy genre, maybe I’ll be more ready for science fiction. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Hopefully more people will read my books next year. That would be pretty cool.
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