Wow, another 6 months has flown by! And my focus has completely shifted. It went from I’m doing serious long-form content for other people and maybe I’ll fit in some short stories somewhere to Full steam ahead on my own fiction! We only get one life and damn it, I’m determined to spend the rest of mine being guided by my heart, not by fear.

First, my most recent work for The Daily WTF: a series of articles I’ve been calling my Tech Support Noir. Sometimes dark, sometimes funny, incorporating 4 user-submitted work horror stories and many true events from my own corporate tenure. Very much a space in which I processed those experiences alongside my grief over my ex-FIL’s passing this April. RIP, Bob! You treated me like a daughter for 17 years, and I’m getting teary-eyed even as I type this. And yeah, I am divorced as of 2021, which adds another layer of difficulty. That’s one of the things that happened while I was gone. But that’s a mile-long rabbit hole I wanna side-step for now. It’s not a painful topic, I promise, just a long one! I’m trying to stay on-point here! LOL

I put a noir spin on these articles because it’s a much-beloved genre of mine, both literature and film. This is my first official crack at a gritty noir protagonist, but you can see a little of that attitude in Dame Jessamine’s narration from my Sword and Starship books (more on that in a minute).

Here are the parts of Tech Support Noir:

• The C-Level Ticket
• The Ghost Cursor
• The Hot Fix
• The Easy No
• The Hard Goodbye
• The Crossroads

My goal is to one day smash them together into a novella; I’ve already gotten the OK from Alex, the website’s owner. It will mean a good deal of re-editing, hopefully with an editor’s help, but we’ll see. I’m very open to expanding this story, turning it into something completely different, whatever strikes me as the right thing to do.

But first, I have some other business I want to attend to.

Believe it or not, amid the tumult of the past few years, I had completely forgotten what was in my two Sword and Starship novels. The longer I went without looking at them, the more I convinced myself they were cringingly bad, forget about them, move on. This year I said, Let me read a few pages here and there, just to see if there’s anything I can work from or salvage. It’ll take me a few months, but that’s fine, no rush.

I finished reading the damn things in one weekend.

I’m back in. I want to write Book 3. And it’s probably gonna be completely different from the Book 3 I tried to write before. I’ve gone through so much that I’m a different person in a lot of ways—and thank goodness for that! Back then I lacked the perspective, wisdom, and skill that I’m gonna need to do this properly.

I’m pulling myself all the way out of the grave! Here’s what I’m up to:

• Reestablishing a social media presence. OK I haaate social media, so I’ve promised myself I’ll just pick one platform and stick with it for now. That platform is Bluesky. Here is my profile! If you’re there, too, follow me and say hi if you like!
• Rebuilding a newsletter. I deleted my old Mailchimp newsletter a long time ago, but now I’m in the process of setting up a new one with a different provider. I’m hoping to do it better this time around! I’d love to build some community with those who most like my work. Before I tell everyone to sign up, I want to have something great to offer in return. So that’s my current top project …
• Writing a Sword and Starship prequel. Yup! It’ll be brand-new, something no one’s ever read before. I’m hoping that it will be fun for people completely new to the series and for people who’ve already read the books. I think of it as a “short story” in my head, but knowing me, it’ll probably be more novella-length. We’ll see! I’ve spent several weeks plotting and outlining, and I just started drafting this week. I’m really excited about it.

I would like for the prequel to be properly edited and have a beautiful front cover. I’m hoping I can get the same artist I used for the books! My wonderful editor has moved onto other projects, and I haven’t been in touch with her for years. I’m hoping she might be able to point me to someone new.

I hope it goes without saying, but I will NEVER use AI for ANYTHING. Not for writing, research, outlining, not a damn thing! And I will work with real humans for things like beta-reading, editing, proofreading, and cover art/design (or do it myself, as yours truly was once pretty savvy with things like drawing and gimp and just never has time anymore).

When the prequel’s ready, that’s when I’ll announce my newsletter. Keep your eyes peeled! I’ll be posting brief updates on Bluesky with the occasional blog post to let me expand past 300 characters.

If you’re excited, comment and let me know :) Thanks for all your support!