Getting snowy around here, which isn’t a bad thing. I enjoy the winter, and as perverse as it might sound, I like clearing the driveway of snow. It’s a great workout, guaranteed to shed a few pounds, and there’s something relaxing about it as well. I wear an old beat-up MP3 player, loaded with a mix of my favourites (Abba included, which will sometimes lead into Ministry, and around Christmas, might lead into some Bing Crosby) and just get to work.

Just got word that I’ll be heading into the hospital in May to get my other hip replaced (arthritis, hoo-ah), so I’m motivated to get a few stories done before I go under the knife. Can’t make any promises about exactly when they’ll be released, but this is what’s on tap, in various stages of completion, and will be on the market hopefully before May.

Isosceles Moon. Vampire-breed hunter novella of about a hundred pages.

Private Property. Another novella of undetermined length (currently being worked on).

Breeds 2. First draft completed and awaiting a second pass. About 75K words.

*131 Days book 5*. First draft completed and awaiting a second pass. About 110K words.

And these are the planned books that may or may not be available after May.

Breeds 3 (the finale to the trilogy)

131: Three Fights (a “Tales from the Pit” novella concerning a few selected characters and their involvement in Sunja’s gladiatorial games).

*Untitled horror story* that may or may not be another novella.

*Untitled Weird Western* that should be novel sized.

You may ask why all the novellas (ie short novels of anywhere between 55 to 150 pages)? The material and ideas I have for those stories don’t really fit novel length. I can’t see them going past the 150 page mark. Some novellas might grow into something longer, but I can’t tell until I get into them–like that aforementioned “Untitled horror  story*. I like the shorter form, and the few novellas I have in the wings were ideas tucked away in my idea folder and somehow seeped to the desktop.

He-Dog 2 is still there as well, but it’s a real challenge and pain, to get working on that one since I’m pretty much rewriting the whole thing. And since it’s been 3 years since “White Sands, Red Steel,” I’m not sure if folks will remember it.

And finally, my uncle’s been after me to do a western for some time. A western is an undertaking I’m not so keen on doing, but I had an idea for a genre I really enjoy, and that’s the Weird Western (seek out Steve Vernon or Tim Curran for examples). When I told him my intentions he looked at me and said, “There won’t be any gore in it will there? I can’t handle too much gore.”

It’ll be weird. And haunted. And horror. So, yeah, there’s probably going to be a little gore in there, and to anyone who doesn’t care for gore, any gore is too much. This one might get done around the end of the year.

So there you have it. Lots to do. But first, I’m taking some time off during Christmas–do some shoveling and a little drinking (I have a nice bottle of Uncle Jack’s Tennessee Honey here, as well as an equally nice bottle of Captain Morgan), some music listening and some reading, and play a lot of Fallout 4.

The imagination never really rests and I’ve already come up with a idea for a summertime coming-of-age story that isn’t horror or fantasy.  I hope that over the next week or two a few more ideas will get tangled up in the mind’s drain trap.

And, finally, thank you for reading.  Seriously.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, Happy New Year, and all the best for 2016.