It's been awhile since I've posted about the progress I've been making on my various projects, but I saw a recent progress report from British science-fiction writer Christopher Nuttall. So here goes...

My main project right now is Serpent Sword, the sequel to Battle for the Wastelands. Right now I have completed chapters all the way out to Ch. 10 and, including the partial chapters later, a total word count of 53,955. Ch. 11 and Ch. 12 are about halfway finished each, so hopefully I can have those done and sent to writing group by Sunday or Monday. It was my original intention to have Serpent Sword published by the end of the year, although considering the various tasks involved in preparing an independent manuscript and the fact late December is kind of a dead zone, it might be wiser to complete the manuscript by the end of the year and release it in early 2022.

At conventions I've noticed that The Thing in the Woods and its sequel The Atlanta Incursion, the two books (so far) in my "Long War" series, sell much better than Battle and its companion novella "Son of Grendel." This same applies to Amazon sales. Although part of the issue is that Battle is currently a single book with an obvious cliffhanger ending, horror is a more prosperous field than steampunk right now. To that end, once Serpent Sword is done, I'll shift my focus to completing the third "Long War" novel The Walking Worm (cover and book copy here, but beware TAI spoilers) and the fourth one, Shadowmen. I've already written parts of both books, although no completed chapters to my knowledge--TWW has 16,504 words and Shadowmen 11,236.

(If I can get a BookBub Featured Deal for Battle based on having a sequel like I did for Thing and that has the same very beneficial effect on sales, I can always do the third Wastelands book Escape after TWW. We'll see.)

Hopefully I can get TWW finished and done in 2022. It might be possible to complete Shadowmen in 2022 as well, since Shadowmen returns our heroes to the first book's setting of Edington, GA. It won't be as research-heavy as TWW, which takes place in the vicinity of UNC Chapel Hill.

In terms of event appearances, August 2021 is going to be very busy. The first and most important event is Atlanta Comic-Con, which runs August 6-8. The first time I went I attended with fellow author C.S. Johnson and made a substantial profit, including completely selling out an entire print run of either Thing or The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Vol. 2. This time around, I'm attending with Venessa Giunta, an author who is also a member of the Atlanta chapter of the Horror Writers Association, and I've got seven books to sell to last time's two. I am definitely looking forward to this.

Note: The Atlanta Comic-Con will feature live performances by the Atlanta comedy troupe Cineprov, whose participants heavily overlap with the film podcast I'm on, Myopia Movies. They'll be riffing Cool As Ice and Super Mario Brothers. Here's the official announcement--it looks like this'll be the first live show since COVID started becoming a problem in the U.S.

The subsequent weekend (August 14 and August 15) I've got two one-day events in two different cities. The first on 8/14 is FarleyCon in the outskirts of Chattanooga. Although mileage is a substantial expense, here's a chance to build up my fan-base outside of the Atlanta core without having to stay overnight. The second event is the Atlanta Comic Convention, a smaller afternoon event that'll take place close to Emory University. I've been there a couple times before, but this'll be my first time there with Little People Big Guns, the Wastelands novels, and The Atlanta Incursion.