Final Thoughts before a final edit

I was putting together the final touches on an edit, looking over the draft gallies when I stumbled across the last pages of the book. Several pages actually.

I have eight published novels in the Shadowboxer series out in ebook now, with print versions of said same coming out over the next several weeks.

Color me impressed with myself.

I’m allowed you know. It’s not conceited since it really is the result of years of work, laying the foundation for writing, practicing the craft, putting it away and hiding that dream because I needed to be responsible and get a regular normal job in corporate America.

But in September of 2015 I took the plunge and started my own publishing company as an independent author entrepreneur.

In the past year, I’ve written and published those Shadowboxer novels, along with work in the science fiction genre, EPOCH, MOON MEN, SUPER SECRET SPACE MISSION and HOLY WAR. I even published 25 books for new writers highlighting everything I’ve learned, experimented and built for marketing and growing my writing career.

Twelve novels in one year, plus short stories, plus how to guides. A total of 72 money earning projects on Amazon.

But it was the SHADOWBOXER series that made me smile. Brill Wingfield came about because I was heavy into reading Brad Thor, Vince Flynn and Florida’s own Randy Wayne White when I first moved to Orlando. On my monthly commutes back to Little Rock there is a small town in Alabama called Brilliant and the green sign for the Interstate exit is paired for another tiny burg called Winfield.

Once while driving at night as the kids snoozed in the back, I passed that sign and it stuck with me. Brilliant Winfield, only I got it as Wingfield after a sportscaster I worked with in television fifteen years ago. As we wound our way down toward Birmingham and across I-20 toward Atlanta, I kept thinking about this character, a retired hitman living in Florida who just wanted to be left alone but kept being pulled back into the game. The oncoming headlights lit up a movie in my mind and the coffee fueled my imagination past Hotlanta and down 75. As the sun popped up somewhere around Gainseville, I had a story mapped in my head, along with some plot elements for other works. I wrote down what I could remember as soon as we got home, then spent the day playing in the pool with the kids at the condo.

That was the genesis of three attempts at the Brill Wingfield novels, along with several others, but as I’ve mentioned before, corporate America beckoned and I served that loveless master for almost a decade.

But when I got fired I knew it was time to dust off the manuscripts and get serious about building a business as an author and publisher.

Brill Wingfield was my first choice for a series.

So far I have eighteen to twenty five stories outlined or in various stages of completion, from 5,000 words up to 20,000. They’re on my publishing schedule to get done and get out there. I want to find the fans of Thor, and Flynn and Matt Hilton and Steve Berry, folks who like a good adventure from a flawed character.

But eight so far in a year.

CONSCRIPTED where I tell the tale of how Brill was made from a seventeen year old wide eyed idealist into a cold blooded killer.

Mission One – Brill Wingfield’s first mission working as a contract killer for Barraque

Flash Bang – Brill crosses the border into Syria to rescue a documentary crew and the daughter of a US Senator captured by rebels

Shadowboxer – Brill is hunted across Mexico by one of the men who taught him how to kill

Decreed – Brill Wingfield wakes up in a hospital after being left for dead and goes into low pay hit jobs in Los Angeles while he hunts for his would be killer

Attache – Brill works with EmBeth Davis in Prague to take down a human trafficking ring connected to the FSB.

Disavowed – Brill is sent into Iran to gather intel on their nuclear capabilities and uncovers a connection to his former employer Barraque

Presumptive Nominee – Brill is hired by a Presidential nominee to find the man blackmailing him and threatening to assassinate him but when Brill uncovers a lead that takes him back to Barraque, he’s the one in the cross-hairs.

Credible Threat – After a bombing in Brussels, Brill is contracted by an alphabet agency to gather intelligence and eliminate the problem, his specialty. But when he links Barraque to the bombings and a plot to reinstate an Ottoman like empire with Turkey, he and Carver are declared public enemy and put on the government’s kill list.

The stories aren’t in order. There are gaps in what happens, but that’s the way memory works sometimes. It’s not always linear. The rest of the adventures will follow over the next year and even as I write this one more has popped up to be told. It could have been a news article about Russian aggression or probably the intro sequence to a James Bond filmed combined with an expose on human trafficking across the US border with Mexico and the sick bastards who buy children for pleasure in the wilds of Texas.

But rest assured, if you like Brill Wingfield he’s going to be around awhile. Just like I hope you are.