I Yet Live!

With my last post here having been a year ago, I thought I owed you all a little update -- or proof of life, at the very least.

The last year (years, let's be honest) have been one long uphill trudge, which is why I haven't had any energy left to post anything here, let alone publish anything. Without going into personal detail, there have been actual reasons my productivity rate has gone down the shitter toilet/loo/dunny: I haven't physically been able to get out the words at the rate I used to, and there's no real prospect that that will improve anytime soon. This then compounds into mental issues because I feel bad about not getting as much done as I want to, which spirals into diminished motivation to even try. Add this to the last year's worth of the entire world being on fire (do I need to be specific? come on), seeing my and a lot of my peers' readership numbers falling somewhere into Tartarus, and you get a creeping sense of nihilism that adds me to the list of authors who have found it an immense struggle to get anything done.

And in my case I mean done.

Started?

In the last year I've started three Alumita books and two Dizzy books, yet you may have noticed you're not currently reading any of them.

Believe me, I wish I was, too.

I don't mean for this to be a 'woe be unto me, the tortured author' kind of thing, but a year of radio silence when so many of you are eagerly awaiting my next book is poor form on my part, and this is what's happening. I averaged two books a year from 2018-2022, then none in 2023 and one in 2024. Those first few years set a certain expectation, and I'm gutted that I haven't been able to come close to matching it since.

But all is not lost.

Amidst the turmoil and flaming wreckage of... everything... there is yet a twitching mass of what some might call life.

This is not a book announcement. This is a book... update? Tease? Something positive! How should I know what word to use? I'm a wri-- oh.

Well.

How about this? The third Alumita book, tentatively titled Beneath the Shell, will be the next one I put out. It's far enough along that I can even breathe a potential title, but there are still a lot of holes to plug and bits to rearrange. That said, it's the farthest I've gotten in anything since Death Has Golden Eyes, which is miraculous progress given how I've felt at certain points since updating you last. Timeline?

*noncommittal foot shuffling and avoidance of eye contact*

But I want to get it out. For myself, for you, and for the world in general. It's a world that needs an Alumita book right now. I know, because I need an Alumita book right now. Kissy bits and magic, with a little humo(u)r sprinkled in here and there?

Sounds nice right about now, doesn't it?

I am human, and I am flawed, but I'm trying. Art is not dead, and neither am I.

Just give me a minute to prove it.