Unvagueing the Vague

So, if you were hanging around my Facebook page on September 1, 2015, you might have seen the following post –

A tough day today and its not even dinner. Been left with a lot to think about.   My thanks to  Jen ,  Tee Morris ,  Veronica Giguere , and my friend Melissa in particular for helping me through the latest fight with my insecurities.   Fear not, my friends. All is well. Just too much to detail out at the moment.

Pretty vague, I know, and the post I put up the following day, to try and clarify/expand on it, did no benefit and after another random hit of the facebook ‘memories’ posting, I went 3 for three on vaguebooking.   Now, two months later, I am finally ready to unvauge that post, and to get into some detail.

John Lenon once said “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans,” and until this past summer, I don’t think I had a proper appreciation for those words.

When I produced the full cast of CYBROSIS in 2008 and 2009, my life was in a completely different place than it is today. It was a lot less active and I had considerably more time on my hands. Six years later, this is no longer the case. Both my personal life and my day job demands have grown in ways I never anticipated and the endless hours I once had, are quickly drying up.

Case in point, the full cast of Slipspace Harbinger has been ‘in production’ for the better part of a year and a half already, and all I have to show for it is two chapters complete. At this rate, if nothing changed, production would take two decades if not longer.   It has been a slog, and has thus far produced more stress and frustration than joy and accomplishment and after a while, it felt more like a stressful chore than a fun vocational project. Add to that the lack of writing new content while I fight the production clock and the fact that as I get older, my personal life will only get more complex, and you, dear reader, can see where this is going.

With all of this in mind, I have chosen to cancel the full cast audio production of Slispace Harbinger.

This was not an easy decision. Those closest to me who saw me through this thought process will tell you I was wrecked for days while I mulled it over, came to the decision and then assimilated it. I feel as though I have failed. I have failed myself, the amazing cast, and most importantly, I have failed you.

It has been almost six years since the first chapter of CYBROSIS went live. In this business, a six year gap might as well be a death knell, unless your name is Martin or Rowling. As I looked at the cause of that gap, aside from a two year break due to professional certifications, I realized the main cause of the issue, was finding time to work with the audio.   It was an untenable situation, one that was stressing me out far more than I realized and something that needed to be addressed.

So… where does that leave things? If I’m not full cast podcasting my fiction, what’s left? Well…. Quite a bit.

First, the audio portion of my fiction is NOT dead.   It is just changing.   Yes, the full cast will not be happening, however I will, eventually, contract the audio to third party narrators and will produce a single narrator read of my works.   This production will still take time (and cash), but once it gets moving, will take far less time than full cast.

Further, abandoning the idea of full cast, as well as the associated idea of releasing all formats of my books at the same time, has freed me up to push on text releases.   With that in mind, over the last two months, I have gone over the next full length novel – Slipspace Harbinger for a final polish edit.   As of yesterday, it is now in the hands of my copy editor.   Layout and cover design is on tap for early 2016 and with a little bit of luck, I am projecting that this title will be available for sale in May of 2016. The audio production of the book is penciled in, however there is no time table on it as of yet, as that will depend on funding.   But when that audio does release, I intend to make it available in multiple formats.

There’s also been a bit of behind the scenes planning and organizing. I’ve been consolidating my ideas and brainstorms, and putting schedules and budgets into place so that as we move into 2016, the work I produce through Off The Deep End Multimedia will drop on a much more regular basis.

Funding is a concern, yes.  At this time there are no plans for a paetron or a kickstarter, however I will NOT rule those out for sometime in the future.   There is also the possibility that I may come back to the mic for a more regular non-fiction based podcast.   However, that is still in very early stages of brainstorming at this time.

So, that’s about it, for now. There is more to come as I finalize the timeline for the Harbinger release and things currently on the drawing board crystalize and develop.

 

Until then!