Mid-Year Writing Update

With the front half of 2016 now in the rear-view mirror, I thought I would pause a moment to post an update on my current writing projects. As it stands right now, I have 3 irons in the fire:

1. Warlock #1: “Autofire Blitz.” Designed to kick off a string of balls-out action-adventure novellas, the Warlock series introduces Damien “Warlock” Locke, a quick-trigger mercenary with amnesia, so he has no idea where he gained his ruthless combat skills. Hired to rescue a DEA agent’s son who has been kidnapped by a Colombian drug lord, Locke blitzes his way up a cocaine pipeline and uncovers a dirty DEA-cartel alliance that goes all the way to the top. From sin-soaked city streets to steaming jungle hell-zones, Locke unleashes an autofire scourge that will make the bastards pay.

Warlock is my homage to the old-school men’s action series and one-man-army movies of the ‘80s (think Commando, Rambo, etc.). It is deliberately designed to be a low drag, high-velocity guns ‘n’ guts bonanza with everything pushed into over-the-top territory, particularly the badass attitude and bullet-crushing violence. Put this one in the “action–splatter” category.

2. It’s Always Darkest Before You Die. This upliftingly-named project is a collection of short horror stories in collaboration with Derric Miller. In the past, Derric and I have always co-written our horror stuff together, but for this anthology, we each wrote our own short stories, with only one title—“Gurgles,” a ghost story—being co-written. For the most part, these will be new, previously-unpublished shorts, with authorial notes detailing how each story came to be.

This anthology was one of those spur of the moment ideas; during a chat, Derric and I remarked how we both had stacks of unpublished short stories sitting in our desk drawers. And just like that, we decided to dust ‘em off, give ‘em a fresh coat of paint, and release them to the masses. Hope you like your horror raw, bloody, and bleak…

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3. The Assassin’s Prayer (rewrite). This was the first book I ever published and like all debut novels (or any novel, for that matter) it has its flaws. But the luxury of being an indie author is that I retain full control of my work, which means I can go back and make changes if I so choose. I am not giving The Assassin’s Prayer a major overhaul; all I am doing is culling some (not all) of the grimness and melancholy that was a common complaint among readers. In this mildly revamped version, Kain spends less time moping in his whiskey.

What I am NOT doing is changing the controversial ending. Yes, many readers dislike the way the book ends, but an equal number appreciate the boldness of the climax. Regardless, while the ending may have limited the novel’s commercial appeal, I still believe it was the right ending to the story I wanted to tell.

My goal is to have Warlock published by the end of the year, It’s Always Darkest Before You Die out by Halloween (is there a better time to release a horror collection?), and the revamped The Assassin’s Prayer available … whenever.

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After that? God only knows. I have at least one more Assassins novel outlined. Derric and I still have plans to write a sequel to Gristle called Meat Your Maker. Of course, for Warlock to become an actual series there needs to be more than one book, so I need to bang out a few more of those. Jack Reece (the sarcastic P.I. from “The Killing Question” and probably my most popular character to date) still needs a full-length novel. And I have the rough draft of an epic (well, if you count 150,000 words as epic) supernatural action-thriller about vigilante angels just waiting to be edited. Because who doesn’t want to read about scumbags getting righteously slaughtered by angels with machineguns?

One thing’s for sure—you keep reading, I’ll keep writing. (Actually, I’ll keep writing even if you don’t keep reading, but I much prefer it the other way.)