2019 In Review and What's Coming In 2020

New Year's is a time for reflection and looking ahead... or so I've been told. My first thought was "I didn't really get that much done this year. I don't have much to say or show for it." Then at the urging of Helen I pulled out a pen and paper and started making a list. The results surprised me. 

                                           

I created not one but three book covers. This is the most art I've done in one year in I don't know how long. Two of them were of course for Helen's new The Forever Detective Series. The other was a new cover for "The Vampyre Blogs - Coming Home" which we re-released as the first Young Adult (YA) installment of our Para-Earth Series.

Speaking of Helen's new series, we created not one but two book trailers, one for each book. 

                                          

This was the first time I'd ever made a book trailer and it was a blast. Helen wrote a short script for each and also found a bunch of images she wanted used in them. I not only supplied the expertise in turning it all into a video, but also the voice-over. 

Now all this voice-over work, as brief as it was, led to yet another new project. At the urging of many others, I started looking into creating audiobooks. I spent a couple of months researching equipment and software and how to use it all. Eventually, I finally started recording a couple of our short stories from our anthology "The Vampyre Blogs - One Day At a Time" and got some seriously positive feedback, as well as some solid tips.

Here's one of them:

  

                                  

I've recorded several more in the meantime, with the hopes of eventually having the entire anthology recorded in the coming months. 

This leads me back to my efforts to get into creating full-scale audiobooks. In spite of all my research and blogging about all the technical aspects of creating an audiobook (there are seven entries in this blog already with a few more to come) I still wasn't sure I was ready to fully go for it. Then in early November I went to a class about voice-over work and got the reassurance I needed from a pro. As she told me in an e-mail "You've got the chords for this..."

With this in mind I've been fully throwing myself into completing the audio recordings of Helen's first solo book "Forever's Too Long". To date 20 of the 22 chapters are recorded and edited. I have re-record two more and get them edited. Once their done and meet with her approval (I had recorded them earlier but neither of us were happy with the results hence the do-over) we will be submitting the entire set to Audible. We're hoping this will happen no later than the end of this month (January 2020). From there I intend to continue recording more stories from the anthology as well as begin turning her second book "Forever Haunted" into an audio, as well as "The Vampyre Blogs - Coming Home" in which Helen will be lending her vocal talents to bringing those characters more to life.

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't started turning "The Bridge" or "The Ship" into audiobooks, instead of jumping to "The Vampyre Blogs - Coming Home" and "TVB - One Day At a Time". The answer is simple, length. Both "The Bridge" and "The Ship" are much longer than any of the other books I'm tackling and will take a great deal more time to record. Plus, I still have to come up with voices for all the various characters in those two books. So until I've nailed down voices for everyone, those are on the slow track for now, but they will be happening.

But getting back to 2019, with all this artwork and recording, did I get ANY writing done? The answer is of course I did. Some of it was on the long-awaited sequel to "The Bridge" and "The Ship".  

"The Door" is fully under way, and will hopefully finally see the light of day by the end of this year if not sooner. As this book is a major turning point in the Para-Earth Series, I really want to get this book completed as much as people want to read it. However, some of it's progress will depend on another writing project with my other collaborator Rich Caminiti.

"The Pass" has been one of the most ambitious projects I've worked on to date. It is also the only book I've worked on as a long-distance collaboration, which has involved trading off chapters and as well many, MANY Skype sessions. But Rich and I are closing in on a finished 1st draft and then the process of creating a 2nd cleaner draft will begin in another month or so. So I will have much to do on that front. After the 2nd draft, it will be sent to beta-readers and an editor for further clean-up. Our hopes is to have the book out by the end of the year, but we will see what happens. We refuse to rush the book without getting it as clean and exciting as possible. And on a side note, the 2nd installment of that tale is also under way as I write. So more on that will be coming in future blog posts.

Also on the writing front I completed 3 brand new short stories for our other site "The Vampyre Blogs - Private Edition". Two of those tales were rather lengthy and took several months apiece to complete. Yet in spite of their length, they are still considered short stories and not novelettes or novellas.

So that covers most of 2019.  

What's in store for 2020? 

Well, I've already covered the fact that I'm close to releasing a complete audiobook, which I hope to follow with at least 2 more before year's end. As I mentioned earlier, one will be "The Vampyre Blogs - One Day At a Time" anthology, the other will be Helen's 2nd book "Forever Haunted". I've got voices prepared for both titles and depending on how things go I may get "The Vampyre Blogs - Coming Home" under way as well.

When it comes to my own writing getting "The Pass" into a finished 2nd draft and sent to beta-readers and an editor are the top demands. Rich and I would like to see it reach readers by the end of the year, but I know from experience that there's still so much to do before that can happen. But we will see.

I'm already planning several new short stories for "The Vampyre Blogs - Private Edition" as well as beginning preparations to put together and 2nd anthology with several never before seen stories included.

"The Door" of course is another priority for me. I'd really like to see that finished and prepped for release this year. With luck, and patience, I hope to make that actually happen. 

And of course, I'll be making new book trailers as well as helping format Helen's next two books in her Forever Detective series.  

So that's what's been and what is coming. There's a lot on our plates, but we'll keep bringing you new posts regarding all these projects and more so stay tuned. Please accept this late wish for a HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all and as always keep writing.