Oh Yeah, I Was Supposed to Continue My Last Post...

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Okay, I'll admit it's been more than say two weeks. Come to think of it, it's been more like almost four weeks. But in my defense, I'd point out that hey, this makes at least 1 post per month so far this year! That's right, this isn't March, or April or even October and given my track record last year, for me, this is soon.

So there what do you think of that, Perry the Snootypuss... 


SPECIAL ALERT!!!





Okay, enough with the silliness. Wait, who am I kidding? Myself? Not bloody likely. I know me too well. In fact, I've known me since the day I was born.

FYI, I've recently mastered Doofenshmirtz's voice and added it to my voice library. I have NO idea, when I'll ever use it, but hey... maybe one day I'll get invited by the creators of Phineas and Ferb to stand in for Dan Povenmire. You never know. (Oh, and just in case Dan or his partner Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, happen to be reading this, I can also do the voices of several other characters and a number of original ones if you could ever use an extra voice talent).

Now that I've gotten all that out of my system, let's get back to the actual blog post here. 

In my last post, I was talking about deciding what to do with "The Door" and it's prequel storyline set back around the time of the War of 1812. Where we'd be finding out more about the dreaded "Door" and just how long it has been plaguing Cassandra Elliott's family and ancestors. I have settled on the storyline covering 3-4 novels, starting with "The Dread of the Door", which is now the working title for the storyline focusing on Cassandra's ghostly ancestor Brandon, when he was actually alive. This is the novel I wrote some time ago, that has a completed 1st draft. I will be focusing on getting a 2nd more updated draft done on it, then dispersing it among Beta-readers and my editor for comments and suggestions. After which will come a more clean 3rd draft which may in turn wind up being the final draft. When will this be released? Later this year, or early next year are my thoughts at this time.

The book currently named "The Door" will focus on Cassandra, Julie, Alex and Veronica, will follow hopefully in the following year. That novel will leave off will be leaving the readers with the old "What happens next?" trope, and will be followed by the release of the 2nd part of Brandon's tale. 

That novel will once more fill in many gaps and supply the readers with background and more information about what lies beyond that ominous door. But the second novel will stop short of actually bringing the full story arc to a close.

The final installment of this storyline will occur in climax will take place in the 2nd Cassandra novel, which will involve a special moment across time where the Elliott families will bring to an end, or so they hope, to the threat posed by the portal that has haunted them all for over 200-300 years.

Of course, I still have other projects for this year. I have to brush up on my pen and ink skills to see if I have the talent for continuing the style of artwork, readers came to love in "The Pass", which was provided by the fabulously talented Gabrielle Callan. As I've mentioned before, that was the book I worked on with my old high-school friend Rich Caminiti who not long ago became a grandfather for the 1st time. His son Richard Caminiti III, and his wife Shannon, welcomed twin boys last June. All are doing well, I'm happy to say. 


Rich and I have an almost complete 1st draft of the sequel to "The Pass", and I hope to get back to it soon. Hopefully, we might actually get this one out before the end of the year. (Again, I stress that word 'hopefully'), but no promises. Why? Well...

Currently, I'm still working hard on the book cover for Helen's next installment for her "Forever Detective Series". That series, for those who are new here, involves a private investigator turned vampire, in New York City during the 1940s. It's a fun series, with a very interesting cast of characters, as well as some seriously wild mysteries that take our hero and his cohorts to some very unusual places. The newest installment will be the 6th novel in the series and is titled "Forever on Broadway". I've almost finished penciling in the image, and from there it will be on to soft pastels and a sneak peek of the finished cover.

I'm also still dealing with trying to get my Social Security Disability squared away.


This is my 3rd year of fighting for it, and I'm not about to stop. 

So those are just a couple of the obstacles that keep throwing me off my stride. But, I'm not going to stop. I love telling/writing stories and have a growing backlog of ideas that I have to tackle. But for now, my plate is pretty full and what I've been listing between my last entry and this one, are what I'm focusing on.

Oh... and I'm going to be recording Helen's 5th book "Forever Chosen" for audio as well before the year is out. Why has it been taking so long? Check out my next blog entry and I'll explain.

Until then, stay tuned and keep writing and being awesome everyone.



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