End of 2024 Update

What a year it’s been! Whole new stories taking shape, and old ones morphing to keep up with the times. I’m very happy to announce that The Sitherwyck Spoils has been entered into the December 2024 Binderly pitchfest. The tastemakers at Fantasy and Frens will be reading through a (slightly) reworked version of the novel, now a lean 150,000 words! I hope they enjoy this draft, and I am, as they say in Germany, “pushing my thumbs”!

Psychopomp Blues is also well on its way to a second draft. It never fails to amaze me how much a story can warp on a second run through. Whole scenes and characters pop out of the ground like daisies to lend a helping hand, and you end up saying things with your work that you never even considered in the first draft. It’s such a gratifying process, and I can’t wait to read through it myself, let alone get other eyes involved.

Lastly, the most mundane and yet significant step in 2024; I got a new job! No longer will I be cramming edits into my lunch breaks and yearning for empty weekends to write through. My new office management position gives me Mondays and Fridays off, time I can now spend polishing projects, cooking up sequels and even throwing together some brand new titles. The knowledge that I will have more days at this desk, working on these blogs and getting my stories out there brings me so much joy.

So while 2025 might look bleak, I’m building a moat around my peace and standing sentry. Maybe it’s naive optimism, but if the last decade has taught me anything, it’s that as long as my stories can grow and change for the better, I can keep going.

That much I know is true.

PB