Today I am hailing from Full Circle Coffee in our hometown of Byron Center, Michigan. In many ways, Full Circle has become our second office. When a change of scene is needed, or I need to be reminded that there are other people that live in the frozen north, I come here.
Join me for a latte someday!
This month has been spent working on a few projects. When our publishing company isn’t demanding my attention, I spend my days planning out the second book for the Demon Tide series (Project #1). I am tossing around the idea of the Demon Tide: Celestial Wars as the name for the next title in the series. What do you think?
Demon Tide is a young adult apocalyptic thriller about a boy, Matt, who along with a few friends, encounter something terrifying in the hills of Idaho. In book one, (Hopefully coming out this summer!) they must face creatures only believed to be in legends, and learn some mysterious things about Matt’s grandfather and the mansion he owns.
In Book 2, (coming out later this year) Matt and the others will not only take on monsters of the underworld, but fight against a shadow government led by immortal beings!
The series is quickly becoming my favorite to write so far. There are monsters, sinister governments, demons, and even ancient technology, all wrapped up in a retro-yet-futuristic vibe!
Project #2 – (The Watcher Key Audiobook preparations & re-launch). After writing my first book: The Watcher Key, I have learned much more about what makes a story flow. It turns out that readers love shorter chapters and sentences, and simple ‘get-to-the-point’ dialogue.
In order to make my first book (and the series) marketable, I needed to rework some things in The Watcher Key. What does that include? Glad you asked.
My goals are to rewrite a few chapters (The prologue and chapter 1 needed some work), do some dialogue cleanup to sound better for audiobook, and shorten the chapters. What was previously 17 chapters is now 43! I even had one chapter that was over 11,000 words.
When this is finished, Stacy will have some illustrations to add to the new chapters. Then, I will pursue getting the entire series published in audiobook format, and putting together a box set for the series. Ambitious you say? Yes, it is. Stacy is about to lose her mind. The timeframe for all of this is ‘as soon as possible.’ Stay tuned!
Enough from Troy’s desk for now. There’s plenty of work to do. Be sure to take some time out to pray for Ukraine!
