June 2026-Still Kicking!

Hello Fearless Readers!

To answer the burning question on everyone’s minds: no, I didn’t die, or fall off the face of the earth, or get abducted by aliens.

Nevertheless, it’s June 2026, I’ve somehow been radio silent for nearly 6 months, and it’s time that I give some kind of update about what I’ve been up to.

So, without further ado, here’s a little summary of some of the big-ticket writing items that have been going on while I’ve been MIA.

Audiobook:

My most immediate piece of writing news is that the Audiobook of Finding Silvereyes is almost, ALMOST ready to be released upon the world.

Last year, after I came to grips with the fact that Ken, the narrator for Becoming Glitch, didn’t have time to narrate my second book, I finally made myself to hold auditions for someone new. It was through that process that I found Gabe, a talented voice actor with a great attitude and a bit of TV experience, somewhere in late October.

Off the bat, I had some early delusions about being about to finish the audiobook by Christmas, which was obviously not to be.

Since then, unfortunately, it seems that Gabe and I hit every delay that we could manage to stumble into along the way. This ranged from health issues to tech issues to (albeit fruitful) discussions about character accents.

The result of this is that the audiobook has taken longer than either of us expected, but also that it contains a large cast of characters with a plethora of unique voices and accents. To top it off, I got to record the Afterword in person, just as I did for Becoming Glitch.

It’s been a production, but one that I look forward to being able to share with you, I hope, in the next several weeks.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Short story:

On the spur of the moment, I learned about and entered a short story competition in January. The story had to be “Fantasy Holiday Themed.” It also had to include several listed prompts, be less than 2,001 words, and be written in 10 days or less. I'd never done something like that before, and I had a blast writing it.

Unfortunately, after the submission, I had to promptly sit on it for several months and not share it publicly until the competition was finished.

Now that the wait is over, I’d love to share the story. The main hurdle is that I'm not sure where and how best to post it.

(Feel free to let me know if you have suggestions.)

Book 3:

I’m still plugging away at what I call “Version 4” of book 3. The book has a title that I like very much, but that I am continuing to keep under wraps for the time being.

Again, this book is notably shorter than book 2 was, and I am expecting it to wrap up the Quantum Parables trilogy, although I’d like to leave more room in Glitch’s universe to be explored as I’m able.

TBH, I’d expected to be further along in the writing process by now, but between issues with the audiobook, some questions about the plot and wrap up, and, honestly, a lot of life stuff going on, I’ve been trying the best that I know how.

Thanks for all of your patience.

Misc:

I generally try to keep my writing life and my personal life fairly separate, but I’ll mention in passing that I recently went through a very painful breakup.

That, among other things, has encouraged me to try to take life a bit slower than I had been: to write, sure, and work on what’s important sometimes, but also sometimes to just be.

Before that, I’ll mention that I went on a particularly cold/ rainy housebuilding trip to Mexico in February. I also went for an overnight backpacking trip for the first time in a hot minute a few weeks ago.

I'd say that that, plus the fact that I’m still doing engineering work at the energy startup that I joined last year, is the short of it for now.
There are lots of things to stay tuned for, but this is me realizing that I’d been radio silent for far too long.

To end this with a question, what do you do to balance living in overdrive with also just living?

I’d love to hear what you think.

You can contact me by email, or by the Contact Me page on my website, or on my Facebook Author page.

For now, I hope that your June is off to a fantastic start.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Daniel