What’s New?

Not much is new, but at the same time, a lot is new here!

The Lucky MacIntyre short stories are coming along very well, and I’m on track to have all the first drafts finished by Christmas, or maybe even a little before. I got 700-and change words in today, right on target, and I am loving how this is turning out. I’ve always loved Westerns, ever since I read my first Louis L’Amour novel when I was a kid. It’s the one genre of book my mother and I both loved; I branched out quickly into fantasy and some science fiction, and she stayed more in the thriller/adventure/contemporary realm. But we had Westerns in common, and our shared library was delightful.

I have all her books now, and I know she would be pleased to see them on my shelves.

I’m also embarking on a new project! I know, I know. “EJ,” you say, “you’re already writing a new short story series! What else could you possibly need to work on at the same time?”

It’s a revision project! I picked up the printed manuscript from Staples yesterday so I can get started on the revision process for a new novel. This one hearkens all the way back to some of the very first fantastical stories I enjoyed as a kid: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Fun fact: The Sword in the Stone is my all-time favorite Disney movie. I read every copy of every version of Arthurian tales and legends I could get my greedy little hands on.

The new revision project doesn’t have a real title yet, and I’ve been calling it New Circle, so that’s how I’ll refer to it throughout the process, until I come up with a better title for it. It’s an alternate-Earth re-imagining of my favorite bits of Arthurian lore, set in a WWI-era time period. The Knights are coming back… and they’ve got a lot of work to do.

It’ll be a haul of a revision. I wrote the first draft entirely in the wrong characters’ point of view, so I’ll have to rewrite most of it, even the scenes I want to keep and work into the final draft. But it’s a fun story about characters I love, and I am excited to get to work!