Finally I am back to writing! Over all of 2023 all sorts of changes occurred and things have finally settled down. I’ve jokingly told people the only thing that didn’t change was where I park my car at work, but that’s close.

Our last kid moved out last February. Of course, since he is a contractor, there are still all sorts of materials outside and inside. He promises that ‘eventually’ they’ll all be moved.

Then we fixed up the lower level of our raised ranch and moved my oldest daughter and family in–daughter, husband and five kids. My computer was disconnected and setup again twice. Then, for some reason, I was sick once each month from November through February. I’ll be glad to see winter gone.

However! I’m back writing again and Book 7 is now over 90,000 words. The plan is to finish the first draft by the end of April and off to the editor. Generally there are three edit sessions each by the editor and me. Right now I’m figuring out what to include and what to put off to the next book.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, Book 7 will end with two cliffhangers. The reason is that there are things happening around the team that they are oblivious to.

The character with the most ‘screen time’ in Book 7 is Misa, the assassin. As you could guess, she does have opportunity to demonstrate her skills.

Characters returning from earlier books include Dammeron, TakIndigo, Matthew Bennett, Lucillenda and Flores Thilirium. And one really big surprise.

I don’t want to say too much as there are lots of surprises. The All-star voting commences and the All-star matches occur on Christmas Day.

Finally, the book will include a short story about 8 year old Chaoschick. I was attempting to write a story to fit the first line required for a contest. However, I wasn’t able to stretch the story to the minimum length. So, don’t blame me for the Mickey-Mouse first line.

For this book, I will explore services to produce a professional (or something close to professional) book cover. Unfortunately, the artist that I obtained the picture for the book cover of the revised book 1 prefers to have his ‘models’ without clothes and in intimate positions. No, there will be no naked Ravens. 😉

Then, even with full-time work, writing, etc, I’m going to be posting something every Sunday.

Those areas of human endeavor where art is created have become very crowded with the ability of anyone to post things to the internet. You only have to look at Amazon Kindle books or visit Soundcloud to see how much is done every single day. Needless to say, there are times where writers, music producers, artists, etc wonder why they are bothering to do what they do.

There are dark times when we sit and think that we’ll never succeed, we’ll never do anything good, we’re not getting better at it, etc. One content creator has done an excellent exposition on those feelings, how to address them and more. The video is called ‘The Darker Side of Making Music’ but it does address everyone who does creative work. Cameron of Venus Theory calls it a rant, but it soberly discusses all the self-doubt that creators run into. And he has a great voice.

Generally it take Amazon a while to integrate the paperback and kindle versions onto the same webpage. So here is the paperback only link.

Cleaning the criminals out of Bestmartin is one thing, but the Iskandar organization is now handed a a list of 118 possible criminal agents in the organization. The VP of the minor leagues has fled with members of his department, but they aren’t on the list. While Iskandar Prime resumes their winning ways on the field, more schemes are festering in the background. When a batch of illegal forged documents appear, the Tournament Committee can’t ignore the situation any more. Local security, planetary security and the All-Alliance Police Force (AAPF) are soon involved.

With the All-star voting approaching along with a new match type, Onslaught, the Secundus team is reorganized by a new team manager and half the team is replaced. Suspicious match malfunctions are still occurring for Prime and trouble is brewing outside the Alliance where crime organizations thrive.

Then a mysterious black-clad assassin appears…and she works for the AAPF!