I should be writing THE CHRISTMAS SURPRISE but I went down that rabbit hole known as Youtube and discovered Russian slap fighting tournaments. While it sounds straight of of some trashy underground novel, it’s a legitimized sport over there, further cementing the reputation that my Russian friends are f***ing insane.

Speaking of, it’s almost finished. The cover design team over at Mottfolio Design is working on it as I type, and it should be released just in time for Christmas. Since this is a Christmas story, I should have gotten it out sooner but I had to finish GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY first. Priorities, man.

The epic fantasy will be next, though I will finish a few smaller projects in the meantime, I’m still title hunting for my next Four Horsemen Universe title, featuring my mysterious alien species known only as the Draaki. They are a dying species, almost extinct in fact, which is why they aren’t talked about in the 4HU. If there were a lot of them then they would be overpowered, and we don’t want a race of Mary Sues running around now, do we? 🙂

Speaking of 4HU novels, today Mark Wandrey released the collection of short stories he originally had exclusively on his Patreon as “Jim Cartwright at Large” earlier this year. Titled RAKNAR QUEST, it’s currently available over on Amazon for those of you who missed the serials. This book will help fill in the gap between the end of The Revelations Cycle and lead you into The Omega Wars in the 4HU. I enjoyed them mostly, since it did answer a lot of questions I had about Splunk early on.

It’s getting colder here. I almost had some pipes rupture because it got cold, fast, this past week and I had forgotten about my outside hose in the backyard. Fortunately it got shut off before it blew up, but still… this is Virginia. It shouldn’t be this cold in November. On the other hand, I did state that if it became cold I wouldn’t complain. So… no complaining.

I don’t know who else is doing NaNoWriMo but if I were keeping track (I am, unofficially) I’m at roughly 25,800 words so far this month. Right on track for the 50,000 word goal (should that be my goal). However, I go by the year, and I am currently at 285,000 words written so far. If I keep pace I should be able to beat 325,000 words for the year. That’s the true goal. I’d really like a 500,000 word year in 2020. That’ll make up for the lack of production I had this summer.