Pollen, Words, and Colors

Spring Photographs

My wife and I visited the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm and snapped some sunrise pictures of the flowers and the hot air balloons. I thought mine came out pretty good, though this was the event that spurred me to finally pickup a zoomier lens.

When we went out to the Rowena Plateau Trail, I was armed with a new Sigma 20-200 lens. Some room for improvement on my end with settings and focus points, but it was really nice having the flexibility of a super zoom lens on a hike. No need to change lenses in the middle of a trail or worse yet, have to lug up multiple lenses.

Update on Books

Vampire Detective Agency: Double Date’s October 13th release grows closer with every sunset. Multiple people have now read through the current draft’s 86,376 words without any complaints. From all the feedback I’ve gotten, it seems like my efforts to write a fun follow up have been successful. Those of you who asked for more backstory and mystery will be happy to know that test readers report both of those boxes are checked.

Without any major re-writes necessary, I’ve set aside working on polishing for the moment. Instead, I’m going to spend May working on two different beasts: finishing a first draft of Shepherds of Timeworn Dreams and getting the outline finalized for Vampire Detective Agency: Three Hairy Suitors. They’re each the third book in their series, but each has very different challenges I’ve struggled to overcome.

My first two Shepherd novels were X-Files inspired police procedurals with an emphasis on spine chilling thrills. The last one is shaping up to be a post-apocalyptic road trip slash manhunt. The problem I ran into is that the more of a manhunt I made the book, the more it started to feel like an action movie and not a supernatural thriller. So I tried adding more of the road trip elements, only to find the pacing just ground to a halt. You can only have so many scenes in a car staring at the highway. After a year and several false starts, I think I’ve got the mixture right.

With the third Vampire Detective book, initially I was going to have Veronica and Larry each spend a few months apart while they dealt with the fallout of the 2nd book. But who wants to read six chapters of personal drama before the main story thread gets going? In the interest of not putting readers to sleep, I’m going to have them deal with their shit together in a messier way. Don’t worry, this book will deliver their happily ever after. For good. No cliffhanger.

Then, starting with book four, Vampire Detective Agency will become a series of one-shot paranormal romance mysteries focused on the side characters. First up will be Christoph, who will find love and danger when his neighbors start dying in mysterious ways.

Seeing Cool Names

Have you checked out Nasa’s satellite photography name art generator? You should. If you don’t like how your name looks, just keep hitting enter until you’re happy with the results.

Watching Now

I’m behind on reading, due to the above projects. But, I have been watching Will Trent with my wife. It’s a great detective mystery procedural that walks that fine line between drama and comedy. I would highly recommend it to anyone.