What comes next?
It’s the end of 2024 and, as tends to happen at the end of every year, I’m left reflecting on and considering the future and the question of “What comes next?”
From a writing/publishing perspective, probably the next Light Keeper book. While that second book won’t wrap-up the series, it ostensibly clears my catalogue of most long pending active writing project. (I started that sequel right after the original in 2013 and have been retooling the first portion of it over and over again since.)
Though, the thing I’m reflecting on more right now is more my personal, interior life.
I’ve been very focused on publishing for more than 10 years now and I would like to try to put a little bit more focus on my personal life in the coming New Year. Pretty much since high school, my highest priorities have been school/work, writing, and (in all honestly) following various pieces of pop art.
At this point now, I’ve finished school, I’ve advanced to the degree that I would say I’m comfortable with on my current career path, and I’ve published two books. While I wish finishing school made me more hirable than it has, while I wish pay in my field was better, while I wish my books allowed me to quit my day job, while I wish pop media alone provided the sense of companionship it used to — I’ve effectively achieved the goals I’ve spent the past ten years and change moving toward.
I want now to try to be a better friend to the people I care about, I want to be a better romantic partner for the sake of myself and the people I enter into such relationships with, and — if I can manage it — I’d like to be a person who is overall more in touch with my own wants and needs.
I still plan to write and self-publish — especially if I can achieve any sort of financial viability from selling books —- but I will likely not be as full steam ahead as I have been these past four years. I’d love to say that the next Light Keeper book will be out in 2025/2026 followed by another adult fantasy book the year after However, I’ve invested all of my 20s to this particular pursuit (largely without regret), I’d like to at least begin my 30s focusing on what others perhaps focused on in their 20s.
I’m planning to continue writing and posting here. There’s a decent chance my writing here becomes more frequent and more varied as my life becomes a bit busier in area’s outside of writing and this becomes my main outlet for writing.
*****
The Wilderlands is available for physical purchase now from Barnes & Noble and Amazon. The Wilderlands ebook is available now on Kindle here, on Nook here, on Kobo here, and on Apple here.