Coming Soon…Here

Hope you've been enjoying catching up over the last few days!

For my final installment, I figured I'd share a little about the stories coming down the pipeline for later in 2020, and also 2021.

I write every day like an addict, and now that I'm in a healthier place, I've been trying to really up my daily output - which means I'm putting out projects at a much faster pace.

What does that mean for 2020? TWO novels to release, not just one! :-)

Here is my second novel for 2020, and it'll drop sometime close to Christmas. It's a fun story that started as a group of short stories that I knit into a greater storyline, following multiple accounts of an alien species landing on Earth.

The inspiration for Here came from watching the crisis in Syria, and how it displaced families all across the globe and upended the social structure of many affected nations. I had an idea to do a story from the viewpoints of a family of refugees, as well as the people who helped rescue and protect them.

Since I write sci-fi, I transformed this family from a group of humans to a family of aliens, who must hide from a vengeful alien race that destroys their home planet, and also from the humans on Earth who want to capture them.

I also drew inspiration from the current events in the US following the 2016 election, and the migration nightmare caused by our current administration. As I grew more horrified by the treatment of legal asylum seekers, I felt I needed an outlet for my frustrations - and Here became that outlet.

I dreamed of a world where if rural folks could just meet the immigrants they vilified, perhaps they might become friends instead of enemies?

Yeah, you can tell I like to take my frustrations with the world at large and put them on the page as a way to help deal with my own personal stress and sadness.

So Here started as a short story told by the perspective of a hay farmer who had aliens land in his hay field, and how his views on them changed as he related to the alien family. In novel format, this expanded out to accounts of a variety of humans and aliens, giving a "he said, she said" account of how everything happened during the initial alien landing period.

It is by far the longest of all the novels I've written to date, but it reads fast and fun, and is actually a story safe for the whole family to read. (No sex, violence, or gore.)

I don't have a cover for the tale yet, but I've gone out and taken photos of the landscapes that inspired the story for my Instagram page, and here are a few of the fun places:

Here is a tale of stereotypes overcome, friendships made, and also the difference between a government's official stance, and the way individual people actually function when confronted with a situation they are told to fear.

The novel is in editing right now, and I'm getting a cover made soon, so it's on track to be released by Christmas. I'll have more news on this story as it gets through the first stages of editing.

The other novel I'm getting ready is Feeding - an anthology of sci-fi/horror stories I've written over the last few years.

Whenever I finish a novel, I let it sit for at least a month before I start editing - that way I can kind of "forget" it, then re-read the story with fresh eyes. This helps me catch a lot of stuff I might miss if the story was too fresh in my brain, and it's worked well on all of my tales.

So during that month or more period, I usually write short stories to keep up with my daily writing goals. I've accumulated a group of them over time, and they need to see the light of day too! :-)

Feeding will have at least eight different short stories and novellas, including my short story New Caviar.

I'm also working on a new zombie-related novella to go into Feeding, and it's turning out to be a fun romp. :-)

Look for Feeding coming around February 2021, or sooner if I can get things all put together.

Well, that's all I've got new for now, but I'll add more blog posts as I get closer to the release of Here, and if I have any new updates.

Thanks so much for reading my stuff, and wishing you all the best!

Cheers,

Steph