Getting Close
I only have a few chapters left to manually edit. Then I'll be ready for a basic copy edit, and I'll use a robot for that. AI tools are well suited to look for missing punctuation, incorrect or doubled words, and other syntax issues. By the time the next newsletter goes out, a final draft should be in the hands of my beta readers. While they are reading and commenting, I can make progress on the other work involved in preparing the book for publication.
Artwork
After posting some cover ideas a few weeks ago and receiving lots of terrific feedback, an artist friend and former coworker reached out to offer his services. We're tossing around ideas and some sample sketches. More on that once we've made more progress.
Life
Being a writer is more than yellow notepads and boxes of pencils. I don't have some wealthy patron to support my creative habits, so I continue to search for a full-time position to fund me. I've realigned my resume and portfolio, and that seems to be generating a little more activity, but it's still a rough market out there.
Chocolate and Peanut Butter
One of my other creative pursuits is playing tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs). If you're unfamiliar, think Dungeons & Dragons and all its related kin. At their heart, they’re an exercise in cooperative storytelling. Dice, rules, and reference books all help provide structure, but you're still sitting around a table with some friends telling a story together. Sometimes you're epic heroes; other times you might be the Scooby-Doo gang investigating a haunted circus tent. The tone and flavor of a game are up to you and your friends.
My current gaming group is closing in on the final chapter of a three-year campaign to track down and eliminate an undead mummy king. I can't wait to remove his mummy wraps and discover it was Old Man Johnson this whole time.
Truly, the TTRPG market has exploded since I first started playing in the early '80s. You can find games in any genre. Last year, a Kickstarter project caught my attention called Procedural! In it, you play out an episode of a traditional police drama TV show. The rules give you cop tropes to play, cases to solve, side-story drama, and even a season mode so you can play multiple cases as the same characters. Each session is broken into four segments that mimic the acts in a typical one-hour drama.
A TTRPG about TV cops? How could I not back a game like that? Obviously I did, and the book arrived earlier this week. One of these weeks, when the group needs to take a break from endless sand dunes and fighting giant scorpions, I think we'll have to play out an episode or two.
"A good police procedural isn't really about the crime. The crime is just the engine that forces very different people into a room together under extreme pressure to see what happens."