Matthew P. Schmidt
My Blog
October 2022 Status Report
Or, ACK! The year’s almost over, and I haven’t written another C&D book!
Here’s the low-down, straight from the heron’s mouth:
I planned the side-C&D book, which I will cryptically refer to as a C&D:E, long before 2020 happened. Then 2020 happened, and one of its faultlines jutted against one of the themes of C&D:E.
I am being vague because the book is not about 2020 or its faultlines, and I don’t want to bias anyone into thinking it is. (It’s not.) I have spent months trying to disentangle C&D:E from real-world politics, which it was never intended to be involved with to begin with.
What does this mean for writing it? It means that I’ve been chipping away at it, sometimes only one or two sentences at a time, as I slowly push past the emotional pain it all caused me. Because of that, though I intended to have the draft long done by now, I’m still getting started.
I have firmly resolved, God willing, to get the first draft done by the end of the year. I’ll do NaNoWriMo on it if I have to. After that, I’ll head straight for C&D3.
How about other stories? I’ve mentioned these on the mailing list (which you can subscribe to here), but I am working on other projects:
The LitRPG “Serial”
I was originally planning to release a LitRPG serial (on RR and Patreon, etc.) but I have run into two problems. The first is that it’s generally agreed that you should delete the chapters off all the other sites and put it exclusively on Kindle Unlimited. I don’t really want to delete things, and I also don’t want to have some LitRPGs in KU and some wide. The second, more critical, is that I haven’t been able to keep up with writing a new chapter every week, so a serial is already out of the question.
So what I am planning with it? I’m currently thinking I will just release direct to Kindle Unlimited. I don’t know when that will be, and it’s possible it’ll be ready before C&D:E or C&D3 is ready. I don’t want to be Mr. Stop-one-project-start-another, and I think I said I would get the next C&Ds out first. But what do you want? Would you rather I release another LitRPG while I’m working on more C&D? Let me know in the comments or email.
The Refugeverse Reboot
This is going pretty well, although I don’t know not only when it will be complete, but when it will be out. I’m considering more traditional publishing for it.
The Mysterious Romance Project
I’ve hinted at this on my mailing list, but I’ve been working on a romance project under another pen name. Because I don’t want to mess up Amazon’s algorithms by having a ton of LitRPG and general SF/F readers pour into a romance book, it will be some time before I will mention it on this blog, but I do intend to mention it eventually
The Surprise YA Dystopia!
Somewhat by accident, I wrote a dystopia novella (unrelated to the World of Wishes) and it’s almost ready! Stay tuned for a cover reveal.
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What to the Modern White Guy is “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”?
I have always been inspired by the story of Fredrick Douglass, a slave who escaped slavery to become a renowned orator and author. His is not the story of a man who was second-rate, shooed into the spotlight only for his relative accomplishments compared to his past. What use would that be? No, he was not merely any random speaker, but Fredrick Douglass, a name that survives to this day in history books, no matter how often it is skimmed over.
Signal Boost: SINGULARITY SUNRISE!
A shameless plug for someone else.
The Taste for Realism
I have seen, and admittedly indulged in that fan activity I will call the Fact Checking Game. It goes like this: First, you take some work of fiction, particularly a popular one, and you find some fascinating idea or claim it has. Then you deconstruct it with real world logic, checking all the facts and invariably coming up with an unrealistic or at least implausible conclusion. At this point, bemoaning that the creator did not think of this may commence. As a sequel, you can find some plausible counterpoint, and argue with the proponents of the former conclusion until the cows come home.
This is not, in itself, a bad thing.
Happy new year! I wish you all the usual and very good food for 2023 (Because good fortune is well and good but good food is never wrong : ) )!