So I’m starting to work on my space opera again (yay) but I have such a love/hate relationship with it. It’s so different from The Underground Dogs. In tone, plot, voice, setting, etc., etc., etc. Sometimes when I look at it I feel like it’s terrible. But just because it’s different doesn’t meant it’s terrible. Right?!

That’s what M says. He says so what if it’s different? Maybe that can be a good thing. And I think this space opera is fun and full of adventure. It’s just something fresh and different than my other one. I just don’t want people thinking it’s stupid and awful because they are expecting something exactly like U.D. for every other book I write.

I feel like I write so many different kinds of things. I have mysteries, sci-fis, fantasies…YA, adult…That’s what’s weird about me, I think; I don’t stick to one genre and one style. I guess that’s probably a problem if you’re “in the industry,” but that’s what makes writing fun to me. I guess I’ll have to wait and see what other people think…

I have two short stories I want to finish up and then I would like to publish my short story collection. And that collection has so many different types of stories. All really speculative fiction, though, so at least they have that in common. Because it’s important and practical to have something in common with a short story collection. One of those short stories is actually a former novel I was writing but now I would like to turn it into a short story. It is a comedy about a vampire. It’s super fun!

Well, anyway, that’s where I’m at. I’m hoping to complete my space opera novel/novelette (because I am uncertain just how long it will go) by the summer. That’s my goal. Hopefully I will be able to put my short story collection together by this summer, too. We shall see. Big goals.

-JCDK