Monthly Update: August 2025

Imperial Heart is over 90% to its wordcount goal! The final sequence is going to take us above the projected word count, but that’s what editing is for. I’m really excited about how this book is shaping up, but I think I’ll be taking a break from Crystal Empire for a little bit this Fall. I have a few small projects I’ve wanted to work on and that time will be great to do it.

2025 July Update

Another month come and gone. July moved quickly, unlike Imperial Heart, which is now at 80% complete on its first draft. The book is really shaping up. I think its some of my best work yet. While I’m behind my goals, it’s definitely rounding the final stretch!

Most of the month was spent on travel. July is a great month to get out of Florida and visit family up north. The kids had a blast. We haven’t gotten many places this year, its hard with little kids, but we’re excited to do more now that number two is walking.

Monthly Update: June 2025

Progress on Crystal Empire has been slow and not very steady. Work’s been a bit of a mad dash lately, and it’s been harder to get back into this crystalline state of mind. We did hit 73% of the projected word count with about 10 chapters left in the outline. I have a feeling Imperial Heart is going to come in a bit above its planned 100,000 words.

We’re also making some progress on the Constellara Project’s first anthology. I’m excited to be lauching a few sample stories on the website. We’ve created a Patreon for anyone interested in sponsoring the project!

The Process

Writing is hard. Not in the way that manual labor is hard, or even in the way that a puzzle or a level in a video game can be hard. Instead, writing is hard like getting in shape is hard, like therapy is hard, like your job is hard. Sometimes success pours out of you, and others you can’t get even the simplest of results. You get stuck, and making progress might as well be impossible. And yet in all of these things there are people who do them every day, succeeding consistently where you most often fail. How? What separates success from failure?

Time Flies

It’s been an eventful few months for me.

I started off the year with a lot of energy and excitement to be writing again. I still am, but I’ve had to delay a lot of the writing for almost the entire past three months. Why? Because life, that’s why. A lot has happened in the past three months.

• moved across the country
• joined an exciting, fast moving project at work
• officially in toddler mode now

Reviewing Spring of Black Flowers was enlightening. It’s both better than I remember it being, and still, definitely, not a good book. It could be a great book after some major structural work and passes for setting and character details, which I don’t expect to get to any time soon.

Old Habits

I did it again.

I started blogging, then dropped off the face of the earth for like… eight weeks. Usually it’s more. Sorry?

I tend to overcommit and stretch myself thin. I have too many priorities, and when I have to chose, I tend to pick my most personal objectives last. I haven’t been writing much fiction since the new year, despite how energized I was by everything going in. A lot of things have been in flux, all of it good. I hope to share more someday soon here.

What the Tech? Art and Artificial Intelligence

Welcome to What the Tech, a series where we explore and make sense of technologies and trending topics impacting IT, Security, and Business.

Art and Artificial Intelligence

Please read this blog post and generate some images to accompany it. Let’s start with a title/Header Image

For a while now, many have been stoking fears of automation and artificial intelligence taking away jobs and ruining things for creatives. Why automate art when there’s other bs we could be automating away? Well, we’ll get to that, but I want to assert here that AI is not replacing artists, writers, performers or any other creative person.

2023 Year in Review

Where to begin? What a year 2023 has been. A lot has happened, and I’m excited to catch you all up on everything.

TL;DR: I have had a great year, personally and professionally. Everyone is happy and healthy.

Writing

I’m writing again, obviously. I’m excited about it, and it feels really good to be putting “pen” to “paper” so to speak, after a concerted effort this November to try a NaNoWriMo. I didn’t succeed in cranking out everything, but I ended the month with a lot of momentum on this project, and will be continuing with it into next year.