I just realized it’s been a while since my last post.   I figure it’s time to let folks know what I’ve been up to before they start thinking I’ve been sitting on my ass playing video games.

Actually, I HAVE been sitting on my ass playing video games.   A lot.

I’ve also been editing the next story for Amazon, which is going to be “Court of the Abominatrix”.

For the newer fans, “Court of the Abominatrix” was a serial horror fiction piece I did in a similar format to “In Deed”/”The Iron Dead”.   In summary:  A group of strangers wake up in a labyrinth inhabited by a Lovecraftian succubus and her (literally) millions of horrific offspring.      Right now I’m halfway through the editing process and I expect to have it up on Amazon in early September.

The editing process for stories that I’ve already written involves a few stages.  First I read through the entire story and make wording changes, corrections, etc.  I also make notes for more substantial changes (such as adding or removing scenes).  Next I go back and actually make those substantial changes.   And finally I go through the entire story again with some proofreading software to catch all the poor grammar, etc.

Yes, proofreading software exists.   No, it isn’t as good as hiring an editor.   This whole “hire an editor” thing that everybody tells you to do is worthy of one of my old-school profanity-laden  rants, so I’ll just save that for later.    Moving on…

Right now I’m about a chapter away from finishing the first pass.  If I’m lazy I’ll be done in two days.     I do have some notes to address, but I won’t be making as many big changes as I had originally planned.     The whole point of these first few stories is to get them on Amazon as quickly as possible, so crafting additional chapters (which I had originally planned to do) defeats that purpose.   As it stands, the story is quite good, if a bit confusing, so I’m going to go with what I have for the most part.   If you were a big fan of the original ending, rest assured I won’t be touching it.

What I might be touching, though, is the title.     I like “Court of the Abominatrix,”  but I just can’t picture it looking good on any kind of cover.   It’s long and it’s got a long word in it and I just can’t see it.   So I may change it.

Speaking of which, somewhere in the next few weeks I have to come up with a cover.   I created the cover for “Iron Dead” myself.  I’ve got an idea for this new cover, but it may be beyond my limited artistic capabilities.  It’ll take a few days of tinkering around with Poser and Photoshop to see if I can do it.   If it takes longer than that, then I’ll probably just go out and purchase a cover.

So that’s where we are.   Stay tuned for more updates, probably in a couple of weeks.