Heartbeat: March 2022

As promised, this is the third heartbeat. Every six weeks, I’ll send another update as I finish and release the first Postal Marines quartet by 3 November 2022.

Progress Made. In January, I announced the Postal Marines relaunch. Since my last update, I finished Maltuseblan’s Gambit. All that remains are a few TODO reminders, and tweaks when I do my continuity edit later this year. Three of four books planned for November are done. On to the fourth.

In March, I started re-drafting Imbroglio, the story that inspired the entire Postal Marines series. The first chapter is in the can, and I am a good third of the way through Chapter 2. My approach of lightly plotting the book then plotting each chapter as I encounter it works well, but I lose a day or two when I plot. I would love to plot a chapter and draft it in the same week. Regardless, I am tracking to finish this by end-May, which is my planned completion.

If you are curious to see how things are going, I track my progress on my website. It is a geeky tool pulling from a Google Sheet with custom coded analysis. As time permits, I am making it into its own application. I included a screenshot of the calendar graph below. This shows the days I wrote, and how much I contributed. The dashboard adds context.

All this, and I went camping with my youngest son and a group of his friends last weekend. We played airsoft. My old Army training was there, but not the athletic build that accompanied it.

Plans to next Heartbeat? When next we meet, I should draft four more chapters in Imbroglio. My engagement with the cover artist starts in May, so one cover should be done (or nearly so).

Beta Readers? Earlier, I asked for beta readers. A few of you stepped up, thank you. On advice of council, I’ll be holding on sending the works out until later in the year. If you are interested, email me.

What do you read? I will wrap up the first quartet of the Postal Marines this year. After that, I have 12 more in the series I could write. I am also looking for a new author or series to read. Let me know what you are interested in, and I’ll give it a look.