J.R. Murdock

I’ve been busy. By busy I mean I’ve written 15,000 words in the past 10 days. I’m pounding through the next season of Golden West (you did see that the season finale posted, right? Follow the link to get caught up!) I’m very happy with the end of the season and how everything turned out. Mike and I ran into some bumps along the way, but it all came together. In the coming days I’ll be putting together Golden West to drop onto podiobooks and I’m sure Mike will do the same with Boyscouts of the Apocalypse.

As for how Golden West Season 2 is coming along, let’s just say now that all the introductory material is in place, the story will really start jumping along. I’ve already got the end of season two figured out and I have an idea where season 3 will end the run. I’ve known the story as a whole all along, it’s just how all the little pieces tied together.

Another notice, Mike and I will be taking a break so we can get ahead in the writing of the next season of the Action Pack Podcast. As I mentioned, I’m already 15,000 words in. I’ll be writing the entire thing this time instead of trying to write it month to month. This will hopefully prevent delays.

I’m also working on plotting out the next four books for Supernatural Learning. I will be writing these next (all in one shot). This will be me through the start of next year on this series. I will then continue on with the first two books of Asteroid Bunnies. Both these titles are middle grade and will weigh in around 20,000-25,000 words. They’ll be fun romps. Not too serious, but just enough to make the story interesting. I’m having a blast writing both of these (I did write Asteroid Bunnies once. I’ll be throwing that away and writing it all over again).

After those are complete, I’ll finally get back on track with Astel book 2. This was the first self-published work I did and I really want to get back into that universe. I will most likely write the second and third books in one shot. This will conclude that series as well.

THEN I will see what I want/need to write next. As I’ve said time and again, I’ve got so many books I want to write. It’s just a matter of sitting, typing, and getting the stories out there. Next year will see 4 more Supernatural Learning books (that I’ll need to write), Billy Barbarian 2, V&A Shipping 3, Of Gnomes and Dwarves 2, and who knows what else I’ll drop into the mix. I’m insane and I know it!

Oh, you were probably wondering what I meant by “Free is coming!” in the title. Well, next week I’ll be giving away Paradise Palms: A murder mystery in a time-traveling trailer park as well as the Supernatural Learning: Omnibus 1 (8th Grade). That’s right! Something for the grown ups, something for the younger ones. I’ll post more about this next week, but fear not! Free books will be yours next week! I’m excited to see what happens with the give away.

So I guess you’re wondering where I’m at. I said I was going to publish 28 books in 24 months, right? Well, here’s what we’ve got done, here’s what’s coming up.

1) My Teacher is a Zombie (published)

2)My Teacher is a Werewolf (published)

3) V&A Shipping (published)

4) Murdockian Tales (published)

5) My Teacher is a Vampire (published)

6) Paradise Palms (published)

7) Supernatural Learning Omnibus 8th Grade (published)

8) Billy Barbarian (coming in June!)

9) Golden West: Season 1 (coming in June!)

10) My Teacher is a Witch (coming in July!)

11) Of Gnomes and Dwarves: Chance Encounters (coming in August!)

12) V&A Shipping II (coming in September!)

13 My Teacher is a Ghost (Coming in October)

14) Astel: Chosen – rerelease (coming in December)

15) Asteroid Bunnies 1: Zanahoria (coming in December)

That gets us more than half way to 28. That’s 15 books in 12 months already laid out. I’ve already written all but two of these books. I have many more planned. I may be able to write additional books that I’m not planning on releasing this year, but next year (like my Giant Robot story, To Fall From the Sky, Life of Lists). These are all books I pulled from the schedule due to life eating up a lot of time I would have spent writing. Fear not. I write very fast and these may come back to the schedule. I do want to write them. I don’t want to just leave them drift off my mind. I also have a number of short stories I’d like to write.

Speaking of short stories, I have a bunch floating around on submission to various places and racking up rejections. I may be letting those all come back to me by the end of this year and release Murdockian Tales 2. We’ll see what happens. I’d need to write a few more to make that a worthwhile book.

Also, I need to work on getting a blog tour in order. I’ve already had a couple of invites after my discussion with Mike over on Get Published. I’ll be sending out a bundle of emails. I’ll also be trying to get on a few podcasts as well. We’ll see how it goes. To be honest, I don’t want to slow my writing output too much right now. Even if I write 1000 words a day from here on out, I’ll hit my target easily. I’m fully capable of writing a lot more than that so as I said, I may include more titles. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

So watch for a post next week to get free ebooks! If you’re a reviewer and you’d like any of the titles you see, ask. I’ll be more than happy to email you a copy. If you’re a reviewer and require a print book, send me an email and we’ll talk. If you’d like to give me a review on amazon, I’ll send you any one of my other books free! for each review you leave (even if you didn’t like the book). If you already have all my titles, we may be able to get you an advanced copy of one of my upcoming titles! How’s that sound?

Alright, I’ve blabbered enough. 2013 is now laid out before you. I had though of doing 13 books in 2013 and 14 books in 2014. Just to be silly. I ditched that idea and just want to get books out and more books out and even more books out. I’m covering most every genre I write in with all the selections coming out. If you’d like a recommendation of my writing, email what you like, I’ll recommend a title of mine 🙂 I might even send it to you for free!

I’ve got to get at it!

Until Next time!

WOO WOO!

Life has been crazy busy as of late. I’m sorry for the lack of updates. I plan on doing a little revamping of the site in the coming weeks. I need to make things a little cleaner and easier to navigate. Right now it’s not so easy to find a book. I need to correct that.

Speaking of books, if you listened to the latest Get Published podcast, you’ll have heard the announcement I made. My rather insane announcement that I plan on publishing (myself) 28 books in 24 months. That’s my grand plan. Guess what. I’m currently on target. That’s huge! As of this writing I currently have put out six books. This month may see another, or next month will see Three. It all depends on covers and editing. That will put me at nine for the year. For the rest of the year, here’s what I have scheduled:

My Teacher is a Witch

My Teacher is a Ghost

Asteroid Bunnies: Zanahoria

Billy Barbarian: Sethopolis

V&A Shipping II

Golden West: Season 1

Supernatural Learning: 8th grade (this will collect My Teacher is a Zombie, Werewolf, and Vampire)

Of Gnomes and Dwarves: Book 1: Chance Encounters

Astel: Chosen (re-release)

That’s right. Nine more books. That will put me at 15 on the year. That’s if I don’t decide to drop something else in the mean time. I did pull two books I had scheduled just because I wanted to make sure I committed more time to the projects I’ve already laid out. I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself with all I have currently going on.

Speaking of all that’s going on, life have been busy these past two months. Writing time has been extremely sparse. By that I mean I’ve only written about 20,000 words in the past two months. I’m 45,000 words behind schedule. That means I pulled the giant robot story I was writing. I also pulled To Fall From the Sky. Should I get back on track, I will add these books back into the mix, but for now they’re off the schedule until I can get back to them. I don’t want to rush any of the stories I’m currently working on. Just because I plan on releasing a large number of books doesn’t mean I’m going to skimp or cheat or put out a poor quality product just to get it out the door.

Now, in order to achieve my goal I will be cheating a little. How? Quite simple. I’ve already written nearly all the books that will be put out this year. The ones I haven’t written yet are only 20,000-25,000 words in length (middle grade books). I will be writing those once I finish with Golden West: Season 2 (I’ll talk about Season 1 in a bit). I plan to write the next few books in the Supernatural Learning series in one shot so they’re all ready to go long before their release dates. I hae two for this year and four for next year (completing 9th grade and going into 10th grade). I’ll then work on the first two or three in the Asteroid Bunnies series. That will complete all the shorter works for 2014 that will need to be written. Yes, I’m self publishing and I could just drop them at any given time, but I want to release these on a schedule so the series will have time to grow an audience.

Yes, I realize that I’m dropping a LOT of book out in a short time, but why not just drop everything once it’s completely written? Quite simple, if you were to see my schedule, each book I’m writing is in a series (except for a few stand alone books) and I plan to drop only one in a series in a given year. Honestly. I am working on books that will be released next year and I have a schedule for this year. I want to make sure that the books are ht best I can make them and by doing a majority of the work on my own, I need to make sure I put out the best product I can.

Back to the writing. I said I’ve only written 20,000 words in two months and I’m way behind. Those 20,000 words that I did write were written over a four day span and a two day span. I write very fast. I always have. If I were more consistent with the number of days I spent actually writing, I’d have a lot more accomplished at this point. I’m only shooting for an average of 1000 words per day. Not a lofty goal, but I need to hit that goal in order to have all the books for next year written and ready to release.

Work slowed to the point where it won’t invade on my personal time as much as it has. Yes, last year was a busy year and between writing and blogging I wrote 490,000 words. I didn’t write nearly as much new fiction as I would have liked and that’s what I changed for this year. I’m focusing only on words of new fiction written. Not these blog posts. I know I can beat my 365,000 word goal. I plan to blow it out of the water. I’ll be spending some time doing that today. I’ll write at least 4,000 words today. I’d like to actually finish writing Golden West by the end of next week. I’m currently sitting on 8000 words and I need to get to somewhere between 55,000 and 60,000 words. Yes, I need to write a lot today, tomorrow, and during the week to hit that goal. I think I can do it. This will put me in great shape both with the podcast and with my writing schedule.

Speaking of the podcast. My writing partner just dropped his episode and I’ll be getting that up this weekend. So very VERY sorry for the delay in the final episode. Once we have it complete we’ll be dropping them into podiobooks so people can get their fix that didn’t want to wait a month between episodes. I won’t put it out there until the ebook and print book are available.

There’s a lot more going on behind the scenes, but now you’re up to date on all the writing stuff. I’m glad you’re with me on this journey.

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!