With Two New Episodes of the Housetrap Chronicles Now at the Publishers, What am I up to Today?

I have Housetrap Chronicles #11, tentative title, "T'was the Week Before the Night" in the lineup for editing and release in the summer of 2021, and #12, tentative title "The Mid-Winter Cuckoos at Midnight," waiting for edits and release in 2022. I've been recently playing around with a new novel just to keep me out of trouble.

Normally at this time of year I would be gearing up for appearances at a number of trade shows, markets, and Cons, but 2021 looks like another slow year in that area. Meanwhile on-line sales continue, including some overseas and venues I've never heard of. All of my novels and novellas are still available on-line from the usual outlets as well as direct from the publishers.

As for this new untitled novel I'm mucking about with, it is a modern paranormal mash-up effort. In no hurry to finish as it keeps me amused, and no idea what to do with it after I finish. Maybe I should give it away like I did with "The Perils of Paul" last year? We'll see.

For fans of the Housetrap Chronicles Series, and print editions, don't forget the third collection, with #7 Menagerie @ Trois, #8 Murder on the Disoriented Express, and #9 Silence of the Sands, are now available. The 10th novella in the series came out this year as an ebook. It won't be available in print until a fourth collection is released, sometime after #12 shows up.

Budding writers out there, keep on plugging away. Join a writer's group, find yourself a Beta reader or three, (not your mother!) and don't lose heart. Most important, finish what you started, and send it out. Manuscripts hiding in a bottom drawer or bedroom closet never get to be published. I still have a large stack of rejection letters from when I began writing and remember when a short story didn't make the cut but came back from the editor I submitted it to with a comment my story sounded like it should be a novel. I've been concentrating on the longer lengths ever since.