2024 In Review

Hi everyone,

It’s about six hours from the stroke of midnight where I live and I’m rounding out the year that's gone by—and what an incredible journey it’s been.

First of all, I want to thank everyone on Patreon for all of your incredible support throughout the year (and for multiple years for some people). Without you all, I wouldn't have been able to pay the book cover designer. Your support made it possible, and I cannot wait to share the new cover with you.

2024 in writing, and editing, then editing again.

In January, I started writing my second book, the first in a series of five (or maybe six—I haven’t decided yet). I learned a lot from my first attempt, Champion of Small Gods. The biggest lesson? The only parts of the plan that truly matter are the beginning, the end, and perhaps a few things in the middle. Characters, I’ve discovered, don’t always know who they are until you dig into the nitty-gritty details of the final stages of editing. Much of the time my characters didn’t seem to remember their own names. They certainly changed how they spelled them often—though I think that’s rather more my fault than theirs.

In July, the book was finished, and I called it Leybound. It was released on Royal Road and Patreon—a healthy baby, weighing in at 75,000 words with a logical plot, colorful characters, and a magic system I obsessed over. Then in October, I handed the story to a developmental editor just to see what might happen, and quickly realized that the book wasn’t really finished. If I could take a guess, I would say it was about 85% done.

I give my eternal thanks to Chris Bellehewe for showing me how to push it to the 100% mark. After the final, final edit, the book is about 95,000 words—and infinitely better for it. Oh, and the title got changed along the way. Thus in April, I’ll be releasing The Last Man in paperback.

I also began writing the second book in the series in July. The book is called Told in Stone and currently exists as a solid fourth draft and tops out at 65,000 words. The plot is locked in, and everyone gets to where they need to be—though not all of them entirely know why they are going there (if that makes sense). Next year, I’ll send it off to my editor, Chris, and start the work of making it print-ready.

TV and Movies

It’s been a year of nostalgia as I set out on a journey to watch the whole Star Trek canon in chronological order. Enterprise, Voyager, and Lower Decks were the standout heroes for me. When that was all wrapped up, I started watching Castle, mostly because I love the show The Rookie and Nathan Fillion is a fantastic and engaging actor. It’s a classic good-guys-and-bad-guys procedural TV series, along the lines of some of my other favorite shows like Elementary and White Collar.

Other honorable 2024 mentions: Slow Horses, The Boys, and Silo.

Gaming

This year, I’ve spent countless hours playing games with my 12-year-old nephew, and as a result, my PS stats have hundreds of hours of Minecraft, Fortnite, CoD, and World of Tanks.

For myself, the standout game of 2024 was Ghost of Tsushima. I haven’t been so lost in a world since Skyrim or The Witcher 3. Where Skyrim had the rugged majesty of the mountains, and The Witcher was a grimdark immersion, Ghost is just. Damn. Beautiful. I haven’t spent so long just roaming around on my horse since Red Dead 2. The character work really stood out for me, and I found myself enjoying the interactions, instead of just spamming X to get through them.

Upcoming in 2025

- January 15th - Book two Told in Stone will be released to Patreon members!

- April 2025, Eastercon Belfast - I'm going to be releasing the paperback version of The Last Man at the con and was fortunate enough to be offered a table in the dealer room!

- October 2025, World Fantasy Convention Brighton - I'll be there to release book two in the Riot's War Series, Told In Stone.

There is so much to do before then, not limited to: designing maps for the books and the world, confirming the new covers with the artist, organizing printing of advanced review copies, and about a trillion other things that it takes to self-publish a book.

It's going to be a great, stressful, and exciting year, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you all here.

Happy New Year!

Peter