Happy Thanksgiving!

Greetings all,

Without getting into too much detail, we’re just trying to enjoy this Thanksgiving. I didn’t post on Wednesday (sorry for not announcing that), and I don’t expect you’ll see anything from me until Dec. 1. I might post a new entry to Visits, and I’ll post the video for the Week 3 of December on YouTube at the very least, but I’m taking it easy this holiday weekend. There is news and notes, and I’m excited to share it.

Have a bit of patience with me as we get a few things under control or managed. I’m not sure when I’ll offer more explanation or how much explanation I’ll offer. But I imagine I’ll be back on track next week. If not, I’ll at least update you.

For now, I urge you all to be with those you love. Surround yourself in love. Share it with everyone you can. Never miss a second. I am thankful for all of you. Your support has been priceless to me. I’m thankful for this chance to share my art and my dreams. I’m thankful for the chance to chase this dream.

I’m thankful for my wife and family, and the family they added to my life. No words can express that joy.

I’m most thankful for God, who created us all. He created my family. He measured my steps. He took a horrid, wicked man and by his grace, saved me through his Son Jesus Christ.

I am truly a blessed man, and I wish you all a blessed Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

The Discovery Draft of Discovered Is Finished!

I really do love these posts! I’m not sure why, but I’m strangely surprised when I finish another book. The thing is, every book is a new challenge. Life provides challenges. But if you just keep chipping away at a goal, you’ll get there eventually. Discovered is proof of that.

Discovered is about 100,000 words, and it took me just about 15 months to finish this draft. This draft always takes the longest, because I’m working from scratch. The other drafts will take between 40-80 days each, with about a month between each draft.

Discovered is the final book in the Oneiors Log, and it brings the story to a close that is also a new beginning. While I don’t personally plan on doing more in that universe, it brings the saga to the point I saw it at when I started writing Repressed.

Sal and Kaitlyn have POVs, of course. This time, Kira steps as a main POV character, and she joins Mariana (from Betrayed) and one of several new characters, Daniel. I really love Daniel as a character, and I hope you will, too.

Just like always, I’ve written some quick notes to myself on issues I already know are in this draft. I’ll let it sit for a month to clear my creative pallet. I’ll get to work on the first draft of Discovered Oct. 21, on month after I finished the discovery draft. I must say, this is a particularly rough draft. It needs a lot of work, and I want to take my time to make sure I conclude this saga the right way.

So what else am I working on?

Well, I’m working on a secret that I’m very excited about, but I can’t announce anything just yet. If everything works out, I’ll quickly have some big news (at least it’s big to me because of how meaningful it would be).

What I can tell you is about the other project I’ll be working on.

I’ve been fiddling with Images of Truth (the first novel in the Perception of War saga), and I really do want to jump on that, but I don’t think that’s the right call.

As much as I want to finish writing a new book, I have several titles that are finished but not published, so I feel the right thing to do is try to get one of those projects out into the world. That means it’s time for me to start work on a draft of The 1,200.

The 1,200 is a story about homeless veterans. When I first started that story, I learned through research that San Diego has more than 1,200 homeless veterans, and that fact gave birth to this whole story. However, I was a very different writer back then (2009), and the world was a very different place. So as I start working on that project, I’m going to take a very critical look at it. I’d be stoked if I could go through the book and prep the next draft before I move back to Discovered.

Another note on 1,200: If you’re a fan of Bob Drifter, pay close attention to that book. There’s a treat or two in there for you. It’s not earth shattering, but I think it’s nice.

I don’t think I’ll publish 1,200 before Discovered. In a manner of speaking, they’re both in the same stage of development. It could happen, but I doubt it. But I’d be very pleased if both books come out in 2022. I fully expect Discovered to be out in 2022 (maybe early 2023). Part of it depends on how many revisions both stories require, and the other part depends on how quickly I can save up money for edits and the cover.

The best way you can help me is to buy my books, rate and review them, and convince others to buy them. I save about $170 a month to go to the Weech dream, and about $115 of that goes to marketing. While that’s going better, it’s not where it needs to be. Without sales to bolster my saving, it’ll be slow going to get product out because I need to save for two rounds of edits and a cover for each project. I truly hope you’ll consider helping in this way, but even if you just buy and read my work, you’re wonderful.

For those of you who follow this blog and already read my work, I just can’t express what your support means to me. You’ve helped me keep publishing books for six years now, and there’s now way I could do this without you. I’m not a best seller; I don’t even make a profit from month to month. But I lose less money every year! I just keep moving forward, and having those few of you who support me means everything. I get emails, and you offer to Alpha and Beta read for me. It’s just overwhelmingly touching. Thank you.

So it’s off to work on The 1,200. Until then …

Thanks for reading (always),

Matt

Writing Update: The Discovery Draft of Repressed is Done!

All images are the intellectual property of M.L.S. Weech. Any reuse or distribution without his consent is a violation of copyright law.

I bring tidings of joy to all fans of my work! The discovery draft of my next book is done. I’ve made a few Facebook posts about the project, but now that I have something written, I can talk about the project a little more.

Repressed is a novella featuring Kaitlyn from Caught. It takes place three years after the events in Oneiros Book One. Below isn’t exactly the book blurb, it’s just a quick summary for my wonderful blog followers:

My name is Kaitlyn, and I have superpowers. No really, I’m an empath. About three years ago, I met some people, and well all have powers now. The five of us who survived the day we met, not all of us made it, live together. The thing is, they think that because I’m a teenager, I’m not ready to help them save the world.

* * *

When Kaitlyn decides to protect a new girl from bullies, she gets a taste for using her abilities and secret training like the heroes of the comics that she loves to read. But as she starts to do more, she learns her powers don’t work exactly the way she thought they did.  Things get even worse when she learns that hero work isn’t as easy as the comics make it seem. When hatred and ignorance come to a boil, Kaitlyn has to decide what it really means to be a hero, and her decision puts the lives of three other classmates at risk.

END SUMMARY

This isn’t the sequel to Caught.  If you need to position it in your mental timeline, consider it Oneiros 1.5. I wanted to do more (shorter, not short) fiction, and I also needed something to bridge the (even larger) gap between book one and book two in the actual trilogy. That, combined with my love for this character presented me with too many opportunities to pass up.

The biggest opportunity was for me to test myself, which I want to do with every project I take on. You’ve seen my reviews regarding YA novels (Here’s my last one in case you haven’t.) It’s not accurate to say I hate the genera, but I’m certainly not a big fan of some of the overused themes. A part of me felt that if I was going to stand here and talk about how much some of those themes bothered me, why not take a crack at the genre? It would force me to stretch, and resist some of what I think a lot of YA shortcuts. The main issue: the stupidity or ignorance of parents.

I see this too much in YA, and I didn’t want to fall victim to it, especially since four out of the five members of Oneiros are adults. So I took it upon myself to add that challenge to an already interesting plot. As if that weren’t enough, not only do I have to keep Sal and Kira working as loving, attentive parental figures (not to mention Dom, Brandon and Chris, who all have at least some brief appearances in this story), but they’re powerful psychics. That’s a challenge that I think I’ll have to do even more work on in subsequent drafts.

Why do this? Because one of the reasons I love writing is it’s always a challenge. I want this book to make me a better writer, and I want the next book to take me even further. Writing outside of my normal genre (if anyone accuses me of having one yet) does that for me. I don’t have any other plans to write YA in the future, but I still get to practice first person, and it opens the door for more in that world soon.

What does that mean for Oneiros? Well, I just don’t know when to stop. While there’re a few intense moments in Repressed (and even a few Caught easter eggs), this is a YA novel. In my opinion, if your main character is a 16-year-old girl, you’re writing a YA novel. Rather than fight it, I embraced it. My hope is the people who love Caught will appreciate seeing their favorite characters again as a way to tide them over until I finish books two and three. Also, this book sets the stage for one of the major points of conflict in book two. You see, Kira and Sal have very different ideas on how Kaitlyn should be raised. Those issues get touched on here, and they’re explored more in book two. We also get a sense for how truly powerful Kaitlyn is, and what that amount of power costs her.

What’s next? Repressed is about 35,000 words at the moment. It’ll go in a digital drawer for at least two weeks. I like to step away from a project. It gives me time to separate my emotions from a project. I just finished it, and I feel like a genius. The reality is there are some things to work out and typical Matt issues to smooth away. I won’t be idle in that time. I’m hoping to have Sara’s edits on Bob Drifter back, and my main goal is to try and get the second edition out before I do another draft on Repressed. While I wait for that, I’m going to start looking at 1,200, a story about a homeless veteran who’s using his abilities to help other homeless vets keep their sanity, that is until a monster who feeds on magic shows up.  I still, ambitiously, would like to release Repressed, 1,200, Oneiros Book Two and Oneiros Book Three out in 2019. I’ll work on them with Oneiros being the top priority until they’re done. Having this draft done means I have at least one release already locked in for 2019, four to go. (Did I mention I also plan to release a few more novellas? Like I said, I don’t know when to stop.)

I hope my stories keep you all engaged the way my favorite authors keep me clamoring for more of their work. If that’s the case, I hope a post like this lets you know how committed I am to continue entertaining you.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

 

 

 

Proofing of Caught is finished!

So when I wasn’t moving or drafting Sojourn in Despair, I received the digital proof of Caught. This gave me the chance to read it over yet again and catch any last minutes errors.  This was important for me because I wish I’d taken one more read with The Journals of Bob Drifter. I did look at the digital proof of Bob, but I rushed, and I was impatient.

Not so this time. I read the book two more times, making corrections and tweaks as I found them. No book is ever perfect, but I’m very confident this book is better written than Bob. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the book. It’s still an awesome story, but I want every book I write to be better than the last book. One way I knew I could do that was to take an extra pass of the digital proof.

I finished that process Monday night, and I’m waiting to make sure everything is in order. Ben (my brother in law) is working to put all those wonderful review quotes on the cover so we can upload that to CreateSpace. Then it’s all over but the waiting.

I simply can’t tell you how excited I am for this book. I’ll be celebrating it’s release with the HMS Slush Brain Book Bash. I’ll also be all over this blog, Twitter, and my own Facebook accounts. A lot of work and effort goes into every book, and I’m proud of this result. Once I hear about an official release date, I’ll be sure to announce that. I’ll also be dropping a few chapters on this blog just to teas you all a bit.

Thank you all for taking this journey with me. I hope you find Caught worth the wait!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

On Finishing Plateau: my first ever novel

I promised The Angry Farmer I’d reblog this when I felt like the blog would have solid viewing time on my page. Give the post a look. Another author has finished his first book. Send him some applause. It takes commitment to get there. I hope the edits go well.

The Angry Farmer

Well bloody hell.

I’ve finished Plateau today! My first ever novel/book/anything! It’s just over 61,000ish words and is now in pre-edit, a.k.a. I’m leaving it alone for a month so I don’t start fussing over it. There’s a bigger explanation of what the bloody hell on the Feedback page detailed below. The book was written ‘live’ daily, I tried to do at least one chapter a day, hence its need for polish and shine.

There’s a new page in the Plateau section for feedback; if you’ve kindly donated time to reading it, I would love to hear what you think! I’ve completed the WIP full text version to the pre-edit finished article if you want to jump ahead; otherwise I’ll bung up the final chapters this week in bits each day, so as not to spam.

[NB. The Everlasting Night is horror, you’ve been warned!]

Full Novel (Pre-edit)

By Chapter…

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