The Broken Staff Is Finished

Hi, all,

I know it’s been a while. I hope everyone has been doing well.

I wanted to share a quick update: my second book is finished.

There’s still some polishing ahead, along with several read-throughs to make sure everything sounds right to my ear, but the complete manuscript is finally there.

After writing this story, I can now say with some confidence that my first book, The Heart of Poseidon, sucked—at least to me. I’ve heard there are some crazy people out there who actually liked it which explains all the letters I get from psychiatric hospitals.

I thought writing science fiction would be easy. It turns out that writing good science fiction is really fracking hard.

I think part of the challenge is that science fiction adds an entirely new layer on top of the story’s existing genre, whether that’s action, adventure, thriller, horror, or something else.

Even though a story is science fiction, it still needs to make sense and follow a consistent set of rules. An author can’t simply reach the ending and invent a Super-Duper Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator Ray that somehow kills only the bad guys.

Well, an author can, but readers might have some questions.

For The Broken Staff—and the larger universe I’m building around it—I dropped the science-fiction element. The characters live in the same world we do, governed by the same physical laws, and they must deal with whatever challenges the story throws at them using the tools, knowledge, and ingenuity available to them.

No shortcuts.

My goal is to pursue traditional publication, which means agents, publishers, representatives, rejection letters, existential dread, and the whole works. If I eventually discover that path isn’t open to me, I’ll publish the book independently and hope for the best.

About the Book

Title: The Broken Staff
Series: Black Dove Group
Genre: Archaeological Action Thriller—no science fiction
Length: 401 pages
Similar Stories and authors: Indiana Jones, Clive Cussler, David Baldacci, James Rollins, Steve Berry, Dan Brown

Oh, one last thing:

I’m already halfway through the next Black Dove Group novel, titled The Tesla Papers.

I’ll save the details of that one until it’s finished.