So what now?

I haven't written much in this blog over the past couple of years, but I plan to write more updates and articles, and I'd like to begin with my plans for the next few books.
First out of the gate will be a new post-apocalypse book, currently called Into Darkness. This is a working title, so things could change, but I'm confident of keeping this one as I like it and it suits the premise of the book. It will be set on the Mississippi River in the same timeline as Solar Storm, utilizing the same natural disaster. I didn't see any point in reinventing the wheel for this one, and writing Solar Storm gave me a lot of ideas that I was unable to include in the series. In spite of using the same phenomena, this will be a completely new story with new characters and won't simply be a rehash of the last series with new names. I mean, it's tempting to do that, and I see a lot of authors do it, but I want to bring something new to the table.

So, will Into Darkness be a standalone book or a series? Good question. I'm not sure yet, as I have to see how much material the writing process generates. It's possible that I'll publish it initially as a standalone, but if there's sufficient interest I may write sequels that expand into a series. I'm not trying to tease you, it's just that it's early days, and I have a few other projects I'd like to write too, and they vie for my attention on an almost daily basis. Regular readers will know that I'm not a lightning fast book-a-month writer, so I have to pick my projects carefully. But rest assured, new books will keep coming. I don't want to disclose too many details yet, but the new book will feature a female protagonist, and the journey (small plot clue there) will be exclusively from her point of view, with fewer military elements compared to my last books. In fact, this will the first novel I have written where the lead character isn't a former soldier. It won't be any less exciting though, I can promise you that.

Regarding more military matters, I plan on writing a series of space opera/military sci-fi books sometime in the future. I can't say when exactly, but I have a lot of strong ideas for a series that have been filling up my notebooks. Doesn't mean I'm giving up on post-apocalypse, it's just another branch. Eventually I hope to alternate between the two genres. In fact, I had considered writing sci-fi under a different name, but I don't see the point. I mean, it's still me writing them. I'm just giving my readers a choice. Eagle-eyed readers who have been with me for a while will have noticed that my X-Troop sci-fi books are no longer listed in my catalog. Considering they were my first effort at a series, I don't think they're up to scratch in the quality stakes, so I removed them. I don't think anyone actually missed them, but there are a few elements worth salvaging from them, and I'll be introducing them into a new series of space novels, somewhere in a galaxy far, far away. *sarcastic smirk*