Writing Updats: 2026 Q4

So many projects, so little time. I want to update you on what’s coming up through the rest of the year. First off: I have a Kickstarter Campaign going! It occurs to me that I never mentioned it here! Seems irresponsible of me, since you lot are probably most likely to back it lol. I hit the 100% funded mark last night, but we have just under three weeks left. The project is asking for $375 to buy a new microphone that I can use to record the audiobook version of my book The Uncanny Hour. If you haven’t heard, that’s the collection of short stories I released back in August. While we have hit the goal, I set up stretch goals to hire additional voice actors to help bring the book to life. Maybe some music, too. If you’d like to check that out, here is the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/d20harvey/the-uncanny-hour-the-audiobook

National Novel Writing Month kicks off on November 1st and runs through the 30th. While the organization that originally started it and oversaw the site since 1999 shuttered its operation last year, there have been a handful of scrappy upstarts trying to carry the torch. I have thrown in with Nano 2.0 and signed up with their site today. I think they have a few bugs to work out, but it seems promising!

The goal is simple: write a new, original 50,000-word novel in 30 days. I said “simple,” not “easy.” I put some thought into it and came up with a story idea called The Naughty List. Five neighborhood kids sneak into the North Pole to settle an argument about Santa’s Naughty List, but after stealing it and escaping back home, they discover Santa has sent Krampus to get it back. Despite how it sounds, this is definitively not a children’s book. I have attempted NaNoWriMo in the past, but I historically don’t make it out of the first week. This will be my year.

Come December, I plan to start releasing regular chapters for The Salvation Initiative. When Hell’s overcrowding crisis forces management to start saving souls instead of collecting them, a reluctant fallen angel must lead a dysfunctional team through heavenly red tape, infernal politics, and the increasingly complicated business of doing good. If all goes well, this will be the first of a 3-book series called Infernal Affairs. Originally, I was going to try to write it up as a TV series, but I figured this would be a good place to test it out. TV can come later.

I moved Infernal Affairs into the immediate workflow because I discovered a site called Webnovel. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a place to post your book/stories online. It’s in the same vein as Royal Road and Wattpad. What interests me about WN is the opportunity to monetize your stories. If you hit certain markers (and I appear to be doing so with Dunmoor’s Definitely Doomed), you can apply for a contract. With that comes marketing efforts from them as well as attempts to produce things like comic books, audiobooks, audio dramas, etc. from your book. They require exclusivity to the project, however, so it isn’t going to happen with Dunmoor. The release schedule and voting period alone make it an undesirable project. But Infernal Affairs may be just the ticket. So I’m gonna give it a whirl and see what happens. Shorter chapters posted every day for two months or so. Hopefully this will be easier than NaNoWriMo lol

Today I discovered a new periodical emerging called Elegant Lich. From their website, they are “…a quarterly fantasy magazine [that aims] for refined fantasy for a more civilized age.” They are looking for submissions to publish in their inaugural issue, and that got my gears moving. I came up with about a half-dozen ideas, but settled on one I call The Necromancer’s Bread. A retired necromancer opens a bakery in a quiet village, determined to leave his unsavory profession behind. Unfortunately, the sourdough starter he inherited from his former master is alive. Literally. It remembers everyone who ever fed it, occasionally speaks the voices of the deceased, and has begun predicting deaths around town. When it announces that the village’s beloved mayor will die before sunrise, the baker has one night to determine whether the starter predicts the future or causes it.

Don’t worry… if it doesn’t make the cut, I’ll post it for youse guys 😉

In an effort to track my progress and inspire me to write more, I was researching how to build a progress tracker to use with WordPress (the skeleton of my website). Last week I started building a plugin to test, and it’s been going well, so I wanted to pivot that into this project. But then I discovered an app, Track Bear. It looks like it does essentially what I wanted to build, but it’s already built lol. Tack on the ability to establish various sorts of goals and an API function… I’m in. I loaded up some projects and set a few goals. If you’re interested in following along there until I get it plugged into my website, you can find me at https://trackbear.app/@d20harvey.

So I totally meant for this to be a short post, but you got the full monty. Thanks for your support! I couldn’t do it without ya 🙂

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