Little past midnight on an early Friday morning, which situates itself nicely with my routine post schedule. Hence, here we go.

Been thinking about authors, and what makes an author. Are you a writer if you wrote one book? Or does is take two? Or five? And so on. I expect you’ll get different answers from various writers. I’ve been drinking—shocker—so you’ll have to forgive inaccuracies. And spoiler: there may be dozens. But if memories hold true, Stephen King once questioned how an author like J.D. Salinger could have penned such an influential novel only to disappear into obscurity afterward. It’s only natural that King, the embodiment of prolific, who wrote two books and eight short stories in the time it’s taken me to expand this paragraph, would throw a little shade Salinger’s way. But I tend to agree. Are you a painter if you created the Mona Lisa and never picked up a brush again? Technically, sure. Realistically, I don’t think so. Not actively, anyway. If you scored a touchdown in the 1985 Super Bowl, well, then you used to play professional football. But you can’t truly call yourself a football player if you haven’t picked up a pigskin in three decades. You’re retired. Point is, you gotta keep at it, or you’re just a literary interloper regardless of your untapped, ignored ability.

Degenerate. My third book. As I mentioned, I wrote the first few pages, but this story’s got a bit of a slower burn to it. That’s okay. In fact, I’m savoring it. But I wanted to make sure I grabbed readers before I set up the main narrative. Figured it out tonight, and boy was it satisfying. I’ll be starting in with a zealot’s fever in November and doing my best to knock out at least half of the book.

(Half of the book, he says. That’ll be the day.)

Shut up, inner monologue—nobody asked you!

Sophistication. It’s in better shape, but not where it needs to be. I have 10 days to bring everything together before I re-submit and call upon Zeus himself for a little help. Good news here is that the changes I’m making feel good. I didn’t feel at all that way about the revisions that chopped Dead Weight from 130,000-plus words to 90,000, I’ll tell you that. Really excited for folks to read it. Nothing else, it’s going to be ultra-relevant in today’s goofy world.

Promise, more updates to come, and soon.