2020: The Year of Reckoning

Hello Citizens!

I must apologize for the long absence of the newsletter; the blog/newsletter experience has been like overladen cargo jet bouncing on the runway trying to take off. Fortunately, the runway is as long as my willpower and motivation allows it to be, so there should be space to get this baby off the ground.

Let's begin with that elephant trampling through the room: COVID-19. Here in Tokyo, there's been some panic buying, with toilet/tissue paper and face masks taking the brunt. Japanese people tend to wear masks normally during flu season, so this double-up of demand has hit the country extra hard. I've also taken a jaw punch: Prime Minister Abe canceled all public schools for March, and as an English teacher at those very schools, a huge chunk of my work (and therefore income), has been wiped out. But hey, more free time to write. Speaking of writing...

Centricity Update

2020 is the year Centricity comes out. Previously, I set my release date for April 2020, as that's when the Cyberpunk 2077 video game comes out (so as to hopefully ride the wave of genre interest). However, the game's release date has been pushed back to September 2020. This is lucky for me, as I think this added time will be well spent polishing Centricity to its full shining glory.

Editing on the book continues. Progress has been a little up and down. I made huge progress, then got stuck on a climatic plot point for the MC. Her story is the most complex, as it ties the others together as well as unravels a big conspiracy going on in Naion. 

One concern was that the MC was spending too much time analyzing and not enough time doing, so I've made her much more active, which upped the word count and the number of things going on. To counteract this, I've transformed two secondary plot threads into seeds for the next book, and this has been a big breakthrough, as it focuses her goals and will allow for a more complete ending. It will still be a complex story, but hopefully not confusing, one that can be re-read to find details missed the first time around.

Dread Orange Facebook Update

Dread Orange's Facebook page passed 5.5k followers and continues to grow, so a big thank you to all who've joined. Below are some of the recent top posts: