Sometimes life gets in the way

About two years ago I had these ambitious writing plans. I had just finished my first secular novel, had a Christian novel with a publisher preparing for print, was getting another ready for submission, and had finished four chapters of my next story in the Alpha series. More projects were forming an orderly queue behind them, jostling for attention.

Then, something happened. Actually, a few things happened. I won't go into details but suffice it to say that my head was spinning so fast I had neither the energy nor desire to work on any of these projects. The only thing that did go anywhere was the secular novel. This made the final step to print but with absolutely zero marketing it may as well be sitting on my spare hard drive at home.

It has taken what feels like forever but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and am slowly working towards it. I am not in the clear yet and the anxiety of what may happen means I get precious little sleep, but I can now imagine a time when I will have the desire and energy to start putting pen to paper. Contributing to this blog is part of that.

In the meantime, as a way of keeping the creative juices flowing, I started a little webcomic featuring conversations between a programmer and the Artificial Intelligence he created, loosely based on Brett and Jay from Alpha Redemption. The artwork is very basic, initially taking an hour or two to create using Serif Drawplus (great for simple projects) while the comic itself takes about five minutes to prepare each evening. I think of some dialogue during the day and jot it down. Then, when I get home, I add it to my comic and publish it.

You know what's the surprising thing? For almost two decades I slogged away at a keyboard in an attempt to produce good quality fiction, doing courses and reading everything I could lay my hands on about how to create attractive prose. I spent countless hours sending out manuscripts, and reading the rejection letters. In 2010 I finally made it to print and have enjoyed a modest level of success. Then, something unexpected happened. During one of the most stressful periods of my life, a daft little comic that takes almost no effort to produce gets more readers each week than all of my novels put together. Last time I checked I was getting almost 2,500 views a month.

I can only scratch my head in amazement and wonder if perhaps God isn't trying to tell me something.

Anyway, it's good to be back and I look forward to chatting with you all again.