Have you ever needed to respond to someone, but you forget to do it one day, and the next, and the one after that? More and more days pile up while every night before you drift off to whatever nonsense your subconscious has lined up for you in dreamland (likely including the band Garbage, a car chase through a vaguely European city, and a fresh mackerel) you think, “Aw, damn, I really need to send that reply tomorrow.” But somehow, on every tomorrow, the actually sending of the thing escapes you? And then one day you realize it’s been six months since you should have sent that reply, at which point the entirety of the time elapsed grows into a giant, festering embarrassment.
So now you still need to send the message, but in doing so you’re also going to have to acknowledge the Grand Canyon-sized gap in time between when you ought to have sent it and the present day. Well, no one wants to acknowledge either their own failings, especially when those include procrastination and personal embarrassment. Just ask the closest teenager.
Time, then, as it tends to do, continues to slide past like expressway-side trees on a road trip. More months join the pile until the accumulation of delay can be measured in years, and still you haven’t sent that reply. At that point, you kind of hope the whole thing will go away forever, forgotten. You may aslo consider creating a new identity.
Well, here we are. The last time I wrote a blog post here was in the Way-Back, the Time That Came Before. It was Spring 2021, and I believe I promised that Fury, the sequel to Famine would be out in time for Halloween that year.
Things… didn’t quite turn out. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that living through a modern pandemic eroded my creativity. And then, well, the world has been a lot the past few years.
I admit that at points, yes, I did briefly consider creating an new identity. But I’m pretty lazy, and that seemed like a lot of work, especially in comparison to just, you know, writing a new post and acknowledging the pink elephant in the corner.
So here I am, hat in hand, glaring at Dumbo’s Pepto-hued bigger sister.
It has, indeed, been a minute, as the kids would say. But it’s time we put that behind us, and by putting that behind us, I mean it’s time for new stories.
The Secret of Commander’s Mansion
I maybe didn’t get Fury out by Halloween, 2021, but two years later, I do have a new spooky new book for you, The Secret of Commander’s Mansion. It’s been quite some time in the making, and I’m excited to be sharing it with you this year, just in time for that night when the veil between the lands of the living and the dead grows thin. It will drop on 10/24/2023 on all your favorite digital retailers, and is available for pre-order now. I hope you’ll check it out!
Fury
I also hope you weren’t thinking believing me so mercenary that I’d ask you to buy my new book and then leave you hanging with regard to Famine’s highly anticipated sequel? Well, if you were, I’m happy to overdeliver here with good news. Fury is coming!
We’re decided to try something new with Fury, though. Partially because, see eroded creativity, but also because so many of you have been waiting patiently for it for so long, I figured I should give you some of it sooner rather than later. With in mind, we’re going to release Fury as serial eBooks, in three parts. The first should be available in early January, with the next two parts dropping in February and March. More information will be coming soon, so watch my website for more news, or join my mailing list to be the first to know!
Plans for 2024 And Beyond
I can’t wait to see how the release of Fury works, and, creatively, I’m really am enjoying working on these stories as smaller pieces of a larger whole. For the coming year we’re going to continue experimenting with this type of release cycle, and hope to be able to release something new each month. I can’t quite tell you what’s going to be coming down the pipe in the 2nd and 3rd quarters yet, but we’re getting really excited as the plans come together. Like I said, stay tuned here for more information, or join the mailing list to get all the freshest JR Andrews news deposited directly to your inbox.
It’s going to be a fun ride this year, and we hope you’ll join us on the trip.
I’m very excited that you are putting out a novel for young readers. I’m definitely going to purchase a paper copy for my girls to read. While I understand, to some degree, while you’re only doing ebooks for Fury, it is a little disappointing. I’m old school and only read paper copies. I may be in the minority, but it’s hard for me to get into reading books digitally. Either way, I hope it goes well for you and you continue to have success. Keep doing you…..well done.
Brandon, I appreciate the feedback and apologize because I apparently didn’t explain the plan well enough! There absolutely WILL be a print version of Fury. After the three shorts are released in sequence, I’ll be putting them together into a full-length novel that should come out sometime in the April-May timeframe. So don’t despair, you’ll just have to wait a little bit longer for that payoff. Thank you again for the comment and thanks even more for supporting me!