What's Nigel Working On? - August 2013

Old Typewriter and Typist; Source: stock.xchng

I tend to work on a lot of projects at once, probably too many. Thought it might be interesting for myself and others to go over them.

1. Confessions of a Henchman - A petty crook gets more than he bargained for when he becomes a henchman for a psychotic supervillain. I thought this was almost done until I realized the ending I imagined didn't work. After wrestling with it, I came up with an ending, but it's much longer than expected, probably another ten or fifteen pages at least. 85% done.

2. The Phoenix Project - A group of children are the only survivors of a crashed colonization ship and must rebuild human civilization on their own. This is a book I started back in '94. It was meant to be one novel, but I'm going to break it into three. If I tried to tell the story in one book, it would be 10% done. If I break up the story, then the first novel is about 70%.

3. Friendly Forest - Three cartoon characters journey into a cute and cuddly world in a quest to defeat an ancient evil. I wrote this part already, but want to flesh it out with about twice as much material. I'll be honest and say this one is on the back burner. While I'm happy with the sales of the first two books of the TOONS series, I want to release some books with more commercial appeal first. It's 50% done.

4. The Adventures of Couch Potato - When a fat, lazy TV addict gets superpowers, he becomes a fat, lazy TV addict who's also a superhero. This one is done, but in the early editing stage. I think I might want to finish the TOONS series before I release this one, though. 90% done

5. Couch Potato Returns - Yeah, you read right. I'm writing a sequel to a book I haven't published yet. Not exactly a smart move, but I just love the guy. 70% done.

6. Operation: Masquerade - In a future war, one secret agent must disguise himself as alien to infiltrate an enemy ship. Don't even get me started on this one - read my post "when your writing gets erased." 50% done.

7. Cowboy Cthulu - Three gunfighters team up with a quirky inventor in the Old West to stop a gang from unleashing of an ancient evil. I don't have a good title for this yet. I think of it as H.P. Lovecraft meets The Magnificent Seven with steampunk weapons. This was supposed to be for an anthology, but I missed the deadline, so I'll release it on my own. Only 5% done, though.

8. Secret Project - I honestly didn't plan on releasing this book at all. It started as a writing exercise at 5000 words. Now it's at 12,000 words, 95% done. Still don't know if I'll release it.