Almost forgot I had to do one of these. I'll keep this one short and brief. Probably.

Now if you are a bright spot super fan, you might be asking silly questions like "I thought you already did a hardcover" and "How come its taken this long"
And the answer I have for you is "don' worry abbadit"
The first hardcover edition had many issues. The biggest one was ISBN conflicts. When publishing the bright spot I tried using an ISBN for the amazon edition of the paperback version. I decided to not use amazon kdp and stuck with IngramSpark.
The ISBN I used at amazon, never really went away. So when I published the hardcover with the same isbn that I tried using, Amazon found that very confusing so I had to take it down. Otherbook sellers like B&N and even Walmart had no issue with the hardcover version. I could get more technical but I don't really want to because I don't understand it fully myself. I also didn't like the cover I made for it. It had the iconic red space cover for a dust jacket and the inside binding was fully black with a sliver of red as a sillhouette of the planet. It looked fantastic on the computer, but in print, you could hardly even see it. So back to the drawing board.
I really wanted to create an experience that incentivises readers to pick up both editions. I think the paperback space versions look amazing, so I needed a cover for the hardback to look equally great with a minimalist approach. So I present to you......
The Bright Spot Hardcover and Blight Eater Hardcover!!

Keep your ooing and aahing to a minimum please.
These are still work in progress, so if theres something you notice that I should change or update, let me know!

Now these designs are for the dust jackets. I have the potential to make the inside covers different or special. So I could either keep this design, on the inside, or put the paperback design, or something entirely different. Maybe I'll make that a stretch goal... Thoughts?

I kinda took a break for the last week so I could brainstorm a bit on how I'm going to edit the second half of Blight Eater. There are a lot of rules I need to create and keep consistent. There are also a lot of rules I've previously established that I'll need to break using newer rules. Its gonna be fun. I know I need to hurry it up, but I also have to do my best to make sure you don't hate it. Outlining has sort-of begun with the second half. Once I decide how badly I want to hurt my characters, I'll have a pretty good idea on what to do.

New poll btw. Not that anyone cares. No one even participates

CRAAAP. I'm so late on this update

Luckily no one reads these so no one has been waiting. Its been a hell of a week and I'm so glad its over. Its been non-stop work from sunrise to sleepy-time. And the next week starts in less than 12 hours. whoop-dee-doo.

So this is going to be interesting. I've been working on this second draft every night for hours. I've been rewriting major story beats and putting characters in different places to make things more cohesive. Course when I do this, I also end up speeding along the plot. So the story is getting shorter and shorter, but that also means the pacing is quicker and quicker. 
If you go by story beats, I'm about 66% done. If you go by projected word count, I'm about 50% done. I have a feeling the target word count of 100k is going to drop to about 90k, which is the size of the Bright Spot.

I have Two upcoming events in the western Wisconsin, eastern Minnesotan regions. On September 22, I'll be doing a live reading and a questionnaire at Turtle Lake Public Library (Turtle Lake, Wisconsin) at 5PM. I doubt I'm large enough for any of you to be close enough to come visit. But I (should) make an appearance at the Twin Cities Book Festival on NOVEMBER 7 2026. Please come to that one if you can. Its gonna be really cool. I got a custom tablecloth, bright spot tapestry, and I'll be selling a physical copies of the first 6 chapters of BlightEater in a sort of Exclusive Preview Edition. These are freaking awesome and you should try and get one if you can.

I'll continue chugging along. Within a few weeks I'll have the first copy of The (new) Bright Spot Hardcover. The one that will be available in the backerkit. I'M VERY EXCITED to show you all that one.

Thank you for reading. These are my unfiltered thoughts and I'll see you next week (this Friday probably)

It's been a crazy year. I started working on A Dragon for Darius in earnest in late January, 2026. It stood at approximately 8,000 words when I began. As I worked on it, I realized that the story was too big for a single book and I decided to split it into parts and create a series. Today, as I am nearly a quarter of the way through the fourth and final book, it stands at approximately 190,000 words. The final goal is four books of approximately 50K each, so we have some editing to do. It has been the most fun, the hardest, and one of the saddest books I've written. I'm excited to share it with readers. In fact, I have never felt more certain that people NEED to read a book than I feel about this one.

Read more on my website.