It has been a longer hiatus from The White Fox Blog than anticipated. Mishmashers Publishing is hot off February, which we all considered a success for the company (more than double the ad revenue and viewership of January). Since then, we’ve been doing our best to continue the momentum, but we’ve been dealt a couple of snags so far this March.
Firstly, like how early-January saw myself in a bout with Covid-19, I found the first chunk of March dealt a similar right hook. I still haven’t regained my voice from the sheer amount of coughing fits I’ve had, and it has definitely left us having to play catch-up, so to speak. I haven’t been able to send out and respond to the ‘feelers’ I would otherwise, and so, March may feel a little anemic comparative to January and February.
In spite of that, Tim Babbitt did contribute a short story and Scott Moore published a new fantasy novelette In Stone They Wait. Rebeccah and I contributed the next couple chapters of Cotton: The Spinster’s Daughter, a young-adult fantasy we’ve been developing together, and I published the first three chapters of my 2016 novel The Red Flux & the Wunderkind Thief.
It is a lot of content (as much as prior months, in fact), but I always find myself wishing somehow someway I could’ve added more for March.
I find my hand in a lot of different cookie jars at the moment – I am continuing to write Cotton with Rebeccah, I am developing the fourth installment in The Canes series with Scott, and, by myself, I am developing a new horror novelette called The Doll and a sequel to The Red Flux novel.
- Cotton is an interesting beast. Although it was originally intended as a mostly hands off project, I have contributed a lot more original material than anticipated. It was originally meant as a novel for Rebeccah to write that I would gussy up and polish, but that hasn’t happened. Instead, I have written three or four chapters on my own, and we’ve come together on ways to marry our ideas – it’s an honest to God collaboration. I will be stepping away from the Cotton story briefly in-order for Rebeccah to write on it, and to work on some of my other projects, but the absence shouldn’t be too noticeable. The next installment in Cotton will be published on April 1st.
- The Canes IV is a project Scott and I are very excited about. In 2018, 2019, and 2020, Scott and I were able to consistently release an installment in the Canes series without fail. In 2021, we took a small hiatus to recalibrate, so to speak, and we look forward to releasing a fourth installment sometime this year. A few days ago, I finished Episode Nineteen of The Adventures of Vulpecula (Episode 1 of 6 for the new ‘season,’ if you will), and I have started development on the next installment. I look forward to more individuals discovering The Canes series on Mishmashers Publishing, as Scott and I are both very proud of it. The Canes Files (Book One) sets the groundwork and may not win readers over straightaway (I’d equate it to the first season of Bojack Horseman in that respect. Bojack starts off as a somewhat generic Family Guy esque sitcom as a way to setup what it actually wants to do. The Canes Files starts out as a standard flavor of the week crime mystery before digging into the anxieties / social commentary that becomes its standard thereafter).
- The Red Flux & the King’s Crown is the sequel to The Red Flux & the Wunderkind Thief. Although it may appear like it has taken a long time for a sequel (about six years), a lot of that has to do with the greater Aeonian series. My other fantasies Katalene the Hollow and Roxwale: The Heir’s Brother both are set in the same world and help lay the foundation for where I want the series to lead. I have started development on the sequel and have made some progression. Basically, I am about one tenth the way through. A lot remains to be accomplished, but I will be working on it actively throughout 2022, and I am hopeful the sequel will arrive in time for the holiday season.
- Similar to Parlor Tricks and The One Two Punchline, The Doll is a smaller horror project I am working on. It will be released on Amazon and straightaway on Mishmashers Publishing the moment I am satisfied with it. As of now, I am about one third the way through the novel and I am hoping I will have it available in time for an April release. This is a fun project, and, really, the smaller horror novelettes have been very rewarding for me in the last couple years. I hope to write many more of them.
That is basically everything I am working on. I hope to be able to knock off a couple from the queue in the next Blog post, or, at the very least, document significant progression.
Air high-fives and hazmat hugs,
McConnaughay