Tons of Updates

A number of things to tell about today. First of all, I got my first comments on my screenplay draft. I admit they came from my wife, but she is a great help. She thought the flow was good other than two areas where I had question marks as well. Net result is that we are both feeling good about it. For now, I have put the file on both computers and onto a flash drive and will let it sit until later in the month.

For the BRATS, I have begun work on a series of books tentatively called the Pressman Chronicles. They are targetted at the 9 to 12 year old range with an emphasis on aspects of being a military dependent which will help children deal with their difference from the rest of their community(ies). I tentatively plan on the series being 10 to 14 books and am in the process of outlining them now. Please chime in if you have a particular issue which you think would be good to address. If you want to see the topics I intend to tackle currently, please shoot me an email address and I'll forward it on to you. Send me your email, press here.

For the parents, if you have checked out my writing.com posts, you may have run across Agent P. I have recieved a number of questions about when people will be able to read an actual Agent P book. First of all, thanks to everyone who has asked this question. It has been really encouraging. So perhaps it is lunacy, but I am in the process of drafting a series for Agent P books targetted at 6-9 years of age. The concept behind the books would be to help children who have just gone through the transition of learning the truth about Santa Claus. My goal is to provide them with a fun way to discover how Christmas can still be exciting and precious, even with their new perception of Santa.

The main challenge for the Pressman Chronicles and Agent P will be adjusting to the writing style needed for each age group. I am working on both of these already so I feel confident in saying that it feels like a juggling act already.

On top of these two new projects, I am laying out the outline for the first of my KrystalShield Trilogy. The first book is tentatively named Shard of Remembrance. This will be an adult fantasy series, but will deal with a main character who is a military dependent in a fantasy setting. My goal for him is to approximate some of the trials and challenges of us BRATs and look at how he deals with them.

As I stated earlier, I am committed to producing fiction for military dependants. The first step is for me to write it. Then I get to see if the editors think they are worthy of publication. I know there is enough of a market for these to be profitable, so I have no concerns there. I actually read this weekend that most science fiction books consider 20,000 novels a good sales run. I read that and thought about how many BRATs are out there. I don't think we'll have trouble convincing a publisher that this can be profitable, but that doesn't mean that I can turn in an inferior manuscript. That would not be right to them or to all of my fellow BRATs.

Time to get back to work. I fervently believe that I can finish drafts of all three of these projects by September. That is my time line.