A Letter from Chris 4/19/24

Hello again

Its been a while. Not much has happened to warrant a newsletter until now, so I figured I would save you all the inbox clutter.

Additionally, life hasn’t been particularly good if I’m being honest. It has outright kicked me while I was already down, and its often incredibly difficult to be creative when you’re expending your energy elsewhere. Creativity, at least in my case, comes when the mind has had ample time to rest and can use its energy reserves for exploration. As a result I haven’t made any progress on my sequel novella worth mentioning.

That being said, I haven’t been entirely idle. I’ll expand on that toward the end.

More to the main point, I come with rather big news, and one that puts a smile on my face. The Dance Between has won an award!

Indie BRAG is not a competition but more like a professional vetting service for self-published fiction authors. Written works are judged on Title, Cover, Plot, Characters, Dialogue, Writing Style, Chapters Flow, Copy Editing, Content, and Formatting. And The Dance Between scored…

…4s across the entire board! And not only that, but Indie BRAG has even seen fit to award it the BRAG Medallion, which only 20-25% of submissions ever receive!

Not bad for my first ever published novel!

Onto other news, I’m sure many of you are asking: Chris, what the hell is going on with your audiobook? You keep promising it and it never materializes. What’s the problem?

You’re right, and I apologize for the delays. Unfortunately the person I enlisted to help narrate it has bowed out due to personal reasons, leaving me to go searching for a replacement. I have found one, and they have already started working. I’m hoping (again: hoping) they will have finished their first pass within two months, but you’ll understand why I’m cautious to claim anything with certainty at this point.

Finally, there’s the secret project I’ve been working on.

This is what I was referring to when I mentioned I haven’t been entirely idle. It hasn’t taken nearly as much creative energy as writing a novel, and it has allowed me to break my focus into many bite-sized chunks across a variety of things, which I don’t get to do when writing a singular story.

But why is it secret? Well, its because I have been exploring storytelling via livestreaming, and I am embodying a character to do it. To tell you all who this character is would be to break immersion, which is something I’m compulsively against as a storyteller. Even if you figure out who this character is on your own I will never admit I’m the person behind it. But you all are my dear readers, subscribers, friends, and family, and you deserve my transparency.

So where does this all leave me? First, I need to get my life in order. Once things have settled down I might be able to put more resources and energy into my novella. For now most of what energy I have is going into my streaming project, at least for a little while.

Beyond that, now that my self-published novel has a worthwhile medallion under its belt I think I may start petitioning literary agents again for representation. This award proves I’m not messing around, and its time others recognize that. I’ve made a good book, and I did it through my own direction, with my own resources, and largely alone.

But I will never stop thanking every person who has helped me get here, and as my readers, that includes you.

Thank you. Truly.

With my best wishes,

Christopher

The Dance Between is out now! Pick up your copy here! You may also find me on Twitter or Instagram at @ChrisWritesNow

A new word that found me: Riparian: of, on, or relating to the banks of a natural course of water.