Kyle West

Beacon is now out on Kindle!

Link is here.

My guess is a couple of weeks or less. Beta reading is the very last phase, done to find those final mistakes that were missed in the first few rounds of edits. After that it’s just a matter of formatting and slapping on the cover.

Thanks for being patient. I know it’s been quite a while since the last book, and I hope the wait will be worth it. So far, the few people who have read it have said it was good, which I’m happy about.

After this, of course I’ll be getting started on the fourth one. I have a few thousand words down but I have no idea where it’s going. This really isn’t a big deal because some books I know where it’s going, and others I have no idea. This is going to be one of those “no idea” ones. It’s different from Wasteland Chronicles in the sense that that series was clearly moving toward a final battle, whereas this one is a bit more open ended (but still has a similar idea). I’m not sure how many books will be in the series.

Already it’s shaping up to be as long or longer than Wasteland Chronicles.  I’m not sure how I feel about that, because originally I only wanted it to be three books and I never wanted a spin off series to overshadow the main one, but it seems that I’m not that great at keeping things concise because I like to explore the universe I created. Even at three books it feels as if I’ve barely scratched the surface. I think it would be a lot of fun to write a book that went into the politics of the world for and having Shanti be a part of it somehow, which would be a nice change of pace from the quest archetype/ point A to point B style of plot that the series has relied on so far.

Then again, it might turn out to be something completely different. There are still a lot of pieces that have to brought together, and a lot has to happen before the second Xenofall arrives. It’s a bit intimidating to be honest, I’m not really sure how it’s going to be done, especially because I feel a lot of pressure from myself to write faster. That’s something I really want to do, but to be honest, it’s been hard to motivate myself a lot of the time. I’m not sure why, but maybe writing ten novels in just a few years can be taxing. Even if other authors can do it no problem, it still seems like I have a lot to learn in that regard.

The writing will probably be pretty light for the next few weeks. I’m actually heading to Spain for a couple of weeks at the end of March. Hopefully I can find some inspiration, and I think I’ve just been stuck in the same place for a while, which isn’t all that great for creativity. I’ve been pushing myself anyway, by hook or by crook, as it were, but yeah, I probably don’t get outside as often as I should.

I plan to basically just see the sights, eat some food, do some backpacking, explore some history, and drink some beer and wine. Who knows what else, I’m keeping it kind of open-ended. I’m really looking forward to it. I also haven’t been on a real vacation since…well, it has been a very long time. Probably ten years. March-April should be a nice time to visit Spain, there are so many places I want to see.

World travel is something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ll be going by myself, mainly because the truth is, finding a travel partner can be a hard thing to do at my age when most people are working a 9-5. And honestly, I kind of like the idea of going on my own.

Well, enough of that. Expect Beacon to be out quite soon. This month for sure.