Progress Report 2025 Week 42

I’ve made a mid-course adjustment this week to focus on one of my deliverables at the expense of another. Which was the “winner” and which was the “loser?” What implications does that have for the rest of my 2026 schedule? Will we ever see progress on Wayland’s Hammer? Let’s look at the key performance indicators before talking about those those things.

Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers

Still no new word written in Wayland’s Hammer Book 3: Lines of Operation. But I made solid progress on another front.

I still haven’t finalized my outline for Lines of Operation, but I think that’s for the best. Last week, I spent most of my week producing the audiobook version of The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning (read by Summer Foovay). I finished eleven audio chapters this week, and I had planned for four. I’ll talk about why I over achieved in a minute, but the effort helped Wayland’s Hammer. How?

It’s been a long time since I wrote The Sword of Sirius. I’m embarrassed to say that I’d forgotten about where Owen Payne’s head was at. Summer Foovay’s interpretation of the character helped me remember the guy’s still pretty young, as in late twenties or early thirties. Though he’s seem some stuff on the surface of Bilskirnir, he’s essentially the same man. I had lost touch who he was.

That’s important because it affects what I’ve written for Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Point of Departure. It’ll affect how I fix Payne’s arc. It underscores my need to get the story right. Forget rapid release; forget trying to get the next book out. Focus on getting the next book out right.

The good news is that my beta readers plus Summer Foovay’s reading helped me identify the issue before I published Wayland’s Hammer. The other good news is that I understand the underlying issues, and I have to give credit where it’s due: Johnny B. Truant’s audiobook The Artisan Author (affiliate link) reminded me that the art is the thing. I can find new ways to market a good book. I can’t market something that sucks.

So, my new mantra is this: This is a zero suckage zone.

Course Correction

One of the ways I hope to avoid suckage is increasing my focus. My brain loves to jump around, but when it does, I lose focus and a little bit of my edge every time I task switch. In order to contain suckage, I’m going to focus on one major task at a time.

This week, I decided not to work on Wayland’s Hammer. It’s going to need all my attention to get it into shape. Instead, I decided to focus on producing the audiobook version of The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning.

As I said above, this will help me get back into Payne’s head. But it also gets me closer to publishing an audiobook. I think there’s a big market for them. I would like to go with a human narrator, which is why I’m not yet publishing the Amazon Virtual Voice versions of Dreams of Deucalion. Red Flag Warning is the perfect entry.

I’ll tell you what: I’ve always respected producers and editors of all kinds. That’s tough, exacting work that’s often out of the public’s sight. But having to learn Adobe Audition has increased that respect. It has taken a ton of time time (I just learned how to insert silence — sounds simple, and it is, but I didn’t have the need until the twenty-fifth chapter). It’s not just the technical aspects of operating Adobe Audition. It’s learning how to maintain cadence or enhance a line’s emotion impact. That’s hard.

If Red Flag Warning is successful, I hope to work with Summer Foovay on the next two books. She’s a good fit for that trilogy, since 2/3 of the leads are female.

On the plus side, I can now recognize a breath from its auditory signature in Adobe Audition. That’s a skill that has come in handy (given how narrators have to breath and all!). I know there are automated ways to remove breaths, but there are times I want to leave them in place (e.g., if the speaker is breathless).

Dreams of Deucalion has two male leaders and one female lead. I’m thinking about trying to narrate that myself. It will take a significantly lower investment of time if I do a royalty sharing deal with ACX. On the other hand, as I listened to Amazon Virtual Voice, it occurred to me that I’m best positioned to understand where the characters are coming from. Per Mr. Truant’s book, it might help gain fans if I connect to readers by narrating my own books.

Maybe. It all depends on if I can manage my narration suckage levels. I’m not going to make the decision now. I want to see how Red Flag Warning performs.

Strategy for the Remainder of 2025

I’ve evaluated the impact of my decision to focus on one major task at a time. It will likely take me two or three weeks to finish Red Flag Warning. That’ll bring me into the first week of November. The final touch-up edit, post processing, and uploading to ACX will take at least another week.

Then I’ll turn my attention to fixing Point of Departure and Resistance Movement. I think that’ll probably take at least two weeks, so that takes us to the first week of December. Factor in Real Life Family Events (RLFEs), and it’s likely I won’t finish reviewing the plot for Lines of Operation until at least the first week of January 2026.

On one hand, that’s disappointing. I was almost ready to start writing Lines of Operation! But the suckage factor was far, far too high. I’m going to call this a victory by saying Wayland’s Hammer is going to be a much, much better series when I’m done with it because of this delay. I’ve also put checks in place to make sure I am certain I hear the characters’ voices in my mind before I declare the outline complete. My readers deserve no less.

Progress Against Last Week’s Goals

Here’s how I did against last week’s goals:

1. Monitor the effectiveness of the new Facebook ad: Ongoing! It’s getting harder to attract reader attention. I think the small video ad that I shared here is helping. I might have to build on that.
2. Produce three more audio chapters from The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning: Done! I produced eleven. I plan to focus on this until it’s done.
3. Begin reviewing Moritz Lehner’s arc in Point of Extraction: Not started! I’m going to finish working on Red Flag Warning’s audiobook first.
4. Bid the new cover for Evolution’s Hand Book 1: Executive Action: In process! Miblart got the first draft to me, and it looked great! I had two minor requests for changes. I won’t upload the new covers for Evolution’s Hand until I get all six. That’ll probably be in the March/April 2026 timeframe.

Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2025 Week 42

Here’s what I hope to achieve this week:

1. Produce ten audiobook chapters for The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning (should take me up to chapter thirty-six).
2. Take delivery of the first revision to the new cover for Evolution’s Hand Book 1: Executive Action.
3. Monitor the Facebook ad for Dreams of Deucalion.
4. Investigate Discover Sci-Fi as a potential promotion source for Dreams of Deucalion.

What Do You Think?

How do you decide how many tasks to juggle? How do you maintain immersion if you work on multiple projects? I’d love to hear about your thoughts in the comments!