Progress Report 2026 Week 35

The Real Life Family Event (RLFE) stalking my life throttled back a little this week. It’s still there; but it didn’t renew its assault. What impact did that have on my writing? I’ve begun to engineer Summer Foovay’s audio files for The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone. How’s Logic Pro working for me? Did I make any progress? Speaking of progress, did I make any headway plotting The Fissure Kings Book 2: Thyone’s Ascent? Let’s take a look at the key performance indicators first.

Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers

I really, really want to see numbers above zero! Fortunatley, I’m on track to do that. Soon. I hope.

The RLFE throttled back this week. The issue is still open, but things settled down. I hope that if it can’t conclude in favor of my family, then it stays that way, but there’s no way to tell yet. However, the past week was at least stable, and my time, my family’s time, and our collective mental health stabilized.

I managed to sketch the three individual arcs, then weave them into a plot. I have more notes and sample quotes for each beat than I have for any previous plot. I hope that means I’ve immersed myself more deeply in the characters and situations so that when I start writing, it’ll just flow.

We’l see! But, the good news is that the plot’s ready, along with the key sets like the ruined Cheyenne Mountain Complex and a cemetery turned into a detention camp. Yeah, the people who treated a cemetery that way are bad — in fact, they’re the series villains.

There was a major development this week: I changed the title of book 2. It had been called Thyone’s Ascent, but I realized that was really more appropriate for book 3. I’ve done that before with The Sword of Sirius; I had initially called the second book Firebreak. The new title? The Fissure Kings Book 2: Athena Unleashed. I’m thinking about calling the third book Thyone’s Intercession, but I’m not sure. It doesn’t feel like it has the punch I want from a title.

Anyway, I hope that I can finally start writing this week.

Audiobook Progress

Summer Foovay, narrator for The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning, delivered the audio files for Book 2: Collapse Zone a few weeks ago. Ever since, I’ve been trying to make time to begin engineering them according to ACX requirements. This week, since the RLFE backed down a bit, I dedicated time to learning the basics of editing audio files with Apple’s Logic Pro.

There’s a feature that in other products is called “cascade delete.” Basically, you mark a section (say, an audible intake of breath), delete it, and close the gap so there’s no moment of silence.

Did you know Apple doesn’t call it “cascade delete?” They call it “delete and move.” Which is probably more accurate! But I’d learned it as “cascade delete,” so it took me a few minutes to relearn the name. Then I had to map it to a keyboard shortcut (I chose Command-`).

Since I’d learned to “cascade delete” using Adobe Audition, I had to relearn Logic Pro’s approach. Turns out I like Logic Pro better. To get it done, I press Command-Left Click to start marking a range, drag to define it, then hit Command-~ to delete and move. I was able to process the file much more quickly compared to Audition.

I didn’t get to the point where I chain plug-ins to master to ACX’s sound level standards. But I’ve done that before, and I’m pretty confident I can recreate it. I think that moving to Logic Pro is going to work out well for me.

Progress Against Last Week’s Goals

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

1. Continue plotting The Fissure Kings: Tyrone’s Ascent: Done!
2. Monitor Summer Foovay’s recording progress for The Sword of Sirius Book 3: Firebreak: Ongoing!
3. Engineer one chapter of The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone to ACX’s standards and document the process: Partially done! I have the initial edit done, and now I need to apply the plugins.
4. Monitor the performance of the Facebook and Amazon ads: Ongoing!
5. Continue experimenting with AuthorScale: Not done!

Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2026 Week 35

Here’s what I hope to accomplish this week:

1. Write three chapters of The Fissure Kings Book 2: Athena Unleashed.
2. Monitor Summer Foovay’s recording progress for The Sword of Sirius Book 3: Firebreak
3. Engineer one chapter of The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone to ACX’s standards and document the process
4. Create the September ad campaign for Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Duty of Prisoners
5. Continue experimenting with AuthorScale

What Do You Think?

What audio software do you use to create audiobooks? Do you prefer commercial software or open source? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!