Hey Wyatt, where you been?

Hey, folks.  It’s been a while since my last update, so y’know, all systems normal.  I figured it’s about time to update progress on my new novel and as usual, there’s a story behind it.

I announced May, 26^th, 2025 as the start date and I actually did stick to it.  For the next few months, I brainstormed, outlined, researched future tech and most importantly, kept my mentor/editor in the loop about the structure.  On 5/30/2025 I finalized the outline.  15 planned chapters.

One thing I forgot to mention was before I restarted, I read “A Worldbuilder’s guide to Societies” by Brent Stypczynski.  It’s a bit preachy but it’s very thorough on covering every aspect of what would be needed to build an entire society and how they got there, whether that’s sci-fi, fantasy or alternate history.  The main thing it did for me was make me ask questions while I was reading it.  I wrote those questions down and answered them as I went so by the end, I believe the world feels fleshed out and most important to me, it makes sense.

So, my next step was to breathe life into the outline.  As in, go from a list of chapter titles and vague concepts to the details.  What happens in the chapter, what are the character’s motivations and does the chapter/scene move the story along.  After a furious week of hammering away and back-and-forth with my mentor, the detailed outline was completed on 6/8/2025.

Progress was steady at this point.  Knocking out a chapter or two every month.  I belong to a local writing group and another member had also started a new novel so we had an unofficial contest between us to see who would finish first.  My goal was to finish the rough draft in 2026. (1 year, instead of 7 years) By October, 6 chapters were done and things were looking good.  I’d already had the first chapters reviewed by that same writing group and the feedback was positive.  Great critiques that allowed me to correct some glaring issues and keep on.

And this, my friends, is where things go awry.  We’d come into a financial boon a few years prior and still hadn’t figured out what to do with it but finally me and my wife agreed (Dangerous!).  We’d build an addition onto the house.  This would provide a separate living space for one of our adult autistic kids and an office for me.  (At this point, I’d been working out of our bedroom for several years so you can imagine that fun.)  So, in October of 2025, we embarked on that great American experience of dealing with contractors.

The agreement was finalized in September.  We began the planning and permit process in October with a move in date set for the end of November.  How foolish we were.  See, we were going off of our previous experience building the house in 2017.  With our retired commercial contractor Uncle in charge of everything.  Sadly, he’d passed away at this point so we were forced to go with a residential contractor.  Someone who would take the load off our backs.  We still planned to do a lot of work ourselves, but we wanted to be more hands-off this time managing everything.

Instead of getting the permit finalized in a couple of weeks, we didn’t get it until December 5^th.  One week after the project was supposed to be complete!  And that wasn’t until we got directly involved with the architect and the permit office.  Funny how once we took over that part, it did only take a couple weeks.

That should’ve been our clue for how the rest of it was going to go.  Delays, incompetence, shoddy work and some good ol’ underhanded double-dealing.  I’d rather not get into the specifics but suffice to say, we were failing inspections left and right until once again, we got directly involved and started correcting everything.  Then finally, we started hiring our own people instead of the clown show the contractor brought with him.  Between me, my wife, my son and our team, we managed to correct most of the nonsense from that other crew.  Unfortunately, you just can’t fix a crooked floor once walls are put on top of them.  One of my other Uncles made a valiant effort.  It’s real close and looks spectacular… but I’ll know. Lol

We finally received the certificate of occupancy on May 14, 2026.  Only 6 months later than it was supposed to take.  Then came the moving in. (Something I’m terrible at.) Which was compounded by the fact that there were certain pieces of furniture I wanted to use in the new space that I hadn’t built yet.  I’d already moved my office setup in so once it became my official working space, the rest slowed to a crawl.  I’d say I officially finished moving in on 6/28/2026.

The brains of the operation:

The furniture got made:

So, how much progress on the book happened during that time?  Nada.  I started chapter 7 last November.  See, I promised my wife that once we started, the addition would be the only project I’d focus on until it was done.  Same as when we built the house.  I just had no idea it would take longer than it took to build the actual entire house.

But good news!  I’m back on the case.  This last week, I worked through a tricky part of chapter 7 and expect to have it done soon.  Which is important because this chapter is a major inciting incident.

I’m still on track to finish the rough draft in 2026.  Provided the sky doesn’t fall or something nuts.

Y’all have a good one.