Chris Barili

So authors are supposed to have blogs. And we’re supposed to blog on those blogs. We’re supposed to tour blogs, do interviews on blogs, and so on and so forth. On blogs. And we’re supposed to interact with readers and non-readers and everyone else on these blogs until we’re blue in the face and ready to crawl back into our shells.

I never really got into that. I always preferred to work on a story if I was sitting at the keyboard, welcoming the damaging blue light into my brain. It can go grab a chair next to Mr. Parkinson and the two can talk about their plans for ruining my life.

Anyway, it’s been a good two years or so since I posted anything on this blog, and as my government career winds down, and I approach retirement from the “day job,” I see my writing taking off. And if doing a blog will help get readers involved with the stories I write or other topics, then so be it. I stopped for personal reasons. I had to tend to life for a couple of years. Things like getting married to the love of my life. Transitioning to new duties at work. Adjusting to health changes. Applying for and being denied for increased VA disability and early retirement from the civilian force. And of course, the loss of my father to thyroid cancer.

Those are not little events. They’re huge, each of them, and they didn’t just stop my blogging—they stopped my creative process dead, and left me selling old stories and getting some reprints going so my writing career didn’t grind to a complete stop.

And now things appear to have calmed down enough that I am creating again. It’s not back to 100% yet, but it’s getting there.  So I think for my first blog back after a sabbatical, I should bring you all up to date on what creative projects I have going on. Here we go:

• I have several pieces of short fiction coming out soon, including “Shaken” in the most recent Wordcrafter anthology Midnight Roost.
• Wordcrafter’s Midnight Madness antho will feature my short story “The Headmaster Burns.”
• “The Legend of Trooper 666” will appear in the anthology Legends,” also from Wordcrafter.
• I am currently working on Hell’s Pappy, Book Three in the Hell’s Butcher series, but it will not come out alone. Wordcrafter will be putting Books one through three, and the prequel together in what we’re calling Volume One of the Series.So that would be Guilty, Hell’s Marshal, Hell’s Butcher, and Hell’s Pappy all put together to form Volume One.
• And there will be some neat stuff from B.T. Clearwater soon, as well,
• And finally, I am in the very early stages of a young adult series that will involve a sasquatch named Walter, but that is hush-hush right now.

So there you have it. I wish I could promise to update this mor, but I am looking at this being a monthly blog, so check back in July and see e what’s up!