What happened? In the throes of parenthood, the year passed me by! Somehow, I was able to launch Bounty Inc., but it has me wondering how!
It’s been a wild year for me. It was my first full year of parenthood, and with it all the pains and greatness to it. Nothing has brought me more joy than watching Vivian figure out the world around her, like how she can use a slice of pizza to pick up her Kix cereal and eat it that way. Or watching her pull herself up and toddle around with assistance. I don’t expect her to need that assistance much longer, which is scary and wonderful.
With parenthood, my writing took a bit of a hit. I wanted to get more done, but by golly, they’re not joking when they warn you about ParentBrain. As a result, I got about a third the words I usually get down, though these were also due to a few other things, which I’ll get into. So, let’s stop rambling and get into it!
Year in Review
What did I work on all year? Well, let me tell you that I’m real glad I track this in a spreadsheet, because I can’t even remember what I worked on a few months ago… Anyway, I’ll go over what I was working on throughout the year, but project specific updates will be handled below.
January-February
This was primarily running through a draft of Bounty Inc. and getting it into shape. At this point, it was edits and tweaks more than any real words down. So, I tracked everything by pages instead. Which means my word counts were really low (a theme for this year).
In addition to this, however, I did work on The Knitting Club‘s first draft between Bounty Inc. edits, finishing it early February. It was really barebones, and needed some hefty meat added to the bones when I went into the second draft. That was mostly because I had typed a chunk of it on my phone while rocking my baby to sleep.
March-April
This was a weird month. I handed over Bounty Inc. for edits in February, and had about a month free while I waited for those. I decided to delve into the next book in the Bounty Inc. universe, The Melody of a Lost Soul, and hammered out a good chunk of that. I’ll detail the book more below, but I am enjoying the characters a lot and look forward to working on it more.
About halfway through the month though, apparently the urge to work on a text adventure game hit me, and I set aside my stories and began construction on Bounty Inc.: the Text Adventure. The idea for this was to let the player choose one of three species to play as, which would net them different abilities to look into and solve a bounty. It was a lot of fun to work on, but I ended up getting interrupted by the return of my Bounty Inc. edits.
The end of March and all of April were spent getting Bounty Inc. updated with edits. I was able to then turn it over for one last round of edits, which I wasn’t going to get back until June. So…
May-June
The entirety of May I spent working on Bounty Inc.: the Text Adventure, and therefore, had a nonexistent word count. This side project definitely contributed to a low word count for me over the year. But again, it was a fun experiment.
In June, I got the Copy Edits back for Bounty Inc. and went to town on those, getting the story in place to be able to send out ARCs and do one last proofread.
July-September
Okay, well, this is where life kinda fell apart for me. I started July with working on The Disappearance of Veronica Laine for an entire day, and that’s it. I made the difficult decision that despite liking the story, I needed to shelve it for now. It would only get in the way of my other two series I’m already juggling.
I shifted gears then, and prioritized The Knitting Club. I was able to get most of the second draft done during this time, which looking at my spreadsheet, was shockingly sparse for writing. Like I said, life kinda fell apart, and writing was difficult during that time for a variety of reasons. But I got there eventually, put things together, and though I didn’t finish the draft by the end of September, it was pretty quick into…
October
…October that I finally finished the second draft of The Knitting Club. I handed it off to my wife, who enjoyed it greatly!
October was also the month I launched Bounty Inc., so it was a busy month of switching gears to Promotional Adam instead of Writer Adam. It’s also why October get’s a month to itself!
Both early in October and on the later end, I worked on A Dream Resolute, getting it ready to launch on my Patreon come November 1st. This was also when I really wanted to figure out how to do my Patreon and keep it consistent. I also came up with the idea to start a podcast called Bounty News Network where I interview guest authors about their books! I interviewed my very first guest, Krystle Matar, on October 29th!
November-December
Early November was figuring out Bounty News Network as well as interviewing my second guest, A.C. Cross. When I got back into writing, it was because I had figured out a long standing issue I had with a story called Tales From a Post-Apocalyptic Café, and I had to dive into it immediately.
I eventually shifted gears to A Dream Resolute as I got it ready for the December chapter, but then I switched gears again (yes, I’m a mess!) to a random short story I thought of due to a post on Bluesky: A Contract with MorgueShack, which I quickly hammered out.
Of course, come December, I switched back to Tales, for a couple days, while my wife read through MorgueShack. I am now in the middle of wrapping up a second draft of MorgueShack after it got great approval from my wife, and will have that wrapped by the end of the month. I’m hoping to shop this cyberpunk story around to magazines or anthology’s to see if I can get it published elsewhere.
The rest of my month will probably be Tales here and there while I also celebrate the holidays. I don’t expect it to be too productive.
And that was my year. A bit less productive, a bit more scattered all over the place. But I launched a book! Now, onto specific project updates!
Chronicles of Gam Gam
It was a down year for Gam Gam, as my efforts were spent on Bounty Inc. getting published. That’s not to say nothing was done however!
Current Series Updates
A Necromancer Called Gam Gam is now wide as an audiobook, so you can get it from other services like Spotify or Audiobooks.com. More importantly, you can also rent it from libraries!
Unfortunately, due to the high costs of making an audiobook, I don’t have any immediate plans to produce one for The Wishing Stone, though I hope to one day do so! (Babies are expensive! Maybe once she’s out of diapers and daycare, I might be able to afford an audiobook again.)
The Knitting Club
The Knitting Club is currently in second draft, and has been read by my wife, who loved it. That’s a good sign, but I’m also reaching out to have additional eyes on it. I want to make this story as perfect as I can, and that starts with making sure the foundation is good. If all goes well, I’ll be running through it for a third draft before sending it to Beta readers and scheduling editing. I’m hopeful for a 2026 release, but this will depend on how tied up my money is (see baby notes all over the place).
What’s to Come in the Gamiverse?
I have a planned fourth book, tentatively titled A Kiss for the Elm-Cursed, but my main focus is on book three. I have an idea for a short story I’ll be adding to the physical edition of Knitting Club, but I’m not 100% sold on it.
Bounty Inc.
Bounty Inc.
Well, here’s the big one! If you are reading this, I have to assume you know this, but Bounty Inc. released in October! So far it’s getting a stellar reception, and I’m very happy about that. This book is the cornerstone to a much larger universe that I am looking forward to exploring, of which I have already begun work on a few things.
Be sure to check out Bounty Inc. if you haven’t already!
Sage & Zetta Prequel Novella
Okay, this wasn’t really one of the things I worked on. I did spend a day outlining it, but that’s about it. I wanted to bring this up first as this is my highest priority in 2026. I want to work on this novella and get it in good shape, so I can offer it to people who signed up for my newsletter. So, if you want first dibs on a story following these two disaster lesbians, be sure to sign up now!
Sage and Zetta’s history has been hinted at, commented on, and otherwise brought up in Bounty Inc., but this novella will let us see what truly happened to the pair before they reunited.
A Dream Resolute
Acting as a second entry point to the Bounty Inc. universe, this serialized story offers very little spoilers to the first book, instead following two completely new characters on the fringes of the galaxy. This is offered up on my Patreon for all paid tiers, and will eventually be collected into a volume and published normally. A Dream Resolute follows Gremori Gote, a bounty hunter of some notoriety who joins up with Bounty Inc. to help him on his mission, as the last vestige of hope for his people. He bumps into the mysterious and enigmatic Dream, a strange creature who appears to have skin that sparkles like the night sky. Can Dream convince Grem to let her join him, or will their interaction be no more than a fleeting moment?
The Melody of a Lost Soul
The Melody of a Lost Soul is a spin-off novel that will be following a bounty hunter and a bounty who end up stranded on a strange and dangerous planet together. Now, they must work together to survive, if they can avoid killing each other first. This is my gay, enemies-to-lovers, stranded on a planet story.
Eagle-eyed readers may end up recognizing one of the main characters from Bounty Inc. Eagle-eyed readers won’t recognize the other main, because he hasn’t been in anything before this! This is my next priority after Sage & Zetta and The Knitting Club.
Books Beyond
A few more ideas have been stewing in my brain for this series. There will be a mix of standalones, subseries, and overarching series events that will introduce and bring together many different characters. Some ideas I have are a more direct sequel to Bounty Inc., tentatively titled Dead Man Walking, an untitled sapphic revenge story, a two-book story inspired by Resident Evil that tells two different stories over the same event (I have a fun unique edition idea for this as well), and I’m sure a few more ideas in there brewing… Just need to find the time to write. I told you this universe would be massive, right?
Beyond Books
This is my lofty area, where I think to myself, “What can I also accomplish outside of writing?” As if writing isn’t difficult enough!
The first is a project I mentioned above having worked on this year: Bounty Inc.: the Text Adventure. I got really passionate about it in the first half of the year, but lost a bit of steam, and it never really seemed to garner any interest. Which is fair, it’s pretty niche. So, for now, it’s shelved, but like in an easy to access shelf.
The second, way loftier goal, is Bounty Inc. the Board Game. I have the basic idea of the board game figured out, which means I’m like 1% there! I would love for this to be a reality some day, but it will not be until all the books mentioned in this post have been published. So, I’ve got some time to flesh it out!
Other Works
A Contract with MorgueShack
This is my short story, which came to me at the end of November and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It’s a cyberpunk setting, where a man sells his body for posthumous use to MorgueShack, a company that specializes in selling corpses to techno-necromancers. Unfortunately for the man, he soon finds posthumous is approaching a little too quickly for his tastes. Maybe a contract that benefits one party with your death is not the best thing to be signing…
I plan to shop this around and try to publish it in either a magazine or an anthology. So, hit me up if you are running either of those things!
Tales From a Post-Apocalyptic Café
The grand idea behind Tales for me was to write an anthology by myself. A series of short stories set in a post-nuclear apocalypse inspired by one of my favorite game series, Fallout. I had a lot of trouble with this one because I didn’t want it to just be a handful of short stories. I wanted there to be a connection between them in some way.
I figured out the way this year, and my desire to write this has magnified so much. The book will feature ten short stories about people surviving the complex ecosystem of a world transformed by nuclear war, with the stories themselves being framed around individuals hiding out in a bunker-turned-café to tell the stories during a radiation storm. So, it’s an anthology pretending to be a full story!
The best part of this one is that I can easily take breaks from other work to do a story at a time, since it’s segmented so well.
The Disappearance of Veronica Laine
Onto the bad news for anyone interested in this story.
This is a story about a blood mage detective searching for her missing twin sister, and uncovering a greater conspiracy that she was ready for. I loved the magic, loved the characters, and wanted to keep expanding on the world, making it bigger, coming up with other ideas. And there was the problem. It started as a short story, and didn’t fit. I wanted to grow it into a novella, but for various reasons I actually wanted it longer. Eventually, it had a lot tied to it that I wanted to do, and there just wasn’t the time for it. Not if I wanted to release Gam Gam and Bounty Inc. consistently, adding a third series would be too overwhelming.
Maybe I’ll return to this again some day, I hope I do, but for now, it’s shelved indefinitely.
Podcast
I wanted to touch a bit more on my podcast here. Bounty News Network is a monthly interview podcast, where I bring on other guests to talk about their books (this may be expanded beyond just books, but for now I’m grabbing authors). My hope is to help other authors find new fans, and continue to expand interest in SFF works in general. I also play a fun game with the guests, inspired a bit by the Kaiser Boys on Instagram if you know of them. The podcast is available on your typical podcast apps, or on my website or YouTube.
Patreon
My Patreon has been set up with a consistent schedule now. With the release of Bounty Inc., I could finally move forward with my plan to utilize Patreon to serialize a Bounty Inc. story in the form of A Dream Resolute. In addition, I also release Bounty News Network episodes a couple days early to paid subscribers, and provide sneak peeks at my current works in progress. My main posts release on Mondays, with the following schedule:
> 1st Monday: A Dream Resolute chapter release
> 2nd Monday: Bounty News Network episode release
> 3rd Monday: Sneak Peek at what I’ve been working on
> 4th/5th Monday(s): Wild Card – anything from pictures of my pooch, to giveaways, to early drafts of short stories.
If any of this interests you, be sure to head on over and join up!
The Store
I’ve added a few things to the store, including Gam Gam pins which look absolutely adorable, and signed copies of Bounty Inc.! Be sure to check it out if you have any signed books you’d like to purchase.
Note: If you live outside the US and Canada, but would like to purchase a signed book, please reach out directly to me through my contact form and I will work with you to get that purchase done. Adding new regions can be a bit difficult with shipping costs, and I would hate to overcharge on already expensive shipping.
The Plan
Every good bounty hunter needs a plan right? Well, this is mine, whether it goes through or not, we’ll see! There’s a lot of variance. I mean, just the idea of launching two novellas in 2026 seems lofty!
The Knitting Club – 2026
Untitled Sage & Zetta Prequel Novella – 2026
Tales From a Post-Apocalyptic Café – 2027
The Melody of a Lost Soul – 2027-2028
A Kiss for the Elm-Cursed – 2028-2029
Dead Man Walking – 2028-2029
Well, don’t hold me to these, they’re goals! I would love for quicker releases, but we’ll just have to see where the writing winds take me!
Conclusion
Well, it’s been a chaotic year. I’m hoping to bring some organization to 2026 (I bought a planner notebook!) but I still have that child of mine, so who knows! Thank you so much for taking time to read this and see what I’ve been up to and will be up to! I’ll get back to pumping out these books as fast as I can while my daughter figures out how to run around the house and cause more mischief.
Happy hunting, bounty hunters!