Steven Paul Watson, Author

So it’s kind of long over due update on the Howling Moon series. This is sort of a good news bad news situation. Full Wolf Moon, the second book in the series came out in winter of 2022 and I had truly been hoping to get the third book in the series out by this coming winter. This is the bad news. After going through and reading book 3 I’ve decided it needs a major rewrite on the second half of the book, there is a lot in the book that I love and there is a lot that I have pulled that just doesn’t fit it. So it isn’t going to come out quite as quickly as I’d hoped but by the end of summer I should have some sort of update on the book!

The good news, the spin off book that I wrote is going to come out sooner than expected just not in print form. At least not this year in print. However, if you follow my Patreon starting in April you will get two ‘raw’ chapters a month of the book starring Alma! Which should bring it to an end around December of this year, at which point I will start planning on a full release of the book for next year!

While I do have another book coming out this year after Widows Ridge, my main focus beyond my steampunk novel will be the Howling Moon series for the rest of the year. I want to release book 3, the spin off starring Alma and a Novella starring Ashley all in 2025!

Just a quick mid week update considering I didn’t do my usually Monday update this week! The design process for Widows Ridge is done…well, nearly done. I’ve seen the digital proof, I’ve ordered a paperback proof with hopes of getting it next week! The Novella is already up for pre-order as an e-book and soon will be for a paperback! I will also be doing a pre-order on signed copies probably starting the first week of April!

A few updates on other projects coming soon, maybe as soon as tomorrow!

• I guess the way I look at it right now is I’m a week behind schedule. I missed last weeks writing update and on top of that I haven’t got to put as much effort into the design process for Widows Ridge as I’d would have hoped.

• This coming Saturday is Willcon in Williamson West Virginia! I’ll be there with copies of all of my books.

• I’ve been working on some paintings for events… Nothing major really, just me trying to be more creative.

• My February word count was just over 9,000 words so I didn’t hit my 10 k for the month, but my over all word count for the year is ahead of schedule pulling in at 25k. So far, 10 days into March I’ve not accomplished much but it’s still a long way before the month is over and I have a lot I want to get done.

April 30th! It’s the official release date!

You can preorder the eBook now at the link at the bottom of page! The preorder for a paperback is also coming very soon. I’ll post when it is also available!

The hills of Harlan County are full of majestic beauty, hidden mysteries, and haunting tales that Dustin and Jacob grew up hearing. Widows Ridge was one of those terrifying tales. Widows Ridge, a story of a long-forgotten holler and the mesmerizing spider-like woman preying on anyone who would be tempted to trespass.

Dustin is to be married, but not before these two lifelong friends embark on his last hooray hunting trip that causes them to cross a web of trails that are long forgotten. They quickly learned the fabled stories that haunted their youth weren’t stories. What should have been a night of bonding for two old friends becomes a nightmare as the Widow seeks her prey.

I want to thank getcovers for the cover, they took my idea and ran with it and I think it plays off the creepiness of the story.

https://a.co/d/1KI4hVr

Long Overdue…

But I posted my first short story up on Patreon and this one is free to everyone!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/broken-99415697?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

So I’m switching up from the usually Friday update and moving it to Mondays…

For starters the past week was very productive, I have went head first into fixing all the mistakes the editor has pointed out for Widows Ridge and hopefully by this coming weekend I’ll be in the design phase!

Writing, i ended up putting over 3000 words to page this past week! So I’m still on the path to breaking 10k this month.

You can look for a big update coming March 1st on Widows Ridge!

Sorry for no Friday post this week!  Spent an amazing weekend with the family for my boys birthday!  We took him skiing! I spent most of the time on my butt and not entirely sure what I think about it, lol.  But the kid seemed to really enjoy themselves so it is a big win!

Writing updates….  I have Widows Ridge back from the editor.  It’s faster than I was expecting, which is great. So starting tomorrow I move on to the next steps.

I did many to write around 3000 words this past 10 days, so that’s good too!

So normally I write up these Friday updates on Thursday and just schedule them to upload…but here I am getting this one done just before midnight on Friday. But hey, at least I’m keeping with it which isn’t something i’ve ever been truly good at when it comes to blogging.

40 days into 2024! This biggest update for this past week, Widows Ridge is off to the editor with hopes that I’ll have it back by months end so I can go over her notes and edits and then start the design process!

I did manage to get a little bit of writing done this past week on top of my editing! wrote around 2500 words, 2 k to a vampire story and 500 to Pixie Bones… But any progress is good progress….right?

With Widows Ridge off to the editor, the next couple weeks I’ll be spending a lot of time concentrating on short stories and Ulysses 1, with hopes of getting it ready for an editor by the end of April!

See you next week!

A little bit of a different summary for this week, not only am I a couple days early but this is just a run down of what I accomplished in January. Honestly I think I was fairly productive. If I can duplicate it every month this year I will be fairly happy with my progress by years end.

I wrote just over 16,000 words in the month of January, about 6000 over what my goal was for the month.

I’ve read over Widows Ridge three times this month and it’s going off to the editor early next week so from there it’ll be close to the end of February before I can work on it anymore. Still very much on task to release it at the end of April. Hopefully I can finalize a lot of the release details around the first week of March.

So, my goals for February…. 

• 10,000 words written.

• 2 read through of Widows Ridge, the first one this weekend to add just a handful of details and the second once I have it back from the editor and hopefully address any notes she may have for me.

• Publish two short Stories to Patreon.

Here’s hoping for another productive month!

Small update this week….

But a very important one, Widows Ridge goes off to the editor next week! And I went through a complete read through this week. Going to try and go through it once more before I hand it off.

I didn’t do much writing, but there is still hope I’ll get to 20k before the end of January.