PROGRESS REPORT: WEEK ENDING APRIL 18, 2020

A LOT OF GROUND TO COVER THIS WEEK, so let's get right to it!

First and foremost...
Hope everyone is still safe and sound as the pandemic continues!😷
I'm about as well as can be expected and taking every precaution humanly possible.
Even wearing a mask and gloves whenever I go out, which is actually as little as possible, but geez!
Those long lines at the store and you're not even guaranteed total fulfillment of your grocery list even when you get up at the crack of dawn and are one of the early birds waiting in line to enter when the store opens!

But that's not why you came here to begin with.
I've almost finished the first draft of SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNIMAGINABLE.
Currently at 24,000+ words, the novella (for there is no way I can call this a "short" story any more) will be under 30,000 words, but afraid I don't have an exact word count for you at the moment.

Waiting in the wings...

Once Holmes is done, including being reviewed by my Friendly Neighborhood Beta-Proofreader and off for publication consideration, I will be going back to SOLITAIRE
.
After that novel is finished?
Strongly thinking about the plot for whatever becomes PROJECT ALPHA 3, but am also mentally kicking around ideas for a science fiction novel in the classic style of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Tom Corbett, etc.
And if you get the references, you have an idea of the style I'm contemplating.

For those wondering, the deadline for my audition story to that major publisher was April 30. Submitted the tale with time to spare, although when/if I'll hear back from them is anybody's guess at the moment.
Best I'm hoping for right now is for them to like my audition and wonder what else I have/am capable of.
That last part I'm wondering about myself.
With each new project, I do think I'm improving as a writer.
I'm certainly not the person I was back in high school, let alone a decade ago before I started getting published.
And obviously you folks like my efforts. Otherwise you wouldn't be here reading these words right now, wondering how things are going and what I've been up to since the last Progress Report.

In any event, take care.
Stay strong.
STAY SAFE!

And I'll see you around the Internet.
Lee Houston, Junior
19 April, 2020