I was just recently at a writing retreat. Not the fancy, expensive kind where you pay to isolate yourself for most of the day, then share your work with a coach, sleep on the critique, and the next day somehow try to improve on the day before.

No, this was a retreat to a house on a lake in northeastern Wisconsin. My wife, Terri, and daughter, Samantha, are my board of directors and accompanied me to The Northwoods. The plan was for me to write while they read through the samples and synopses of the thirteen completed manuscripts.

They ranked the manuscripts, then discussed their rankings among themselves and with me. Then we formulated a publishing plan which would guide the launch of each novel in my imprint, Infinite Genius Publishing.

Unfortunately, my wife was ill for the entire week. She was laid up with a respiratory infection and spent the time resting and recuperating.

One silver lining: with Terri out of commission for a few days, I had more time to work on specific manuscripts with my daughter. I had been struggling with the sequence of events in book I of my Quinton Thatcher Mystery series. I had fallen into the trap that happens to writers who are pantsers. As in, I write by the seat of my pants. I had fallen in love with the beginning of the book.

I wrote the first few chapters without any idea what the mystery’s plot was. I had the character firmly in mind and introduced him in an extremely entertaining manner. By the end, all the story’s tangential-appearing threads came together. Yet…the beginning stood alone, and the actual mystery wasn’t even introduced until chapter 8.

I struggled for years to “fix” the story and even removed the beginning several times, only to give in to my affection for the opening scene.

Eventually I made peace with using that scene somewhere else in the series. It survives. My daughter helped me rearrange and organize the scenes to ensure a reader understood the premise of the story from the very beginning.

On top of that, I was heartened that both Terri and Samantha ranked Quinton Thatcher: Skullduggery as a tier one manuscript. Yes, Terri rallied enough at the end of our time at the lake to spend a day reading the samples and synopses for each manuscript and providing rankings and notes for each.

They agreed on the rankings for almost all the manuscripts. The rankings represented the marketability of the work and how close it was to publication.

Tier One Books.

These manuscripts are ready for copy editing and proofreading. The story, plot, and characters are well thought out. These manuscripts are marketable.

Dying to Play the Game: My Life as a Dead Player Character—Science Fiction/Fantasy

Keeping It Together While Falling Apart—Memoir

Dream Pirates Book I—YA Fantasy

Quinton Thatcher: Skullduggery—Humor/Mystery

Keeping It Together While Falling Apart is figuratively and literally what I have been doing for the last two years. It is a medical mystery memoir, fully explained sixty-one years late. The question was: Can I play through it? Then it became: Can I live through it? And finally: Can I live with it?

The manuscript is complete but has not yet been sent to a professional editor. I am extremely fortunate to have medical professionals reviewing the manuscript and consulting on specific scientific and medical explanations to verify accuracy.

Medical bills this year have outrun our budget. The month in Rochester while attending the Pain Rehabilitation Clinic included some surprise out-of-network expenses.

The GoFundMe goal is set at $7,000. This is the minimum amount needed to cover professional editing, the book cover, and formatting for publication. I am thankful for the nearly $2,000 raised and look forward to more contributions. Best-case scenario: publication, fall 2027.

Dying to Play the Game: My Life as a Dead Player Character is fiction, but it’s tied to my real-life journey. Terrance Champion III has multiple physical disabilities. Even sitting at a computer and playing video games has become a difficult challenge. That is until he plays Faraway: A Land of Dreams and Heroes, a game set in a virtual environment using a prototype headset his daughter, Megan, developed. He dies while playing. And yet…he remains alive within the game as a DPC. His quest is to find his daughter both in the Virt and in Real.

Like the protagonist, I’ve faced physical challenges, but I keep living, and like Champion, I keep playing the game.

Neither my wife nor my daughter is in love with the title, Dying to Play the Game: My Life as a Dead Player Character. Please enter your suggestions in the comments.

Samantha is completing the final edit of Dying to Play the Game and has an early 2027 deadline. I will hire an artist this winter to design the cover, then work to get the book ready for publication. Publication estimate: Winter of 2027. This is likely my first published work.

Dream Pirates is a YA fantasy duology title currently with a small press, and I am anxiously awaiting their decision on whether they will add it to their publishing schedule.

I am happily working on the Quinton Thatcher: Skullduggery manuscript, which will be next in line for publication.

The master plan is to release two books a year.

Tier two books.

The manuscript is ready for beta readers.

Tripping the Light Fantastic—Space, Science Fiction

Stealing Time-portal time travel series—Science Fiction

The Adventures of Stern Grey: Blood Magic Book I—Fantasy/series

The Adventures of Elias Boone: Book I—Contemporary Fantasy/dual timeline/series

The Invisible Hand—Literary science fiction/AI

The Magic of Poems—Fantasy fable

Baseball Mystery still looking for a title—Middle-grade sports mystery

Tier Three-Sequels.

The manuscript is ready for beta readers. The story, plot, and characters are well thought out.

Piercing the Veil (Dream Pirate Saga, Book II) YA Fantasy

More Fantastic (Tripping, Book II) Space Science Fiction

Regardless of the timeline, every day is an opportunity to write, to read, and to be. Subscribe to my author website to get updates like this—updates on what I’m working on and information about upcoming published work.

On my Substack page, I share my thoughts on the world at large. Ideas and stories continue to fill notebooks, with some developing into full-blown concepts and a few growing into upcoming novels.

Thanks to everyone for your ongoing support. Remember to hit the share button and recommend me to your friends and family. Spread the word!

Terry Johnson