Here's what I've worked on and not finished since May 1, 2018, with whatever I worked on most recently at the top regardless of when it was started, and getting older as you go down. (Originally the start date was July 1, 2015, but nothing on the current list goes back that far.) There's also a list of finished works from that time period below.

Until the summer of 2015 I was absolutely abysmal about keeping this up to date; it ought to be updated at least monthly, and I'd been averaging roughly once every two years. I'm making an effort to do better; I managed to keep it up for some time, but there have been some multi-month gaps. I'm getting better. I hope.

In recent years I've been free to work on whatever I like, and I've often been hopping from project to project rather than focusing on just one or two stories. I keep hoping one will catch fire and grab all my attention; sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't. Of late I haven't been trying very hard to be productive; I don't know if it's a temporary slump, or if I'm easing into retirement.

Works in Progress:

• Tom Derringer and the Sinister Statue is on page 151, in Chapter Sixteen. Current estimate is that the novel will have eighteen chapters.

• I've written up to page 8 of a fantasy story called "Hand Me Down." I have no very clear idea how long it will be; it might wind up a short story or an entire series of short novels.

  After watching a Disney holiday special I wrote the opening of a story called "The Magic of the Holiday." It has nothing to do with Disney or any real-world holiday.

• I wrote the opening of a magical boarding school story with the working title "Part-Timers." I'm on page 4.

• I skipped ahead and wrote the opening paragraph of Tom Derringer and the Floating Fortress, sixth in the series.

• I'm still on page 11 of Swordsmen of the Fallen Empire, but I added a paragraph or two and did some revising on July 6, 2025.

• The Wizard's Key is a story set in the Walasian Empire maybe twenty years before A Young Man Without Magic -- I think; the date may well change. It involves a pair of sisters with certain magical gifts. The idea is older; I resisted the temptation to actually start writing it until October 19th, 2016, when I produced the first three pages. I'm on page 38, in Chapter Four.

• The Siege of Vair is a Bound Lands novel set in the Cousins, and I'm on page 12.

• I'm on page 24 of Eleven Blades, in Chapter Three. Not related to any previous work, probably a one-shot.

• Assassin in Waiting, a Bound Lands novel, is now on page 45.

• I'm on page 43 of the next Ethshar novel, The Rational Magic Society.

• I plotted a superhero novel called The Rise and Fall of the Emerald Eagle, set in the same city as "One of the Boys," ages ago, and I've finally started writing it. I'm on page 2.

• Meant for Each Other is now on page 40; it's a fantasy novel intended to be a YA romantic comedy set in the world of the Extermination, where the short story "Arms and the Woman" was set. Whether that's how it turns out remains to be seen.

• Someone on Bluesky challenged me to write a YA detective story in the Nancy Drew/Trixie Belden mold, but starring Dorothy Gale. I'm two pages into The Mystery of the Silver Slippers. (It's set in San Francisco, not Oz, and Dorothy, who was an un-aging eleven-year-old in Oz, is now fifteen.)

• Another long-neglected project: Myth America, a contemporary fantasy novel I started in 1987. I hauled it out, wrote a new page, looked over the outline, and decided it wasn't going to work as originally planned. I've therefore cut it back from page 14 to page 11 and thrown out the original outline; I'll need a new outline before resuming work.

• I added a bit to The Innkeeper's Daughter; it's 52 pages now.

• I've been revising Graveyard Girl. I decided on a drastic shift in the storyline, starting with Chapter Seven; I'm five pages into all-new material, and haven't yet connected it up to the old version.

• I'm on page 259 of On A Field Sable. This follows the two volumes of "The Fall of the Sorcerers."

• The Dragon's Price is on page 96.

• In a fit of insanity, I started writing Johnny Derringer vs. the Crime Lords of Atlantis. I'm on page 6, but I can't write most of the rest of it yet because it's a sequel of sorts to Tom Derringer & the Floating Fortress, which comes after Tom Derringer & the Sinister Statue, which still has a long way to go.

• Earthright is a science fiction novel I've had on the back burner for years. A proposal was out to market but doesn't seem to have drawn any interest, so I've moved it back to the "Works in Progress" category. It's on page 60 now.

• I'm up to page 52 (again; I cut a piece) on Veran the Fair and the Thieves of Borgran.

• Stormchildren is a fantasy novel set in the Quandish Archipelago, beyong the Bound Lands. I'm on page 33.

• I've plotted a new story (I'm guessing a novelet) called "Home Town Villain." Haven't started actually writing it yet.

• I'm on page 35 of "Uncle Jack," which was called "Uncle George" when I started it back in 2018. I originally thought it was going to be fairly short, but now it's looking like a novel. It's also drifted pretty far from the original premise. I may want to shove it back.

• I'm on page 7 of the short story "Halos."

• I've pulled out a story called "Fast Times" that dates back to 2004, maybe earlier. It started out as a comic book mini-series proposal I hoped to sell to DC, then in 2004 became a novel proposal. Looking it over now, though, I think it's more likely to be a novella. I'm on page 16, with a ten-page outline of the rest.

• I'm on page 13 of The Multidimensional Adventures of Victoria Jane Nesbitt, and I still don't know for certain whether this is going to be a novel or something else. It's related to "Uncle Jack."

• I'm on page 4 of a new story of indeterminate length called "I Didn't See You."

• I've put together some notes for a new story of indeterminate length with the tentative working title "Leaf on the Wind." Might be YA.

• I'm on page 8 of a story called "Must Apply in Person," which I started several weeks ago but apparently hadn't mentioned here until now.

• The third Carlisle Hsing novel, The Ruins of Mars, is on page 6.

• I started yet another new story on April 15, 2023; it didn't have a title, but it's now called "Twilight Flo." I'm on page 5.

• I'm on page 7 of Kelder the Small, an Ethshar novel.

• Elfshot is a fantasy murder mystery; I'm on page 22.

• I've plotted three more Tom Derringer novels beyond the four I've actually written -- well, not so much "plotted" as come up with premises for them and figured out how they connect to the series. I've started Tom Derringer and the Sinister Statue, and the other two are Tom Derringer and the Floating Fortress, and Tom Derringer and the Misplaced Metropolis, though that last title may change. (I've also plotted a shorter Tom Derringer story, "Tom Derringer and the Monster of the Mills," that takes place during Chapter Two of Tom Derringer in the Tunnels of Terror.) I have an idea for a story about Tom's son with the working title Johnny Derringer vs. the Crime-Lords of Atlantis.

• I probably shouldn't list it here at all, as it's really just another in my huge backlog of ideas and premises that may never go anywhere, but I came up with a new story with the working title "The Old Man" and wrote the first page. It may tie in with "The Multidimensional Adventures of Victoria Jane Nesbitt" and with "Uncle Jack." Or it may not. (I have at least two other new ideas that are still only ideas that I'm not even going to mention here.)

• On a whim, I pulled out an old fragment called "The Detestable Tenant of Greenwizard Street" and added a few paragraphs to it. It's on page 3.

• I'm not sure what's happening with The Dragon's Dreams (title still very much subject to change). I finished what's either a complete story at thirteen pages, or the first installment in a longer work. I was considering the possibility of using it as the first part of a serial on Amazon's Kindle Vella program, but that probably isn't worth the effort.

• I'm three pages into a rather silly short fantasy story called "Hammered."

• I did some work recently on a very old project, Mirrors and Shadows. I'm on page 23 of what's intended to be a trilogy. (I also have lots of notes and outlines.)

• Back in 2001 I wrote what amounted to a blurb for a story. I've started actually writing the story, under the title "Going Home." I'm on page 4.

• I'm on page 5 of "The Bone Wheel," a short story unconnected to any other work.

• I've plotted another Ethshar story with the working title "The Almoner." At this point I think it's a novelet, but I could be way off. It's set in Ophera, in the Small Kingdoms. I have a short outline of the first half of the story, and some notes on the characters, but haven't actually started writing it.

• I have completed a rough draft of a Harry's All-Night Hamburgers story called "Tales from the Crypt" that I started back in 1988, but I'm not happy with it and have put it aside for eventual rewrite. It's 20 pages, 4,800 words.

• I came up with an entirely new Harry's story for the first time in decades, and wrote it in a single day. "One-Hit Wonder," 2,500 words. Didn't sell the first place I sent it, so I'm taking my time to decide what to try next. I'll probably revise it before sending it out again.

• "The Whispering Bandit" is the working title for a short story I was writing for an anthology, but it ran much too long, so I re-thought it and wrote "An Interrupted Betrothal" for them instead. However, I saved the original version, which had reached 4,500 words without even introducing one of the major characters; it's sufficiently different I think the world has room for both. It seems to want to be a novella. I'm still on page 17.

• "The Dancing Teacher" (formerly "The Dance Lesson"): A short fantasy story about a court magician and a prince's dancing teacher. After cutting back several times because of plot problems, I'm now on page 15 of an estimated 25-30, but did not get it done in time for the anthology I had been aiming at. I have now set it aside indefinitely.

• "Double Agent": A parallel-world short story I hoped would interest an anthology editor who suggested I send him something. I wrote three pages of an estimated 20-25, then decided I had a better idea and put it aside.

• Scattered Sparks: A new fantasy novel project that I came up with late on January 28, 2016. I wrote about fifteen pages in my initial burst of enthusiasm, but seem to have stalled out on page 27.