Ryan M. Patrick

This is my last day at work before I take a week off to spend with my family. It’s been a whirlwind of a year, and I’m going to try to summarize all of it!

From a personal/professional standpoint, this was the first odd-numbered year since 2013 that my wife and I didn’t have a baby 🙂 – I think that says it all. 2023 is also the year that I decided to leave active duty – I had been considering it for a few years – and got accepted to do a Skillbridge with Blue Origin through Hiring Our Heroes. My wife also started her master’s of education degree through the University of Virginia, so we’re both making big life changes at the same time. Life is never easy with four girls 8 and under in the same house, but we make it work.

However, my writing has been all over the place.

I started the year editing The Europan Deception, but I (correctly) put it aside in February when I realized that I needed to take a step back. So, instead, I drafted two novels. Crush Depth, the second Grace Parkowski technothriller, and Enigma, the many-titled first book in my Rigel Conspiracy series. Together, they’re over 200,000 words and I finished them both in 8 months total.

However, both have huge issues.

The current version of Crush Depth starts too late, and doesn’t spend enough time on the main milieu, the nuclear attack submarine U.S.S. Arizona. It also has a huge cast of characters who don’t get enough individual attention. My current plan is to keep most of the main plot points, but really change the structure to fit the Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child mold that I try and base my series off of. I’m also going to add some additional POVs and give the book some more depth. That’s a late 2024/early 2025 project.

Enigma, while I think it’s in better shape developmentally than Crush Depth (or anything else I’m working on at the moment), is the start of a series, and I only have so much bandwidth at the moment. I need to map out its sequels to make sure I’m setting up all of the future plot points correctly. So, I’m leaving it on the shelf for now, and focusing on my Dark Galaxy (The Europan Deception and sequels) and Grace Parkowski series and will come back to it at a future time.

I wrote a couple of short stories too, but haven’t gotten them accepted anywhere yet. That’s another focus area for 2024.

The Europan Deception, I finally figured out in the October timeframe. I’m writing a Cold War-style spy thriller set 150 years in the future, but I’m getting too far away from why Ludlum, Le Carre, and others were able to make that genre of book work. I took a huge step back, analyzed my plot, and re-outlined it before starting to write the 3rd draft. I’m keeping 50-60% of what I’ve already written, but the word count is going to explode to 140,000 to 160,000 depending on chapter length. I’m already 16,000 words in and am really enjoying writing it, I think the enthusiasm is going to show up in the draft.

And, last but not least, I self-published The Martian Incident earlier this month! I’ve gotten some sales, but not too many, and I’m pleasantly pleased with the progress I’ve made. Hopefully some new sales/borrows/reviews trickle in around the Christmas season!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all, and I will post again in the New Year.