February 2026 Head Down Writing!

Hey there, gang!

Another month, and another update on the writings and goings-on of Shamon. I am deep in the thick of Humanity Shattered Book Three. As I write this, a few days before the end of January, I am closing in on ten thousand words. The goal is somewhere around eighty-five thousand. So, yes, I have some work to do. Eighty-five thousand will still allow me to have some meat after I take the grinder of the editing process to it. So far, I have lost around ten to fifteen thousand words each time I have gone through the editing process. It’s almost painful to see all those words lying around on the floor after you put so much effort into them. Words come hard-fought sometimes. There is a bit of a mourning process I go through after editing, but it is necessary to make the story lean and mean.

I think I mentioned before that the working title for book three is DEMETER-9. DEMETER-9 is the name of the planet on which most of the story will take place. Is there some significance to the name? Not really, I just like it. Many celestial objects are named after mythological gods and people. Demeter is the ancient Greek goddess of agriculture, grain, fertility, and harvest. The name plays into the planet's significance.

So far, we have had a short story about the origins of the virus in the WO9127 Solar System in VEHO: A BACKSTORY, the ill-fated mission on Kyler Station in DEAD STATION, where our team of heroes first encounters the virus, and the post-collapsed planet where the heroes dealt with the remnants of the virus in TRESSELL 113. I wanted to explore the process by which the virus actually brings down a planet and set our heroes in the thick of it, enter DEMETER-9.

The premise of DEMETER-9 is that our heroes are sent to investigate the connection between ACRON, the virus, and the governments that may be involved. The catch is that DEMETER-9 is a highly contested planet between the Jeraldi Systems Authority and the United Solar Systems Cooperative. The planet has perceived value by everyone, and it is an active battlefield because of that. So, we have a planet at war, where our heroes are sent to follow up on a lead while the virus becomes the one thing that brings it all down. What could go wrong?

I am so excited about where it’s going. It’s so much fun to write.

TRESSELL 113 is coming to Audible very soon. I was hoping it would be by the end of January, but it is slipping a bit due to circumstances beyond my control. I am told we should have something mid-February-ish.

Another project I have been working on is this high fantasy thing I have mentioned in the past. I am still plugging away at that for now. I have really been focusing on just the world-building aspects of this project and have not gone beyond that. I spend an hour or so here and there kicking the tires. Right now, I have sixteen pages of notes about what the world looks like and how it works. I have information on how magic is employed, geography, governments, economies, races, lore, war, history, and more.

I don’t have characters or a story yet, but I am taking my time and backing into it. I envision a high-fantasy series that pits the classic tale of light against darkness.

The business decisions on it intrigue me as well. Is this something I write under Shamon Harper? Is this something I write under a pen name? I don’t know yet. I don’t know if the business decision is to separate it from my Humanity Shattered Series and do it under a whole different identity, or just go with what I have. There are advantages and disadvantages to doing both. As a writer focusing on building this thing into a scalable business, this ends up being an important decision.

The fear of keeping it under Shamon Harper centers on the question: Will writing a science fiction horror series and a high fantasy series cause problems? Is there space in the audience for both people who love science fiction, horror, zombie apocalypse, and high fantasy stories, or should I put the work into building an entirely different audience for that? I am an avid reader of both genres, but I know I am weird. I just don’t know. If you have an opinion, I am all ears. Pop me an email at shamon@shamonwrites.com.

Anyway, I will send an announcement when TRESSELL 113 is released on Audible. Other than that, I hope you have a great month!

Shamon

P.S. The image was created on ChatGPT. I am a visual thinker, and it helps me write when I include images that support what I am doing. I was writing a scene in DEMETER-9 in which Jackson looks at the patch on his uniform and compares it to a patch from another ship. That got me thinking about unit patches from my time in the military, and I wanted to see what they could look like. Thus, the creation.