Simon Peter is done and plans for the future

It's been a while! The big news is that I have finished the first draft of Simon Peter. Unsurprisingly, it ends shortly after the crucifixion of Jesus. I had wanted to go on a while more establishing a power struggle between Simon Peter and Mary Magdalene, but in the end I decided that would lessen the narrative impact of Simon Peter's role in Jesus' execution - which is obviously the focal event of any book that includes the Passion, it being one of the central narratives in Western Civilization.

I even have an idea for a sequel - a book about Paul and the struggle between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians which is the focal point of Acts and, certainly, an event at least as culturally important as the story of Jesus, himself. Without the early decision to actively seek Roman converts, Christianity would have just been another sect of Judaism and probably destroyed in the events following the Bar Kochba Revolt. Hell, it's actually even more pivotal than the Jesus story. That had been around for a couple of hundred years. But the struggles of Paul against the Jewish Christian church has lots of points I could make, especially about how Paul of Tarsus was from the very place that Roman Mithraism was formed and how Christianity is really just a Judiazed Roman Mithraism (yes, incorporating elements of other Roman faiths, too, such as Magna Mater, not to mention Judaism itself, hehe). So, I think that has good sequel potential.

But I won't be starting it immediately. What I'll be spending the next year or two doing is . . . getting published. I have two completed novels. Not one. Two. They are both good books. I want to get published, so I'm going to have to work on doing that. It is . . . I am not good at this part. Self-promotion is something I have never excelled at for a variety of reasons, even when I can look at the work I've done and say, "This is really good material. As good as anything published in America today." And I can say that about Condotierri and Simon Peter. But, even knowing this, I have trouble advancing myself in that way. Indeed, it's easy for me to use writing as a way to avoid having to do what I need to do to get them published. Advice and assistance is both welcome and appreciated. ;)

I will be doing short writing projects. When I can look the characters from Simon Peter in the mouth, again, I'll be writing additional material about them, like I did with Immaculate Conception, about which I've gotten generally glowing feedback. However, before that, I have decided to master the art of writing comic book scripts! I like comic books. You should, too, hehe. American superhero comic books have incontestably produced the most enduring American cultural icons.

It also is fitting into my developing plan about getting published. Maybe it's wacky. But I realized that Simon Peter and Condotierri are two different kinds of novel in the minds of publishing firms. Simon Peter is historical fiction. Condotierri is science-fiction. I'll be sending material to two entirely different groups of people, rather than going to the same people with different material. With comic books, it would be another entirely different group of people.

But, that's my post. I should be posting more now that Simon Peter is written.