I am almost done with the first part of my novel, Vagabond Girl. The first part focuses on middle school. The second part will focus on high school and the third part will be college and after. As I've continued writing this, more ideas have popped into my head. I enjoy writing these characters and trying to create a realistic coming-of-age story for kids who don't normally show up in coming-of-age stories. In addition, I am beginning work on 87. 87 is a combination of two stories--a group of friends growing up in a small town and the true story of a family who also lived in that small town in the 1800s. I'm doing a lot of research by looking through old newspapers to get the views of the time. I'm hoping to start some serious writing on it over the summer.
Adding to my research, I'm going back to what I'm good at. I'm doing research on the Shawnee County Poor Farm as a follow-up to the Douglas County Poor Farm research I did back in 2014. I'm hoping to get all the information by the fall and get something written for either here or an article by the end of the year. Another thing I am researching is a possible murder in Labette County, Kansas that was originally said to be a suicide. I stumbled across the news while scanning old newspapers for other research and found enough to make it into a post or article.
There are also short stories I'm working on--Mina, A Little Bit of Honey, a couple of so far untitled ones, Nzinga, and a sequel to Suicidal Tendencies. These have been taking me longer than normal to get written because I've been focusing on my novel and social media stuff. I am also working on outlining young adult stories that might be novels or might be graphic novels. I haven't decided which way I'm going to go with them yet because they are still in the planning stages.
Here's hoping that I will have some content for you in the coming months whether it's here or elsewhere, I will keep you posted. Feel free to peruse my Twitter or Instagram and, again, if you would like to support my writing or research, you can buy me a cup of coffee on Ko-fi.
Until next time, I remain...
~Brian
