March 2024 Update on Book Three

Hi folks,

I thought I'd stop in and give you an update on Book Three of the Jerry Copperpot series.

The working title is "Jerry Copperpot and the Flight of Wagons." It mostly leaves behind the Harry Potter, Goonies, Star Trek/Star Wars and Narnia references of the previous books, and instead makes extensive parody reference to the Rankin-Bass animated films "The Last Unicorn" and "Flight of Dragons," along with Miyazaki's "Castle in the Sky" among many other things. In part, it's a road-trip novel, set five years after the events of the first two books, and Jerry is now a teenager with a driver's license. Jerry wants to leave the weirdness and metafiction of his past behind him, but it catches up to him in a big way, sending him on a final adventure with consequences for both his personal life and his whole world.

I almost wrote a whole advertising blurb for the plot, but I think I should save that for the final release of the book, once it's all written and copyrighted.

I estimate I'm about 75 percent done, now about 360 pages of manuscript so far. This sounds like a lot, but with it being the conclusion of the trilogy, I have a lot of material to cover. Also I have a lot of parodies and mashups to include- there are multiple targets to the parody and that makes it a little more ambitious and more complicated at the same time. I'm really excited to finish this story and eventually share it with people.

Work on the manuscript has accelerated in recent months, partly as an emotional escape from the stresses of life (of which I have many right now, to understate things) and partly just for the reward of a sense of accomplishment in working on my hobby.

I also had to leave behind certain other hobbies; namely watching too much TV. After two years of the book languishing near the back burner, I decided if I didn't cancel Netflix and other paid streaming services, I'd never get this book done. My kids were kind of mad that I canceled Disney, but I had other reasons to cut expenses at the time anyway, and we're getting by just fine without it.

Maybe now that I've told everyone what I'm working on, it will give me a little more accountability and motivation to move forward and get it past the finish line.

Plus once I get the rough draft done, I will be able to refocus my attention on the audiobook for Book Two, which has also been slow in coming in recent months.

Wish me luck!