Readers of this blog may have noticed a marked decline in quantity of blog posts. They have not yet begun a search for a missing blogger, but I have not been idle.

Most of you will remember that I suffered a slight stroke back in January of this year. This had an impact on my typing speed and skills, but I was able to do some writing. Also, I felt a shift in what I wanted to write. Increasingly (after more than fifteen years of blogging) the blog felt like an echo chamber. New ideas used to come thick and fast. They were slower and thinner.

Also, as our kids grew up and my wife’s business was successful the need for monetary return on my writing was less. This led me to desire writing fiction and drama.

I did complete Beheading Hydra for Sophia Institute Press and they have commissioned another book which I have started called The Way of the Wilderness Warrior which melds the classic hero’s quest with the call to be “a pilgrim people.”

This will probably be my last work of Catholic non-fiction. Over the summer I wrote a short story and completed my first novel. Renegade Priest is the story of Fr Max Fisher–a Clint Eastwood tough guy who falls afoul of a corrupt diocesan mafia. I describe it as “an Ecclesiastical John Grisham”. I wrote it originally to be delivered in the first person as a serialized podcast, and I think it will still appear here on the blog in that format, but I am also seeking an agent to pursue a traditional publishing route.

I’m very interested in ways the new media can be used creatively. A first person novel put out as a podcast is one thing. What about some podcast drama–like the old radio dramas? I think it could work. This would open up a whole new audience and inexpensive delivery method for new works of drama and fiction.

So stay tuned. The blog-website will still be here, but the content in the years to come may move in a more creative direction.