Michael C. Bailey Author

As followers of this blog might well know, I’m working on a new book, a YA horror novel tentatively (but at this point almost certainly) titled The Ashcroft High Monster Hunters Club. It’s in the second draft as I write this, and I’ve been debating trying to query the finished novel to agents and publishers instead of going the independent author route, which is how I’ve been releasing books…

Who Am I? I’m a writer originally from Falmouth, MA who now lives in Oxford, MA with my awesome wife Veronica, and our two dogs and three cats who don’t like to let us sleep in. After 15 years with the Falmouth Enterprise, where I worked as a general and political reporter, blogger, and editor, I left the news industry to focus on my creative writing. In addition to my novels (more on that in…

Draft one of The Ashcroft High Monster Hunters Club is finished! I spent an extra-long day Sunday working on it, and now I’m moving on to draft two, which I’m hoping to finish well before the end of June so I can get it out to beta readers. I’m toying with the idea of pitching it to agents and publishers rather than go my usual independent route, but that’s not even close to a firm…

If you enjoy Michael’s two series, Action Figures and The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot, check out these anthologies, collections, and side-projects featuring his work. Available on Amazon, and signed print editions may be purchased directly from the author. Beneath the Mask – A Superhero Romance Anthology features ten tantalizing tales of masked heroes saving the day and falling in…

The three-day weekend has come and gone, and alas, I didn’t meet my goal of finishing draft one of The Ashcroft High Monster Hunters Club. I gave it my best shot but there’s a lot of action in the climax, and action-heavy sequences always bog me down due to overthinking everything. I have a midweek day off tomorrow, so maybe I can make up for lost time then. WRITING PROJECTS Action Figures –…

What’s it About? Derek Strongarm and Felix Lightfoot are a pair of hard-luck adventurers for hire with an unfortunate knack for landing jobs that pay too little and threaten their lives too much. Erika Racewind is a hardened elven warrior who doesn’t like people, except maybe when she’s killing them. Winifred Graceword is a kindhearted elven priestess skilled in the healing arts. David is a…

There’s a three-day weekend coming, and my hope and my goal is to use that time to finish up the first draft of The Ashcroft High Monster Hunters Club. It was a do-nothing weekend this past weekend (not exactly; I did yardwork, but that’s not writing, so…), but I let it slide considering I have the coming long weekend to make up for it. After that, I plan to do one more pass and get it out to my…

What’s it About? The series focuses on Carrie Hauser, a 15-year-old girl who one summer experiences two life-changing events: her parents announce they’re getting divorced, and she gains superhuman abilities after encountering a dying extraterrestrial after he falls to Earth. Her adventure begins after Carrie and her mother Christina move back to Christina’s childhood home town of Kingsport,…

The end of the first draft of The Ashcroft High Monster Hunters Club is within reach. It’s past the 85,000 word count mark as I continue to work on the climax, so I’m well on-track to finish the draft before the end of May, which seems to be screaming by fast. Weren’t we all shoveling twenty feet of snow just yesterday? WRITING PROJECTS Action Figures – Legacies: Finished, waiting on cover art.…

Who Am I? I’m a writer originally from Falmouth, MA who now lives in Oxford, MA with my awesome wife Veronica, and our two dogs and three cats who don’t like to let us sleep in. After 15 years with the Falmouth Enterprise, where I worked as a general and political reporter, blogger, and editor, I left the news industry to focus on my creative writing. In addition to my novels (more on that in…

I had a full weekend to myself to write, and I’m happy to report that the first draft of The Ashcroft High Monster Hunters Club is almost finished! I had two great days that pushed the total word count within arm’s reach of 80,000 and got me into the climax. My goal is to wrap up draft one by the end of the month, do a quick pass on a second draft (my first drafts tend to be pretty tight), and…

Something cool about working on a project that sometimes happens… There I am Sunday, chugging away at The Ashcroft High Monster Hunters Club, writing the last bit of a chapter, when I realize: something I wrote much earlier in the story is in the wrong place — a story beat that initially felt like it was in the right place for the sake of providing readers with just enough information but not…

If you enjoy Michael’s two series, Action Figures and The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot, check out these anthologies, collections, and side-projects featuring his work. Available on Amazon, and signed print editions may be purchased directly from the author. Beneath the Mask – A Superhero Romance Anthology features ten tantalizing tales of masked heroes saving the day and falling in…

With the weather turning nice, my wife and I are making a point to get out of the house and do things together. On the one hand, getting out of the house and having a life and doing fun stuff with my partner is a very good thing. It does, however, cut into my writing time, so I’ve been sneaking in a little bit here and there on The Ashcroft High Monster Hunters Club (still a WIP title, it’s not…

What’s it About? Derek Strongarm and Felix Lightfoot are a pair of hard-luck adventurers for hire with an unfortunate knack for landing jobs that pay too little and threaten their lives too much. Erika Racewind is a hardened elven warrior who doesn’t like people, except maybe when she’s killing them. Winifred Graceword is a kindhearted elven priestess skilled in the healing arts. David is a…

The still-tentatively named The Ashcroft High Monster Hunters Club hit a benchmark over the weekend, topping the 60,000 word mark, with a fair chunk of the story left to go. The closer I get to the third act, the more I’m confident this will end up being a one-shot, standalone novel rather than the beginning of a series, or even a trilogy, which is fine. A series is a big commitment, for myself…

Hi, folks! What you’re about to read is the first draft of the first chapter from my current WIP, a YA horror novel tentatively titled The Ashcroft High Monster Hunters Club. In addition to the text, I’m going to add some commentary about the thought process behind my storytelling choices. Why? Well, for funsies. To give readers and writers a glimpse of my process. To drum up interest in the…