Category Archives: Personal

Well, so much for that idea…

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As many of you know, I’m an Indie Writer making a living from my fiction. (This year’s going to suck for everyone, but the last several years have been good and I’ll get through all this as well and keep writing.)

Just got the official word from a publisher I have been working with that they have had to pull the plug on the one anthology project that might have been the first ever to pay me pro rates. I’ve done a few others over the years, generally on invitation from a publisher or editor I know to write a specific story for them. All of those were royalty share and unlikely to make me much money.

This one was a project where the editor had closed the submissions window and not been all that pleased with the product she finally ended up with, mostly because a lot of people didn’t read her spec all that closely and gave her what we like to call “low hanging fruit.” After listening to her bitch, I went home and had a moment of inspiration, based on her topic and the kvetching I listened to. It was absolutely hilarious to me, and I think the rest of you will like it.

Ended up sending it to her with the subject line “This is all your fault” and explained that she’d inspired this long piece, that was originally intended as part one of the follow up novel to Fairchild. Figured she’d appreciate knowing that I’d had fun with her topic, even though I hadn’t been part of the group that submitted during the window.

She wrote back that she loved the story and wanted to include it in her anthology project, paying pro rates.

Uhm, huh?

Okay, wow?

That would have been my first ever pro sale. Past tense.

The publishing company took a look around at how far behind they had fallen on so many things, and what was happening in the world right now, and jettisoned an entire line of upcoming anthologies, so instead of it now coming out in Summer of 2021, it was reverting.

Well, shit.

I mean, I’ve been wanting to write more of that story, but I needed her to do her edits so I knew if she had any significant changes to the story or the ending, because as I said, that was Act One of a new novel I was going to write.

On the brighter side of things, what they are doing is sending it to a new publisher, but one that does royalty-share (of which I’m quite familiar, don’t you know) instead of pro rates. I’ve already been contacted by the new publisher to inquire about participating in the whole project, but I won’t know for a month or so if the project will even happen, or if everyone else will back out and submit their stories back to the major periodicals.

</Shrug>

So there you have it, no first pro sale for me. Using the old rules, I still haven’t started earning my SFFWA bones, although I could apply for a variation to their rules as an Indie Writer and join. (I’ve suffered too much abuse over the years from the old guard of rude f@#% dinosaurs who called what I do “vanity press” to join until enough of them are dead, which might be never. You should never hit an old woman with a chair at a public reception. Even as much as the bitch deserved it.)

Was joking with the wife earlier today that I might never actually have a pro sale at this rate, and just end up making a living instead.

Tempted to submit something unagented one of these days to one of the big houses, just to see if they’d actually bite. I’m about halfway through my 47th novel this week, so I’d have one hell of a catalog if they wanted to pull in all my fans and expose me to a bunch of new writers. What’s the worst they could do? Offer me a contract to redline? Because I know way too much about contract law, so the one they’d get back would be marked all to hell, and if they signed that, I wouldn’t be nearly as screwed as some of the kids out there continue to be because nobody teaches them any better. (Another one of my beefs with some of the “Pro” organizations, if you catch my drift.)

So any of you who have ever had a professional sale paying good rates, know that you’re ahead of me on that particular track.

Maybe forever.

🙂

 

I have silly deer

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So Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) and I just went for a walk. She has a fitbit and is subject the the “tyranny of movement” because it reminds her at 10 minutes til the hour if she hasn’t walked at least 250 steps.

There are two driveways from the bottom of the hill where the road ends. One goes up to my landlocked neighbor above me on the back hill, and the other curls around to my house. Mine is much less steep, so we tend to walk down hers and then circle back up ours when we want a medium walk. (Long is all the way to the main road and saying hi to the neighbors.)

As we’re headed down the driveway, the Babe sees something and points, but I missed it. She described it as a dog or something. I did see a resident coyote earlier in the week, but it’s a nice day and there are two of us. We keep walking.

About ten seconds later, a second deer walks off the road and onto my driveway, visible for a bit as she stops to look up at us saying “HALLO” at her. Then she scampers off out of sight.

We get to the bottom of the driveway and look up my side. Mama deer is at the first curve, about 75 yards up the hill, paused and looking back over her shoulder at us as we start up the hill again.

The other deer is visible as we get to the first curve. Yearling. Mama is presumably pregnant and due to give birth in the middle of May, because that’s when they do around here. Usually twins. Generally only one of them survive a year, because of dogs, cars, and coyotes.

Baby takes the turn down the path as we’re coming up behind them, but Mama keeps going up the driveway and obviously whistles or something, because kiddo immediately reappears and scampers after her.

We get to the second curve. Mama and kiddo are at the top, where the hill flattens out for the clearing, and they turn up the path to the barn.

They are not moving quickly, as Babe and I are now about 20 yards behind them. They get into the side meadow in front of the barn and sit and watch as we keep going up to the driveway and into the house.

You can tell they are utterly terrified by the way they’re sitting in front of the barn grazing right now. Utterly terrified, I tell you.

Just looked up and they’ve finally wandered off. I’m guessing over the top of the hill and back down the front slope. Mama is a year-round resident. I have no idea how long deer live in the wild, but I’ve had at least one deer give birth around here for the ten years I’ve owned the property. (Ten years? Really? Wow. The house was done in 2015, so I’ve been living here for five already. Time flies.)

At least the deer as way less assholes than the elk.

Usually.

Today, they were just being goofs.

Writing in the time of apocalyse

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Statement 1) I am an introvert.

Statement 2) I “retired” from the dayjob in Feb 2018, so I’m 25 months into writing full time from home.

I stand at the counter in the kitchen, at the bar that sticks out like a peninsula and cuts the greatroom into kitchen over there and living room over here. I also raised the bar six inches from normal countertop height so I can write all day. Normally, I work from about 8am until noonish, seven days a week, with a late start on Sundays because I go down to my favorite restaurant and they open at 8.

My goal is always 4,000 words per day. Over the entirety of 2019, I hit that as a monthly average only a few times, but last year my target was 100,000 words per month, and I did hit that. Even in months where I had to grind hard to get there.

Then the world went pear-shaped.

My sales are generally down roughly 25-40% right now from what they normally are. I’m hoping that this is just a quick trough due to everyone spending so much time on netflix or the news, and not having a chance to sit and quietly read. We were expecting this sort of thing to happen come Labor Day, because it always does in presidential election years, through about Dec 1.

This year, it kinda started early.

In fact, when the impeachment got going, I watched book sales fall. And it wasn’t just me, because my author ranking and book rankings on Amazon haven’t really changed. People just aren’t reading anyone right now. Or maybe they are falling back on old books as comfort food and not buying new ones. That’s a behavior I understand.

Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) was going to go see her sister in Vegas in April. That got cancelled. She was going back to a the Licensing Expo in May. That got moved out. Hopefully not cancelled.

We were going to do a lot of things, but most of them are on the chopping block right now. NINC’s annual conference in September was iffy at best. Not happening at all. OryCon in November is hopefully happening. Westercon in July might be, but I haven’t heard anything from the concom about attending and they are too busy right now for me to bother them.

Hunkering down. It sucks, because there are folks out there who were counting on us spending money this year. Audio books. Translations. Even cons.

Not happening, as we dial things down to hoard our cash and figure out what the new normal will be.

The United States will not be the same place next year that it was last year, but nobody knows what that future looks like. Maybe this country gets serious about health care for all. Maybe the progressive agenda that would have blunted a lot of the effects of the virus will have been enacted by this time next year.

And maybe the world will have burned.

Social distancing means that the library where I normally go into town for internet heavy lifting is closed, as are all the coffee shops I might hit. Managed to expand my internet service yesterday, so that helps. When we first got it (cellular through a cradlepoint), it was 5gb/month. Later, that got bumped to 22Gb. Now it is 40GB/month, and can apparently go as high as 100Gb if I want.

The march of technology, mixed with everyone working from home. All your internet tools will have to adapt. Your world will change.

Nothing will be as it was, so start thinking right now about how you can make it better. You’ll need a better hobby than rotting your brain in front of a television, because you’ll never leave the house if you don’t.

Take the time to become a better person.

I’m writing. Getting caught up on a bunch of backlog of editing that got pushed to one side when we were both sick in January. But I’m also speeding myself up a little. Not much. Planning longer novels and longer short projects, so if I get it up to 4500 words/day or even 5000, it won’t be too bad to try to read.

I’m going to keep publishing. Keep writing. Keep editing. Will be working on some sewing projects when I get the urge and the time. Won’t be going into town nearly as much, nor as long. Bought gift certificates to my favorite restaurant, to give them cash now. They’ll make it up to me in the summer.

If you’re trying to write from home, ask the introvert/extrovert question and make sure you communicate with whoever else is around what your needs are. Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) and I don’t even live in the same house half the week, so we’re good at social distancing. But our daily life didn’t really get derailed.

You need to plan. Communicate. Adapt. Things are different and won’t go back.

I would suggest cutting expenses any way and everywhere you can, at least for now. Nobody knows how long this will last, and those of us without day jobs as steady income are going to be looking to scramble. Artists who don’t have cons and musicians who don’t have gigs are going to be hammered, so maybe adopt one and commission some work. Or invite them over to dinner and send leftovers home.

Something to help them survive when their world completely imploded.

The greatest gift you can give right now is human empathy. Use it.

Carpenters and Chairs

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It’s an old note, but I figure that it’s worth talking about again, especially in light of the new Milestone Publisher newsletter that I started up recently. That one will focus almost entirely on the business of publishing, but occasionally we need to chat about the craft as well.

I’m working with a new author.

[As an aside describing how weird my world can be, the bookstore in Enumclaw, Washington (The Sequel Books) has a stack of my business cards, and when a new author comes in looking for help or advise or anything, most of the time Mike and Susan send them my way. Weird, but I’m farther along the road, so maybe I can help. Won’t say I’m better at anything, just got more experience with the way things run right now, so I have a few suggestions.]

Said new author has a book one in a new trilogy/series and was trying to figure out what the steps were from finally having finished the first draft and now needs to get to brag shelf. Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) and I sat down with her at the Starbucks a few weeks ago and just kind of turned on the publishing fire hose, once we realized that she was smart enough and grounded enough to handle it. (Not all authors are precious, little snowflakes, but you can frequently start with that assumption and be proven wrong. She’s tougher than most.)

Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) just doesn’t have time to read a first draft from a new author, especially not a 155k word one, so I volunteered. Finally got caught up on my other homework last night, so I had a chance to start reading it.

All of you who are seasoned vets will understand what I mean when I say first novel by a writer who did not build up a solid catalog of short fiction first. It’s rough. Starts a little pulse-poundery, but not hard enough with the bangs. Got information flow issues, because most of my comments over the first 10 pages or so are: “Who is this? What is their name?” “What is their purpose in the palace?” “How are we dressed?” “Is this fantasy or science fiction?” etc.

She has the chops to write. Just needs to learn things like information flow and setting. Turns out the story is SF, but with a heavy fantasy overlay atop it.

SF is all about setting, so you have to get a masonry trowel out for details.

I’m sure it will take me a while, but I’m also assuming that she speeds up as she starts finding her voice and her rhythm. I have frequently had a rough chapter or two at the beginning of a new series, simply because I’m still working out some of the details as I go and have to go back after I’ve tortured the First Readers and clean up all the sharp edges I’ve cut them with.

Which brings us to Carpenters and Chairs. As an editor/publisher (and that’s the role I’m playing here, even though I might not be her final publisher when the book gets into print), I have to talk about the manuscript. I’m giving it something of a close read, not to be an asshole, but because she’s got something there, and I want to show her the places to work on so that she can get her voice to a point where readers will be breathlessly turning pages. I can see the potential on the page, but it’s a rough read and I keep getting kicked out of the story.

I’m also the first person to ever read it besides her. She doesn’t have a support network of authors she can meet with and share tips. Hasn’t been banging out short fiction and submitting to friends, websites, and professional journals. Literally has been toiling as a stay at home mom and writing because she can’t make the voices stop. Her husband insisted that she start the publishing process on book one before she could work on book two. That’s where I come in.

But old farts like me and you need to make sure that young writers understand the difference between critique of a story and attacks on the author.

When I’m editing, I’m talking about the chair. Is it functional? Is it well-balanced? Will someone enjoy sitting in it?

We’re not talking about you as the carpenter that built it. Lord knows I’ve turned in a few stories where the First Readers look at me and say “Redraft. It doesn’t work.” But they were talking about the manuscript. The chair. Not the carpenter.

As an editor, you need to make sure you’re doing the same thing.

I don’t think that young writers hear the distinction enough to split those into two things. Partly, they are wrapped up inside this wonderful new thing that they have created, and see it as another one of their babies. It takes a while before you look at them as projects to be sent off into the world to make their way.

Blly Joel used to talk about the songs he wrote as his kids. Some were successful. Some failed. One turned into a country music superstar. (“Shameless” covered by Garth Brooks.)

Your books are the same way, but when you only have one, you get invested in it, especially if you’ve been working on it for years now.

So today I need to have a conversation with the editor/publishers out there and remind them that they always need to talk to writers about chairs, and never let the language drift over into a conversation about the carpenter. At least not anything negative. You are allowed to praise them as a genius who has written something utterly amazing. Just remember that they might send you a stinker next time. (We all occasionally roll 1s.)

Have you had to explain to someone that a particular story didn’t work? Not just that it didn’t fit your anthology or your publishing schedule, but that the effort involved to make it work might be more time than you can ever justify?

My young author is not there. Partly, she just needs help understanding information flow, which is a skill. Partly, she’s writing it like fantasy, where you can take certain things for granted and not explain, but you can’t get away with that in SF. Especially not when high-tech SF masquerades as fantasy, and does here in such an interesting way.

So I told Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) last night that she’d need to help me convey the technical issues and remind me to talk about chairs, and make sure that my young writer doesn’t think I’m talking about carpenters. Because I’m hooked enough to keep reading the story, in spite of the questions that come up. But if she’s consistent, then I know what to look for each time it happens, and the fix won’t be a redraft so much as a hard, slow pass layering in details and microsetting, which are more advanced skills anyway than none of us were born with.

I can see a cool story in there. A interesting universe as she adds half a million words. She just needs some help getting it out an on paper commensurate with her vision. As editor/publisher, that’s my job, because the result will be more art in the world, and a new voice doing something I’m not familiar with. Maybe something very few folks are doing right now, which makes it even more cool.

But always, talk about the chair, and not the carpenter, okay?

Spotlight on the Introvert

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So in this modern age, the biggest thing for an indie author is discoverability. Folks will buy your books, once they know who you are. If you have more books, they’ll give you more money.

But they gotta find you first.

Got up this morning and did a quick count in my head, just because I’m something of an introvert. (I cosplay gregarious really well, but don’t be fooled.) So I have this blog, which goes out to all the usual suspects and serves as something of a random welcome entry point to my crazy world. Kinda random, focusing mostly (as you can tell) on all the weird things that crop up.

Then I have my regular newsletter. Except that I technically run two of them to the same list. On the first of each month, y’all get the “Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef” newsletter (coming out later today), talking about all the things I do to stay young in mind as a way to stay young in body. Plus strange recipes for things, because the Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) and I have odd food allergies to work around, so I’m always tinkering and figure other folks might appreciate it.

Mid-month I also send out the regular publishing newsletter, about a week after I have published whatever things are coming out this month. And that can be a lot, as I tend to publish a novel wide each month, plus I’m now starting to publish short fiction direction on my website. (That stuff, by the way, stays local as a rule, so you have to get it here.)

Four times each year, I also have the Boundary Shock Quarterly newsletter where we talk about the most recent issue. The next BSQ comes out in April, so that newsletter drops about May 1.

Then I have my Patreon, where I do a weekly wrap-up on Monday afternoons of what I’ve written and what I’m planning. That part is free to whoever wants to follow me, with all sorts of unpublished fiction available to folks who actually pay me money.

Social media is a thing, but I keep it mostly to just Facebook for now. I presume they will turn into Angelfire and MySpace eventually, but I don’t know when that will happen and the other sites I have looked into are just cesspools of spambots and “Hot Ukrainian Babes” looking for a sugar daddy. Or something equally 417.

Finally, I just decided to do something to add to the crazy. As an indie author, I have to stay up on all things in the indie publishing world. And I get invited to interesting side conversations and closed door meetings, where I have to keep things private, but I am allowed to rumormonger as long as I keep it vague enough. So I started another newsletter called Milestone to talk about those sorts of things. (It’s the second sign up there.)

Mind you, I consider extroverts energy vampires that should be hit with a fire hose occasionally, just to keep them in line, but that’s just me. But I’m now almost constantly having public opinions about things,and let me tell you how WEIRD that is. I spent a long time constantly working to obscure myself on the interwebs. For the longest time, if you googled me, I appeared exactly once in the first seven pages. And I liked it that way.

Now I’m trying to be everywhere, because you never know where the next superfan is going to accidentally walk into your life and suddenly need to buy lots and lots of books from you. Hell, me and The Babe talked about doing a cookbook yesterday, just because I have so many exotic recipes I’ve done for her. “Things My Damned Hippy Wife Makes Me Eat” or something equally weird. I mean, I’ve got the non-fiction Business For Breakfast books already, so its not much of a stretch to do more. Mostly hours in the day.

So pardon this silly introvert if he freaks out a little from time to time at all the places he has to commit electronic graffiti in any given week. If would help if you all went out and blackmailed all your friends into buying my books, so I could just retire to a mountain fastness and plan my world domination while designing cool uniforms for my faceless minions, but for now, I gotta write.

Hope you’re having a Sunday at least as silly as mine is turning into.

What’s that weird realization that snuck up and bit you on the ass lately?

My Damned Hippy Wife, part whatever

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She enables, so I get to blame her for all sorts of things (she knew this when she married me, however, unlike someone we met over the weekend, the police were not involved. heh)

Went into Renton today to get coconut milk at Uwajymaya. Almost out, but highway 169 has been closed since Friday. Rarely use it, so haven’t bothered to look, but I’m sure the monsoon last week brought a hillside down on the road, probably just south of the Jones Road light.

Like usual.

While I was there, I was looking for herring steaks, because we’re trying to get more fish in the diet. They didn’t have herring, but they did have “halibut ends” which is basically all the unpretty parts left over from making steaks, and the tray was cheap. Brought one home. Ended up cooking it for dinner.

Wash and pat dry. Brush with lemon juice and then pepper. Broil.

For a sauce, I grabbed a can of coconut cream and made a curry. Lots of curry, paleo baking flour, some vegan butter, a dash of garlic, salt, and cayenne. Make a roux and then add the coconut cream after that. Cook down. Since there is no butter, no milk, and no wheat involved, had to add arrowroot to the mix to get it to thicken.)

She had a head of cauliflower needing to be used, so she steamed it, immersion blendered it with garlic, salt, and nutritional yeast. That went in the bottom of the bowl. Broiled fish pieces over that. Then the curry once it had started to set and turn into a cream.

Not your normal Monday night meal, I’m guessing. Nor mine. But she encourages me to get weird in the kitchen, and things “usually” turn out pretty good.

After dinner, I make cupcakes. Vegan, paleo cupcakes. With a vegan, paleo cream cheese frosting.

She can’t eat egg or she breaks out. Milk is bad. I gotta work around that. Just pulled the cupcakes out of the stove and let them cool. Frosted 6 of 10 and will eat one in a little while.

Crazy things like this are why I started doing the redneck chef portion of the twice-monthly newsletter. I made lobster bisque last time because Uwajimaya had ingredients. Halibut this time. Lord only knows what I’ll run into next time, but I’ll probably be getting base ingredients for flavor packs for breakfast stew, and that’s always an excuse to get out of hand.

Such is my life.

—————————————

Totally unrelated note: I’m in a new Science Fiction Story bundle called Visions of the Future. My story is an exclusive. Book One of a brand new series maybe coming out in the fall. Escape: The Lazarus Alliance.

Get it there before it goes away.

Similarly, if you missed it, Princess Rualoh is now out. The sixth and currently final book of the Shadow of the Dominion. At least until I start writing new ones on the continuing adventures.

Time to get caught up, folks.

And what was your dinner like?

🙂

What replaces boomer rock?

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So Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) and I stopped in a new restaurant for breakfast this morning. We had spent the night with some friends way up north after throwing a party, and hit 12th Avenue Cafe in Issaquah on the drive south. Pretty solid breakfast, but that’s not why we’re here today.

Was listening to the music playing in the background. Lots of 70’s and 80’s rock. Bob Seger, for example. Stuff I remembered from being a kid (born 1969) and a teen.

I recognized all the songs playing, although mostly from an unconscious standpoint. But I had to wonder about the genre of quiet rock being played in a reasonably yuppie/upscale restaurant on a Sunday morning.

I asked her “So at what point do we start hearing music by Phish or Dave Mathews Band playing?” Mind you, I couldn’t identify a song by either group, but I know the names, because they tour extensively and I have friends who are rabid fans.

But I have a hole in my musical experience that does not jive well with many of my friends. I got seriously into country music starting in about 1990, give or take. Garth Brooks, when he was on the way to becoming the single biggest thing in the world musically.

At the same time, Poodle/Glam Rock was dying as Grunge took over. I listened a little to some of those bands, but never really got into any of them. (And I have a friend who is mortally offended some days, because she actually worked at Sub Pop records in those early days and knew most of those people, when I could barely pick a handful of them out of a police lineup.)

(Also, I kinda gave up on country music in about 2006, give or take. It had finally turned into redneck bubblegum pop. In 2009 I spent a week in England, driving 1200 miles around Lincolnshire in 5 days while sightseeing. The only radio station I could reliably get was BBC Radio One, so I turned into a British Dance Pop fan for a while, but that’s a whole nother story for later.)

Depending on where you go, some places will be playing country music these days, either from that particular era that I listened to (1990’s) or “modern” stuff from the last few years. Rarely anything older than the 90’s. And something of a gap from the early 21st Century.

I remember as a kid when there were lots of diverse radio stations, instead of three companies that owned all of them and programmed them identically from a central headquarters in New York City. You’d have an Oldies station playing stuff from before 1970. (Give or take.) A classic rock station running from 1970 to present. “Modern” stuff that was Top 40 rock. New Wave came in mid-80s but I only tangentially encountered it. (In college, the two tapes I wore out were Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell and Willie Nelson’s Greatest Hits and Some That Will Be. Draw your own conclusions.)

But let’s get back to Bob Seger, playing in a restaurant in Issaquah, WA this morning. He’s retired, if I remember right. Or about to. That song was “Still The Same” from Stranger In Town (1978 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Seger_discography). Released forty-two years ago. I was nine when the album came out. My parents were Elvis, Neil Diamond, and Beach Boys fans when I was a kid. (And Kingston Trio, if you go back a little ways.)

I sent out a newsletter yesterday talking about anti-stodginess, and how to avoid getting yourself into the sort of rut from which you never escape. For me, part of that is music, so I am forever picking up new or old used CDs at the bookstore and listening to them. Cheap investment in trying new music out. (And I have all of Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band albums on CD, going back probably thirty years.)

But then I wondered how much of that is what we might classify as Boomer Rock. Music that was originally popular with that age cohort called the Baby Boomers, who are now slowly sliding off the stage after they have done so much to change the world. (Both for good and evil, when you want to talk ethics and morality.)

They are the sorts of folks in that restaurant with us this morning. Plus a younger generation that just happens to hear it as probably muzak because that’s what their parents or grandparents listen to. Listened to.

At what point will “current” bands start playing on those loops? I have never stopped to think about it until today, but I’m squarely a Gen Xer with a strange background. My dad was born in 1940. Mom in 1941. They are what the lists call the Silent Generation, mostly because the boomers were so loud. Both of my grandfathers were in the US Army in the ETO. They also listened to way different music than my parents did/do.

What happens to that commonality of music that we once seemed to share, after all the boomers are gone? Or at least no longer a relevant social force? Already, you have music splintering into a few major acts of the type that the hit-makers have always created, but much more vast collection of smaller acts than ever existed in the old days.

Will there be a commonality of music that all American kids might recognize, in this new future where nobody listens to the radio, but instead picks up music from their friends and then locks in on a playlist of a few acts that they stick with forever?

Acts from the 90’s are now on the nostalgia tour. Those who were big in the 80s have been for a while, but I suspect that their arena shows are dwindling as their core demographic shrinks. And dies out.

Will there even be a commonality? Or is that something that falls apart after my generation, when we had a great splintering 30-40 years ago and it has only gotten bigger since then?

What album/playlist do you have in the car or on the phone right now? When was it recorded? How long have you owned it? And what does that say about you?

In my car right now are Willie Nelsons “The Great Divide” from 2002. When I was in Half-Priced Books last week, I found a Stray Cats Greatest Collection from 2000 that I picked up because I had never owned one of their albums from the old days. Another one I picked up was an Essential Simon and Garfunkel. Again, the first one by S&G that I had ever owned, and it gave me a chance to listen to things from before my usual era. Finally, Velvet Revolver’s Contraband, which was a nice enough album, but mixed in such a way that I could never understand the lyrics over the guitars. (Maybe that’s me, but it was annoying to try to understand the words and never quite succeed. Kings of Leon was the same way, when I realized that every single song on a couple of different albums I’d bought appeared interchangeable.)

But I’ll go back and pick up more music.

Here’s an idea: Who wants to suggest some music for me to listen to? I like good storytelling with emotion, rather than mumblepop. Bands over dancers who autotune. Something I can actually understand and bounce to. It doesn’t even have to be in English, as one of the best albums I’ve picked up lately was Tinariwen’s Live In Paris album.

So what would you like me to listen to?

 

I have committed a capitalism

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And you can, too!!!

So I have mentioned that I would be putting up a new store to sell exclusive fiction. That happened last week and Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) has reminded me more than once that it has gone from stupidly complicated to really easy to set up a sight with WooCommerce on the front and Bookfunnel on the back.

Somebody did their homework and built a nice interface for me. I had notes to work from (ya know, adult supervision and all that) and was just able to put up two new stories nobody has read. One (The Great Biblical Reckoning) is technically a reprint, but if the anthology it originally came out in ever sold I’d be surprised, because the **person** who published it never paid me a fucking dime. (I have considered suing her just to make her go completely out of business, but it’s not worth my time. I will never work with her or anyone remotely related to her professionally ever again.)

The other one is brand new. Charlie Kills The Devil. Worse, writer-brain engaged this week and I’ve already written the second one. And it will be a really twisted series that I don’t know where it goes. (Those are the best kind, by the way.)

It took me 15 minutes each to set them up on vellum and generate ebooks. Another five minutes each to upload them to both the store and BookFunnel as a delivery mechanism.

Seriously. I have committed a capitalism.

Worse, because I have a backlog of stuff already published over on Patreon, some of that will eventually make it’s way here, plus I maintain my goal to write 40 short stories this year. (12 for Patreon. 6 for known anthologies. 12 for the Store.) Plus more. Stuff I’ve never published because it was weird. Or unrelated to anything. (Seriously, Charlie is maybe dark magic realism meets urban fantasy, or something. I have no clue.)

I do have a new outlet for stuff that I can do myself, without tasking the Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) to make me covers, or do any print work. Or mess with the novel publishing schedule, because I don’t “think” there will be novels here. (I could be wrong, depends on the speed with which I write this year and how weird some of this shit turns out to be.)

The future is upon us. And I have one more place where I can sell short fiction. Better, I make about $0.66/$1 cover as opposed to about $0.32 on the big sites, so it is worth doing. Not so much on the big players, since I make so little and don’t really want to have to try to make it up on tremendous volume.

So now we have Farouk, Charlie, and Quincy available for sale. The first two are series characters, meaning I already have both #2’s done and am thinking about #3.

And having a stupidly fun time.

Y’all enjoy…

The Shop is open for business!!

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So the original plan had been to do this sometime in Q1 of 2020. Fabulous Publisher Babe (TM) got her store up earlier this week and on Friday she got it installed here and we are off and running. (Thanks to my two first customers for confirming that everything works.)

The Shop

Every month, the plan is to put up a new “short” story in one of my series (or start a new series, as the muse strikes). We started off with Farouk Al-Hashemi.

The genesis for this story was a call I got from an Islamic Science Fiction magazine that was getting ready to go and looking for product. (Not sure they ever achieved lift-off, but they weren’t asking for an exclusive and have gone dark so we’re bringing it out here.) They wanted SF with a distinctly Islamic bent, which is not all that common in North America. (At least I have not had a lot of luck finding stuff. If you know any, send me links.)

I have always been fascinated by Islamic culture. During the Gulf War in 1991, I was in grad school in Los Angeles with a number of folks who were of Egyptian, Palestinian, and Saudi backgrounds, and one of them got me a fantastic Quran in blue leather hardback that has pride of place on my shelf when I asked. (Image of me, in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport in Dec 1990, wearing green BDU pants, a black T-shirt, cowboy boots, blue Levi denim jacket, black cowboy hat, reading a Quran. I got some great looks.)

To write this story, I had to do a deep dive into Islamic history and culture while looking for a story I could tell. Because I’m an outsider, I also had to dance a careful line so as to not end up accidentally offending folks that I was trying to reach.

The point of Science Fiction is usually to ask uncomfortable questions posed as a “What if?” and go from there. Easy enough to do in your native culture, but fraught with risk elsewhere. (I’m no Harlan Ellison, ya know.) Especially as I had a most interesting idea once I dug deep enough and started exploring the Sunni/Shia split and how that could drive something.

Lester Dent’s 7 Point Plot Structure: a Character in a Setting with a Problem.

The result was an interesting new universe where I could play around and ask some of those questions in a way that was meant to be mind-expanding rather than insulting. Even went so far as to ask an Egyptian PhD friend to read it tomake sure and he liked it.

So we have Assassin, the first of a new series starring Farouk Al-Hashemi. I have the second one, Witness, written and will be working on more in that realm going forward. My plan is to put that one up the first week of February. (I won’t promise always hitting on a First, because I’ll miss, but you should get into the habit of checking that first week, or paying attention to blog posts (here) and newsletter.)

Additionally, I have a whole bunch of stories in the can. If you’ve been following my blog and my social media, you’ve seen some of the covers before now. All to get ready for this day.

YAY!!!!!!!!

So you are aware, my plan with many of these short stories is not to put them up for sale under wide release. Maybe ever. No Amazon. No Barnes & Noble. No iTunes. Just here. On one of those other sites, I tend to make about 35 cents for a 0.99 sale. Here it will be much higher, while still being able to give you quality story telling.

Maybe, eventually, I’ll pull a story down from the shop and put it up other places, but that’s only going to be for the really big ones where I might be normally charging $2.99 for them. Think novellas and such, rather than the short stuff.

For now, let us celebrate that there is a new way you can get Blaze Ward stories. And I have a new stream of nickels that help fund my lifestyle.

Most importantly, because I plan to deliver twelve new stories here and another twelve to my Patreon, I plan to write something like 40 short stories in 2020. That’s a lot, but it forces me to focus on short fiction in between and around novels.

So y’all take a look and a read and let me know what you think, okay?

</smooch>

2020: The Plan

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So, in 2019, the final count was 20 novels and 21.5 short/medium/novella stories (finished Eva #5 on Jan 1, 2020 as the 22nd). 1,394,982 words because I damned well didn’t want to push that hard the last three days, thank you very much. Call is a shade under 1.4 million words.

Good enough. My goal had been 1.2+ or 100,00 words per month. (My goal is always 100,000. Sometimes easy, sometimes a hard stretch, but I’ve done it since May 2018 at this point and that’s kinda awesome.)

The only real target had been 20 novels in 2019. Managed that. Wrote a novella at the end of the year because that was NOT going to turn into a novel. Kept it at 19,000 but it is very obviously a book one in a new series of historic espionage/thriller. (set in 1977 with no more science fiction than Q provides to Bond, per se, and not even that much, except that I know where technology goes, so I can pull things forward a little.)

So now we’re looking at 2020. Second full year of writing for me as a full-time vocation. Making enough money that I generally don’t worry, except that this year I plan to dial back some expenses because of the crazy-ass election season coming up and all the other shit. Previous presidential seasons have seen entertainment sales Aug 1 – Dec 1 tank hard. This might run much wider and longer, depending.

I’d rather be proven wrong as a cynic than an optimist. I’m probably unemployable at this point.

So going forward. 100,000 words per month. That doesn’t change.

However, I’m only “planning” 14 novels. And 40 short stories.

(—WARNING MATH AHEAD—)

I have a patreon account and promise them a new short story every month long before it ever comes out to the general public. So that’s 12 new stories.

I am publishing Boundary Shock Quarterly 4 times per year and have a story in it.

I expect to do two new volumes of Blaze Ward Presents (#1 and #2 here) annually, plus strange ideas that need me.

Starting soon, I’m going to be offering new short fiction on my website every month, with exclusives that do not go up for sale anywhere else. Like, ever. Only get them here so folks get used to coming to my site for a new fiction fix for cheap. ($1 sort of thing.)

So as you can see, I’m already at 30 stories, and I haven’t even broken a sweat yet. Throw in the odd projects where someone asks if I can write them a short story to theme, weird shit that wakes me from a dead sleep, and whatever other silliness comes around, and I don’t see it being that hard to hit 40. It comes up to three and a quarter stories per month, basically.

I also have 3 business/technical books on the calendar this year. Those don’t count as short fiction, but generally come in around 12-15,000 words.

I’ll be busy. It will be a good busy. Writing books, writing novel series, writing short series serializations.

Not going to push as hard on the novel count also means that I can aim for some longer stories that unfold slowly. I enjoy writing crazy-fast stories that suck you in and hold you underwater, but occasionally I want to just sit back and let the world slowly enfold the reader. Or write a single volume that’s 175,000 words long if I can do it and not get bored.

Health has been good. Sales have been good. Life has been good. I’m still not rich enough to buy an island or build a castle, but those would be the long term goals if I was suddenly wealthy beyond a safe level.

Today, I blasted out my usual morning word count and then realized that I was all set to finish the current novel off (#1 for the year and #10 in the Science Officer series). Finished the morning session typing “Epilog” as a header, so that’s lovely and I’ll finish it Wednesday.

And looking forward to the next project. Need to write several short stories over the next week or two, and then I can go on and commit a next novel. Likely to flip a coin between Lazarus #3 and Taft Station #2 at this point, but that’s fine. Been reading the finals of the Star Tribes books. #1 & #2 are “done.” #3 is at the First Reader. Working my way through a final edit pass on #4 now, then on to #5. April-August release dates.

In case you missed it, the Handsome Rob books are up now for pre-order. Can’t Shoot Straight Gang is actually #1 and originally came out in Boundary Shock Quarterly #3 (Grand Theft Starship). Then Can’t Shoot Straight Gang Returns, which you might have read. Hunting Handsome Rob is #3. Handsome Rob, Assassin will be #4, sometime in the fall, most likely after Star Tribes is done (SWAG: September)

This blog will see less updating than it used to going forward, mostly because I plan to update the patreon news every Monday. Plus I have newsletters with more information than comes here. If you aren’t subscribed, this is your reminder. 🙂

Gonna be a busy year. Hope y’all are along for the ride.