So after a full day of programming and fun at Worldcon, some rather interesting impressions.

I went to Sasquan last year in Spokane, WA. It is a smaller city, well inland across the state from Seattle, but close enough to drive. It left me with concepts and concerns. This year has not addressed them in a positive manner.

I’m 47. And I’m in pretty good shape (size waist 32 jeans as the numbers escalate, but I still weigh right around 200 lbs, most of the time.)

This thing, this World Science Fiction Convention, looks to have around 5000 attendees. That sounds like a lot, until you realize that the San Diego Comic Con had over 160,000 attendees in 2015. It feels like a small, local con of the sort I started going to thirty-five years ago in Wichita.

Second, I’m in the bottom half of the attendees, by age grouping. Seriously, the average age of all the people I’ve seen the last two days has got to be mid-fifties. These are folks that have been going to Worldcons for decades, and they represent a significant chunk of Fandom, as it used to be known in the bad, old days when these people were pups.

The problem is, they aren’t pups anymore. They’ve grown old, and not brought along the next generation of readers and fans. I might have seen a handful of people too young to drink in the last two days. That’s it.

For comparison, this spring at Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, the average age of attendees might (barely) have been old enough to drink. That crowd was teenagers, lots and lots of them. Better, young parents, in costume, with their four-year-old daughter dressed up as Rey from Star Wars 7, or Wonder Woman, or something. Deeply engaged and doing it as a family.

I barely saw adult children of attendees here in KC.

And the energy at ECCC was off the charts, compared to WC. Hyper. Excited. Engaged.

The entire dealer room at WC is less than an acre, compared to ECCC that felt 4-6 times as big, and a hundred times as crowded and vibrant.

So, yeah.

Next, let us talk about the fans, in as gentle a way as we can.

I weigh 200 lbs. I’m pretty sure that puts me in the bottom half weight category for people, as I look around. And that includes the girls.

I feel bad for the people in such bad shape. It’s not that hard to walk more and pay better attention to what you eat. When I stopped drinking soda pop, I lost 20 pounds pretty quickly. When my wife gave me her old fitbit, I started paying attention to the number of steps I took each day. It had been 3500-4500. Now it runs around 6000-7000 on a weekday, and 12000-15000 on the weekends in the summer. (Winter, I don’t have as much work to do out at the farm, so I tend to write more instead, but I’m standing at the counter when I do and moving around still.)

People, walk more. That’s all it takes. Stretch in the shower in the morning to keep the muscles loose. Eat less processed foods. My diet has shifted over largely to dead critter and fresh veggies these days, with an emphasis on burning fat. I’m in better shape than I’ve been since the days I used to go out dancing several nights each week.

Now, the good parts.

Went to several fun panels yesterday. Afrofuturism in SF was an exploration of black authors and publishers in the field, and what it was like for them to get where they are, and how the field can be more inclusive. Cerece Rennie Murphy was absolute hilarious to listen to, as she recounted the stories about how nobody told her a black woman wasn’t supposed to write SF so she drove up to NY Comic Con and rented a table to sell her books. Another was Bill Campbell, the publisher of Rosarium Publishing.

After that: Taboo Topics in SF&F, which turned into a serious (if silly) discussion on why bodily functions are never discussed in SF&F. Imagine Aragorn up at two in the morning trying to pee with orcs trying to beat the door down. Or how no woman ever has to worry about packing emergency tampons and pads in space. (Science is actually getting close, but let’s talk chain mail settings.) This is topical for me, because my novel coming out shortly, Fairchild, actually addresses some of these topics, and I had to ask very pointed questions and get a good walk through on things from my wife, to make sure I had it all right.

They also touched on the fact that Americans do not deal well with class topics. The best suggestion I saw was for a group of British writers to have a panel on class at an American con, sometime, for American writers to understand. Americans do not see themselves (or admit to themselves) through the lens of class. Everyone is a temporarily down-on-his-luck millionaire. That is helpful at times, but it leaves out other things.

Also met lots of neat people and made some more con buddies. This being so far from home, few of the usual suspects made it this far, but Fabulous Publisher Babe™ knows everybody, and I get to tag along. Had dinner last night with Lyda Morehouse and Naomi Kritzer. Scheduled to have lunch today with Mary Anne Mohanraj. All folks she has known from way back, mostly from Clarion things.

Am off now, Saturday morning, for breakfast and more fun. Probably almost as much programming, but hoping to catch up with a few folks that I have not seen yet. (Left messages.)

shade and sweet water

bd

KCMO

Have arrived in Kansas City, MO for MidAmeriCon II (commonly known as Worldcon 74).  Have a list of panels I want to see, from hard Science Fiction to publishing.  There are several people here I hope to catch up with.  Already met a few neat people I hope to keep in touch with in the future.

One thing stands out in my mind as I look around: this place is Trad-pub. All of the panels are centered around the concept of New York publishing, from getting an agent, to writing a winning elevator pitch, to how to handle rejection (really?). There is even a panel on “Small Press Publishing” where the moderator is the Head Editor of one of the biggest publishing houses in the world. Small press, right.

Since I don’t suspect I’ll ever belong to Trad-Pub-Land (the next Hive story going off to the New Yorker in October to be rejected so I can publish it in January notwithstanding), I don’t think there is much there for me.

But that’s not why I do these things. The world of publishing is going through the fourth complete sea-change in the last fifteen years right now. Technology has broken the power of the big houses to control what the public sees. You all are able to buy my books directly and recommend them to a friend, and you cannot purchase them off a book shelf anywhere except the Powell’s in Beaverton, OR, and a small mailbox store in Seattle (the owner is a friend of my wife and likes having books for sale on his counter, me and several other local authors he knows).

To be “Trad-Pubbed” is to have been an author who used to get big contracts through the NY houses, but who has either seen the advances drop to almost nothing, or who has simply been cut loose and abandoned. I feel sorry for those folks, because they have to re-invent themselves mid-career.

For some of them, it isn’t as painful, as they are usually able to get their rights back after thirty-five years if it has gone out of print. (New books, being electronic, will NEVER go out of print, according to how contract law is currently working.) If they signed “good” contracts, they might have term limits built in (“you give it back after ten years…” etc.) or sales thresholds (it must sell X copies in a year or the rights revert, etc.), but most writers did not sign good contracts. (I won’t go into THAT stupidity, other than to say that young authors are taught to not ask questions by people who absolutely know better.)

For me, I have the freedom that Jeff Bezos is going to enforce on the world. (And if you think Jeff’s going to lose, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you, cheap.) ANYONE can write a book, slap a cover on it, blurb the back, and put it up for sale. You might never sell a single copy of it, except to your mother, but you have published a book. Most authors will never, ever, make a dedicated living from their writing alone. I don’t. (Yet.)

But all I have to do is keep publishing, and relentlessly hustle. Our waitress this morning wanted to know if we were writers, because our hotel is two blocks from the Con and filled with us. I handed her a business card for Auberon, which gave her a tangible thing to have, to look at, maybe to buy later. The return on my business cards is lousy, in that I probably only get a handful of readers from a box, but the box costs me $10, so it actually pays for itself.

I don’t need many fans, if they are dedicated to my words. I net about $3 from each e-novel I sell (less for the novellas and almost nothing from the short stories) on Amazon. You can do the math pretty easily from there to determine how much money you would want to make in a year, and break that down into how many novels you sell on a daily basis, average, to be free. If I have more novels for folks, and keep writing more, then my chances of replacing the day job go up.

Trad pub does not offer that, any more. Once upon a time, you could make a comfortable career mid-listing and have a happy, middle-class lifestyle. If you hit big, the spouse could quit their job and you could enjoy things. Today, those numbers measure in the hundreds in Trad-Pub land, and thousands in the Indie Press (me and folks like me struggling to get to that point).

So I hustle, and I blog, and I write daily. I try to talk you into introducing me to one of your friends you think will enjoy my writing, because that word of mouth builds my fan base. If I had enough support to stop day-jobbing, I would at least double my daily word count, at a dead minimum. Probably triple it once I got the brain muscles built up to do that regularly. Did it for Fairchild, when I had to turn out a new novel, in a new universe, from scratch, in a very short period of time. It worked out to 3000 words per day, for 15 days. 47,000 words, which is 7000 more than the definition of a novel.

I can do it. Trad Pub would never stand for it. But they don’t get a vote. And they don’t get to stop me. I view them as the competition for your dollars, so I have to know what they are up to, and how to produce a better product.

So that’s Day One of WorldCon (Thursday). Let’s see how silly Day Two can be.

🙂

shade and sweet water

bd

KCMO

I have words, but she does it so much better than I do this morning:

http://rebeccasenese.com/out-of-this-world-bundle-lets-blast-off/

Bundle: to gather together a wide and interesting group of folks and put one of their books each into a product for people to read for a single, cheap price.

The goal: I have fans who have (hopefully) read everything I have ever written, and wait with baited breath for my next installment. To tide them over, and introduce them to their new, second-favorite author. 🙂

This is a big bundle. 16 stories available when you normally get ten to twelve. I only know about half of the authors present and have read about a third of the books on tap.

Come join us “Out Of This World” for some serious (and occasionally silly) fun.

Oh, and, I drew the short straw, so Rebecca put me up first. It would help me look good if you could go buy this and then send the link to everyone you know, so Rebecca launches this beast in style!

Cheers,

b

It’s true.  And I post things there on a quarterly basis that don’t necessarily make it into my semi-regular blog posts. The blog is where I talk about stuff, but not necessarily things of any great relevance, beyond my usual snark.

The newsletter, on the other hand, is about schedules and events. And occasionally giveaways and stuff. And I promise not to share your information with anyone. I try to send out one newsletter quarterly, and the reason I was thinking about it was because I should have sent it out August 1, but never got around to it as a result of some of the craziness going on in my life right now.

On the brighter side, I just sat down this morning and started organizing my thoughts, so I’ll be able to send it out in another week or so, depending on what I have to say.

This is your chance to sign up and get the latest news.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

bd

yeah, I realize I haven’t posted on my blog in a while. This won’t be long, until the trolls find me and drag me back to work.

Was working hard on fixing the pumphouse. That’s about 3/4 done now, and I eke out a few minutes here and here as I can.

Then a special project came up and I had to throw out the rest of my summer schedule. If all goes fantastically well, I’ll have news at the end of this week. If so-so, two weeks.

Thanks for putting up…

bd

Just ’cause.

Much ago, Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) was involved in the original Kickstart for the StandStand. (seriously: https://www.standstand.com/) It is a lovely contraption that you assemble and put on a table or desk so you can put your laptop up at a level to type while standing up.

She ended up with two of them, at different heights for different desks. Each one has two leg pieces that you assemble, and then put a top on. Total thickness, under two inches. Made from birch, so incredibly lightweight. Folds up and travels with you in a backpack.

At CampCon, last month, I borrowed hers, because my back was still out of sorts and I needed to stand while writing. It was a wonderful thing, with one minor (but significant) drawback. I prefer a 17″ laptop, and the fine folks that invented the device obviously all use teeny, little Mac Airs that are about the size of my tablet computer.

But they have come out with a new invention, called a StandStand Mouse. Three legs in a W shape.  In their world, they can rest their little computers on the left side of the top and have space for a mouse.

Mine arrived yesterday, and I just finally got around to unpacking and assembling it. My laptop has about a centimeter of clearance on each side, all by itself. That’s fine for me except when I need to edit and am mousing a lot. (I have considered red-necking an extension that would clamp on and provide another six inches of flat top, so I can actually mouse, but I’ll live for now.)

The purpose behind today’s free advertising is to remind all you creative types that sitting hunched over a computer all day, all night, and all weekend ruins your back. You will become one of those little old ladies, one of these days, who is so hunchbacked that she stares at the ground and has to tilt her head back to look ahead.

Don’t be that person.

I screwed up my back playing football in high school, a very long time ago now. It flares up every year or so (too often, but I’m too squeamish for surgery that might or might not fix it).  She and I have uncovered a regimen that reduces the primary healing time from weeks to days. I have used a kneeling chair at work for nearly twenty years. I started doing morning pushups after this latest back flareup to strengthen my core muscles.

I want to be able to walk twenty miles a day when I’m ninety.

You (YES, YOU!!) need to pay attention to your physical health. That probably means exercising more than you currently do. I got a fitbit this spring, and went from 3500-4500 steps/day, to around 8500-9500/day, just because I could measure it.

We get half a pig and a quarter cow every year from some lovely folks in Ellensburg, WA (windyNranch.com). That means dead critter than has not been raised with growth hormones, or adulterated with other crap. Plus, they let us choose whether or not we want spices mixed in with the ground pork, so I can make sausage for me and her that we both can actually eat.

I stopped drinking soda pop entirely over three years ago. Mostly, that meant a serious reduction in corn syrup in my diet, but I also skipped out on cane sugar flavored sodas as well, just to do it. (Two Root Beer Floats notwithstanding, in three years. Not bad.)

Starting to stand more while I write is another step on being healthy. It keeps the back muscles strong. It keeps you moving around and works your whole body in ways that sitting in a chair for 8-12 hours just will not do.

In the last four years, I have dropped from 225lb to 200lbs (that’s 16 stone down to 14, for you English weirdos). She and I got new life insurance this spring (from a fantastically White Picket Fence salesman). We both qualified in the top 3% of all people for health rating, so we got a significant discount on our rates (or rather, the same amount of money from me each month turns into a greater return twenty years down the line).

I’m a dorky, middle-aged, white guy. All of my grandparents made it into their seventies, despite smoking like chimneys their whole lives and drinking hard alcohol like it was going out of style. Both my parents are still going like hell in their mid-seventies now.

According to the government, I can consider retirements options of various flavors over the next fifteen to twenty years. On the one hand, yay, less day job. On the other hand, I’m already planning to quit the day job as soon as I can afford my lifestyle from the books I write.

And I will write lots more books:

Siren came out end of May.

White Crane at the end of June.

Demigod at the end of July.

The fourth Jessica Keller novel (Goddess of War) is set for October.

I just finished the third Hive story this morning. It will go for rejection at The New Yorker in a few weeks, and then get published sometime in the fall.

I’m working on a coffee table books tentatively titled “Uniforms Of The Fleet: Republic of Aquitaine” to come out with Goddess. Met with the artist this week and she’s got most of what she needs to do the last set of sketches.

I have another novel I’m 20,000 words along and will pick up this week. The fifth Jessica Keller novel keeps poking at me. Etc.

The point is this: are you healthy enough that you’ll still be alive when “someday” gets here? Are you doing the little things, every day, to ensure you survive and enjoy life? Are you eating healthy? Are you walking enough? Are you maintaining a positive attitude by using these two phases? “Not my circus. Not my monkeys.” “That’s right. And the horse you rode in on.”

Are you making the right decisions, every day? The little ones, like cutting back on sweets? Like eating dead critter and fresh veggies, as opposed to a packaged something with an ingredient list fifty items long? (When was the last time you read the whole ingredient list and knew what every single thing on it was?)

So StandStand, for me, represents another positive choice. It represents me being in better shape than I’ve probably been in for at least twenty years. I represents me walking you into the ground, because I’m going to be here long after you’ve died of bad choices.

There’s a t-shirt I’m going to get printed one of these days, that sums up how I approach life, and the little things.

“You made those choices…”

Were they good ones?

Actually, if you pre-ordered, it probably appeared in your inbox list and library last night, since the Amazons appear to be running GMT for their go-code.

Above translated into english, kinda: White Crane (Modern Gods, Book 1) is now available for purchase at your preferred vendor.

The blurb:

“Kai Di laments the death of her best friend, who, it turns out, lived a double life as a super villain. A secret life she hid from everyone, including Kai Di.

Kai Di’s anger at the world smolders, unquenched by family and the rituals of death.

How can Kai Di properly mourn her closest friend, the one person who understood her, while the rest of the world celebrates her demise? How can Kai Di get vengeance on the “hero” who killed her?

“White Crane”—the first novel in the fantasy trilogy “Modern Gods”—puts a new spin on the superhero genre in this enchanting, engrossing tale. This story explores coming of age while dealing with great power, the true meaning of good and evil, as well as what sort of payroll options you should give henchmen.”

I really enjoyed writing this one. And spent way too much time thinking about how one handles being a super-villain, at the nuts and bolts level of secret identity costumes, hideouts, a bunch of other things.

And all I’m going to say is that someone who really does not like the superhero genre thought I pulled off a very entertaining story.

You should go buy a copy so you can see for yourself, ya know?

When I started writing science fiction again, the first story I wrote was Greater Than The Gods Intended. It’s a fantasy piece, and contained in a fantasy anthology (BTM2), but only because the whole story is told from the point of view of a three-foot-tall lizard-man, an Isaurian, who is the direct descendent of genetically-engineered humans, as are almost all the rest of the inhabitants of the planet in question.

The next collection (BTM3) included all sort of strange stuff, but that was because I was exploring and experimenting. Two Zolnernovy stories, one Hive, and some Dieselpunk. There was also The Librarian.

When I had been writing The Librarian, I realized that I needed to build up Suvi as a character, in order to have her better organized in my head. The result of that is The Science Officer, setting up Javier and Suvi at her beginning, so I could make The Librarian her middle point.

Suddenly, I had a universe, connecting Javier, Doyle, and then Jessica as I started to write Auberon. That turned into a spreadsheet, as I began putting dates down, making sure I left enough space everywhere for stories to be tucked in and for history to happen.

I’m thinking about that now, because, right after White Crane comes out, the next Doyle Iwakuma story, Demigod, is coming at the end of July.

There really was a lot of space in which to paint.

Suvi will be “born” on March 19, 7426 CE.

Javier Aritza will be born in 7510 CE.

The Concordancy War will end definitively with the annihilation of all higher technology and most of the life forms resident on Earth in 10397 CE.

Doyle Iwakuma will be born September 17, 12263 CE.

Henri Baudin will be born in 13059 CE.

Jessica Keller will be born in 13405 CE.

Fabulous Publisher Babe™ and I have talked a number of times about how to frame the Doyle Iwakuma stories, now that I have a third one coming out. They have become a true series, sort of. Or at least they will.

A friend of mine created the corporate logo for Iwakuma Salvage Interstellar a number of years ago, as part of an RPG campaign where I first created the character of Doyle and ship, The Last Waltz.

The new story, Demigod, takes place not long after The Librarian in time, but with four novels and half a dozen novellas in that universe written by me in between. Based on the way the politics of the future work out, most people in Javier’s era count years from the founding of the Union of Worlds (see The Mind Field for more details).

With that in mind, The Librarian takes place in year 4753 of the Unification Era, which will, in turn, become Year Zero in the Ballard Era, what history will eventually call The Story Road Era, based on what happens when Ballard suddenly leapfrogs ahead centuries technologically but does not turn around and begin conquering all its neighbors militarily.

Demigod will then be set in year 4754. It is a story focused on Piper, Doyle’s niece, who is still a young woman at this point, and not the famous explorer and philanthropist she would become in another decade or so.

The coolest part for me is considering what’s coming. I have at least one Doyle Iwakuma novel in mind, that will go into much greater detail about the Concordancy War, as well as more shorter stories. Henri Baudin will get at least two more novellas. I’ve just finished the fourth Jessica Keller novel and am taking notes towards number five. (She’s insistent that there will be nine before I’m done.) There’s even another Suvi/Summer Baudin story, set two thousand years after Jessica dies, that I will get to eventually.

Javier Aritza will have a bunch of novellas before he’s done, but that’s because he’s always been episodes of a television series, with Season One being somewhere between eight and twelve shows. And then on to Season Two.

So stick with me for a while, and there will be a whole universe of entertainment around Alexandria Station.

Meanwhile, this is your reminder that White Crane is available for pre-order, and coming out in a couple of weeks. It’s the first of a trilogy for Kai Di Peng. And a whole other universe in which to play, and I will.

And I’m deep into the next project, a completely different novel from everything I’ve done so far. Watch this space for news this fall, once I get it done and off to the First Readers and Editors for publication.

And I just got back from CampCon last week. Each year, we have done an anthology (Tales from an Alien Campfire, and Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and Magic so far.) Next year, I’m editing, and the title will be Steam. And Dragons. (Note the period in the middle.) It will come out in March 2017, give or take. There have been some lovely, silly, fun ideas bandied about, so I’m hopeful it will be successful.

Oh, and: It must be summer. I was sitting in the living room yesterday afternoon, around dinner time, when Fabulous Publisher Babe ™ looked up and squeeeeeeeed. About ten feet out the sliding glass door was a deer. No, a fawn. Three feet tall and covered with white dot camouflage. Looking at us staring back at it. Even got a picture I’ll post eventually.

Then the little bambi bolted for the bedroom side of the house, and I was able to see the rest of the family in the upper meadow.

Mama had given birth to twins again this year. The other one was hiding behind a tree peeking out at me in the window, while Mama was drinking from the horse trough I keep for her.

I know how old they were, because I happened to see a deer about two weeks ago, looking a little ragged and baggy, for lack of a better term. Kinda like she had just given birth and was recovering. So I figure two weeks old, just about.

Got to watch Mama gather them up as the rain started pissing down, two little squirts gamboling all over the place like hyper bunny rabbits as she led them down the hill to the spot where they bed down, above the pond.

It was kinda cool. I’ve never seen wild fawns before, and one was ten feet away. That’s one of the reasons I bought this particular chunk of land out in the wilderness.

Additionally, the other day, I was mowing places that should have been gotten beforehand. I was back behind the workshop, knocking down ferns and other crap. Happily, I had the mower set to the highest elevation, because I managed to run right over a nest that one of the bunnies had made, full of fur and leaves under a clump of grass.

Movement caught me out of the corner of my eye and my first thought was fieldmouse that needed to be killed. Then I saw the shape of the ears and the haunches, as this tiny little guy tried to slither away from me, panicked and shell-shocked from having just been godzillaed. I’m guessing about a week-old, short-earred rabbit. Gave him a couple of nudges with my boot to keep him moving, until he got back into the remaining tall grass and ferns I was leaving. (I have owls and hawks around here, so I figured it was my job to make sure he got someplace relatively safe, since I had just mowed his house out from over him.)

I’m guessing he did okay, because when I was mowing earlier this week, I saw a bunny about the same size, but moving like lightning now. This time, I was mowing the overgrown front yard, so he took off when I got about twenty feet away and ran across the driveway and hid over there. Thirty minutes later, I was over there mowing, and saw him zip back across, zig-zagging through the remaining tall grass until he got back to the back of the workshop.

Saw him again this morning, ducking under the blackberry bramble.

It’s kinda awesome to have wildlife around. And having deer and rabbits around lets me know that there are no big cats in the area. (I live a WAYS out.)

And been eating freshly-picked strawberries and black berries, waiting for the salmonberries and the blueberries to get done. Because of the winter and spring, I will have about three cherries this year, but the pears will make up for it with Oh-My-God happy.

As always, I welcome questions and comments. I write this blog mostly for me, but occasionally people reply, and that makes my day.

shade and sweet water

bd

West Of The Mountains, WA

Yay!

After so long with no news, I have more now.

White Crane is available for pre-order in all the usual places. Comes out June 28.  Superheroic Contemporary Fantasy and the beginning of a trilogy, and a whole new world in which to play.

The Blurb:

Kai Di laments the death of her best friend, who, it turns out, lived a double life as a super villain. A secret life she hid from everyone, including Kai Di.

Kai Di’s anger at the world smolders, unquenched by family and the rituals of death.

How can Kai Di properly mourn her closest friend, the one person who understood her, while the rest of the world celebrates her demise? How can Kai Di get vengeance on the “hero” who killed her?

White Crane—the first novel in the fantasy trilogy “Modern Gods”—puts a new spin on the superhero genre in this enchanting, engrossing tale. This story explores coming of age while dealing with great power, the true meaning of good and evil, as well as what sort of payroll options you should give henchmen.

I had fun with it. The genesis of the whole thing was a short story I wanted to tell. In the process of plotting that out, I needed to add back-story. Which turned into more back-story. Eventually, I realized that what I originally had was a couple of chapters in the middle of book three. Which was a pain in the ass.

But in the end, I think it worked out. I really enjoy it. I sent a friend a copy for some favors he has done, and because he really doesn’t like superhero stories to begin with. Didn’t figure I should make him buy a copy, just because he likes my writing.

Couple hours later, I get this email back from him: “God Blaze,this is really good stuff-more later…”

And mind you, he hates superhero fantasy enough to bark at me for wasting my time writing it, when I could be doing for epic SF for him. (One of his favorite categories.)

So hopefully, I done good. It’s hard to categorize this novel, but here goes: YA/New Adult, Coming of Age, Literary (cringe), Superheroic Contemporary Fantasy.

Seriously.

And the cover looks amazing, as well as the interior.

For me, the best part was exploring the seedy underbelly of putting on a cape and cowl. Building a “secret” base. Hiring henchmen. Fighting other costumes. Handling payroll.

And doing it all in a way that “explains” where superpowers come from and why we went from almost none to lots of these people, what Burnham calls Modern Gods.

I already know what book two is about. And most of book three was fully plotted in the course of figuring out how much story I had to tell, so I’ll probably write them over the next two years, assuming I sell more than three copies of book one before Xmas.

I have really enjoyed setting up these characters for a long run, and a lot of depth. It also lets me tell other tales like it, by creating a larger sandbox into which they can play.

It’ll be awesome.

Also, I just got back from CampCon in Oregon this last weekend. Got a good start on the next novel, while camping in the middle of nowhere with friends from all over the northwest. The group is almost all writers (a few artists and spouses), getting together for a solid weekend in the woods with no internet to distract you. I have gone three years now. If you are a writer, and enjoy car-camping with showers and flames hot enough to melt cast aluminium, you should go. We do nothing for four days but write, eat, and sleep. Send me a note and I’ll connect you with all the information.

And more interesting, I’m going to edit the CampCon Anthology that will come out in March. The title will be “Steam. And Dragons.” (Note the period in the middle.) Already have my story done. At least four of the people there have good ideas coming as well.

Watch this space for more news.

bd

West of the Mountains, WA

Hiya,

I would have given you more warning, but it came up at the last minute.  My SF thriller novel Imposters is part of a bundle on the Rabbit.

https://bundlerabbit.com/not-only-humans

Very short term bundle (as in, maybe a week, I think), and you’ll get awesome writers like Mindy Klasky, Leah Cutter, Douglas Smith, and  Kim Antieau at the base level. At higher levels, you get my favoritest person (after Fabulous Publisher Babe): Anthea Sharp. There’s also Eric Edstrom, Carl Plumer, Marcelle Dube, J. Daniel Sawyer and, for the really big guns: Dean Wesley Smith, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Sales Copy:

12 Thrilling Summer Reads

From galaxy-spanning alien cultures to the discovery of Bigfoot, these page-turning novels feature gripping stories where humans and non-humans work together, fight each other, and even fall in love.

Pounce now.  These deals will go fast, and this is a great way to explore strange new worlds.  🙂