So, Noon Eastern US Time, December 14, which is Wednesday, there will be an auction (see Jim’s website for others) to support a good cause in Michigan. For whoever wins the auction, a signed copy of Auberon will be sent to them via post.
Additionally, and more importantly, I’ll tuckerize you.
In layman’s terms, you’ll get the option to appear as a minor character in one of my upcoming books. You, by name. By description if you want to live forever. And you get to choose if I make you a sidekick to one of my heroes, or a villain who dies in some terribly tragic and painful way. And maybe, if you want, I’ll make you a recurring minor character.
Lord knows I have two major SF series in motion right now that have large casts. By the time you read this, I should have written at least one, if not all, of the epilogues for the fifth Jessica Keller novel, Flight of the Blackbird, due out middle of 2017. The next major project is the fourth Science Officer book, The Pleasure Dome.
I’m also churning out shorter pieces on a monthly basis, so I can keep the heartbeat going on Amazon. If you’re not into SF, I’m writing quite a bit of superhero fantasy these day. I just published the first Holly Breckenridge story, which is straight-up historic fiction with an action bent. I’m in the middle of a silly-weird fantasy story if you want to be a sorcerer or a guard at the tower. There will be crime fiction sometime in 2017. Etc.
Why am I doing this?
This for a good cause.
I make no bones about my political and social beliefs. I want to live in the future, not an idealized and largely imaginary past. This is one way I can give back to the world.
“If you are more fortunate than others, it is better to build a longer table than a taller fence.”
I’m all about the longer table.
But also, because it’s damned fun from my perspective. All of my characters started out as names on a page. Frequently, I’ll jump to a random name generator website and randomly roll electronic dice to pick two or three bizarre culture combinations and have the system spit me back a name. (Think Scottish and Japanese, for a character from the latest Jessica novel: Shiori Ness.) Repeat until something rings true. Use that to generate a look, and maybe a backstory, depending on how many times we’ll ever see them again.
When that fails, which it does when I’m out at the farm with zero interwebs, I’ll randomly select a bookcase, a shelf, a book, and a page before I walk into my office, pull that book, and find the first thing that looks like a name on the page.
It keeps things interesting. That’s one of the games writers play with themselves to keep things fun. We get paid to make shit up all day. But even that can get boring, so let’s make up really wild things.
So there we are. You’re going to bid on this auction because you think this is a cause worth supporting. And I rarely do cons where you might find me to sign something for you. And, more importantly: Secretly, you want to be a villain in some future story. (And I got LOTS of stories coming, bubba.)
So you’ll outbid everyone else and I’ll contact you. Do you want just be a name, and I’ll fill in all the physical details? Will you send me a description I can use? Perhaps a picture?
And do you want to keep appearing from time to time? I’m okay with that, because you’ve given me permission to put you into the story, and I’m not going to do anything bad to you on paper. (I don’t publish those stories under my name, anyway, so nobody would ever know. I mean, unless you want me to graphically murder your ex-husband on paper, or something. Then we’ll talk.)
Heroes need sidekicks. So do villains. Hell, I might start you out as a villain’s intern in one book, and let you keep getting promoted as the Level Monster Bosses keep dying off.
Just how silly can we get?
Okay, so maybe I’ve been indoors a little too much this weekend. It is Sunday night as I write this, having raced home from work Friday early and gotten in just as the really heavy snow started. We got about 10 inches at the farm Friday night, and I live on a steep hill. It’s only now starting to melt off. I’ve been out twice for supplies and internet access, but mostly I’ve been home writing, and editing, and being silly.
And I really wouldn’t have it any other way.
As the old Bugs Bunny quote goes: “I wonder what the poor rabbits are doing this winter?”
For me, writing. Having fun making up lies and stories.
When Jim called, he had a list of things people could offer. I went all in on the Tuckerization, because I’ll have an utter ball doing it, and one of you will, too.
So help me out here. Let’s make the world a better place and have a rollicking good time doing it.
shade and sweet water,
blaze
West of the Moutains, WA