Sometime before the end of the year, my story "Exhuming Harry Truman" will be one of 33 tales published in the anthology Kindle All-Stars Presents: Resistance Front.
If you haven't, you should visit project creator and editor Bernard J. Schaffer's website to learn much more about the project; and visit the Fringe Scientist website to read interviews with the authors, which will continue to roll out daily throughout the month. Mine is scheduled for Thanksgiving Day. Want to know where my story "Exhuming Harry Truman" came from? The answer goes well with pie.
This is an interesting, many-headed hydra of a project: it brings
together a broad spectrum of international talent ranging from
well-established writers to first-timers; it's a charitable venture,
with all stories donated and all proceeds earmarked for the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children; and it sets out to
demonstrate how technology empowers the writer to find an audience and
see work into print without having to enter the labyrinth of the traditional publishing house.
For decades, self-publishing was looked down upon with a sneer by the traditional publishing model. It couldn't be a real book unless it had been submitted through an agent. Had been vetted by readers and editors. Had been anointed by a big house. And any number of vanity press companies preyed on writers who couldn't get inside the castle walls, charging them small fortunes to see their tales between covers. All of this only strengthened the hand of the houses: See? Anyone can buy their way to having a book, but only by being anointed will you be promoted to the world as an author.
To hell with being an author. I want to write.
What's curious is how this attitude has persisted within publishing, but hasn't within art or music. Artists have always been self-promoters and portfolio builders who will hustle to put together shows in small galleries on their own. With music, no one ever sneered at a band for having their own self-produced tape or disc at a show, or cutting their own demo. It's how some acts start down the road to widespread recognition.
But these days, the publishing industry is in the same boat as the music industry. Technology has bridged the gap between the writer and the audience, making it possible to remove the middle men. There's an eight-lane digital bypass that does a clean, fast arc around the traditional infrastructures.
KAS is the second such venture in which I've participated. The first happened out of necessity for the editors. The anthology Machine of Death was shopped around to publishers for a couple of years before the editors paid out of pocket for its production through Bearstache Books. Despite loving the premise, none of the big publishers was willing to take a chance on an anthology full of unknowns. (Apparently, publishers have forgotten that EVERY writer starts out as an unknown, and there's greater financial risk in unknowns than second- and third-rate Twilight knockoffs. Strike while the stake is hot, I suppose.) MOD has since gone to a fourth printing, pissed off Glenn Beck, and will appear in several foreign-language editions next year. It's developed a highly energized cult following, and the second Machine of Death anthology drew over 1,900 submissions for roughly thirty spots. If that's not indie success in the social media age, there's no such thing.
KAS, in part, seeks to demonstrate that the writer CAN be a successful independent entity - can tell stories, can produce novels or collections, can exist and flourish on the cutting edge without having to throw themselves into a funnel that leads to a slush pile.
The technology is there to allow writers to become true mom-and-pop shops with their work. Of course, this puts a lot of responsibility on the writer as well. The long slog to traditional publication also comes with benefits if you make it inside the citadel: promotion, distribution, income. The writer who undertakes the independent path assumes an incredible burden. You still need an editor - someone who isn't going to nod along, or say "That was really great!" when it wasn't in an effort to spare your feelings or friendship. You need to do your own promotion and legwork. You need to know what your costs are and what price you're willing to accept. You need to do the heavy lifting on the final product. And you need to choose your outlet and set your sales strategy. It can be very liberating, but it isn't something for the faint of heart. It's making your hobby into your second job - willingly becoming a writer with self-sustaining professional standards and a willingness to lose sleep.
In the end, that's the only way this kind of freedom works. KAS is being lifted by the people who appear in the book and some very hearty associated souls. It will succeed or fail on two things: the quality of the work, and the efforts to promote the book. I'm about a third of the way through the advanced reading copy, and I see the quality on the page. Now all we need is for people to read, review and recommend. *points his Marley-esque index finger at the reader*
Watch this space for additional details, including an on sale date and link. And when the book arrives, go forth and buy a copy, whether you Kindle or you're a more traditional paper and ink person. You'll help a worthwhile charity, get some fresh fiction from some old favorites (I'm in a book with Harlan "LANE! YOU DICKLESS WONDER!" Ellison - go tell my twelve year old self that and he'll call you a big fat liar) and new friends, and help show that independent author-driven publishing can work.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
A Little 'Death', A Little Life
A long week of waiting this past week (which, when you consider a series of short films made ten years ago with my BBAM Bernie centered around people waiting smacks of more than a touch of irony) for word on whether or not my Machine of Death 2 submission had passed muster in a seriously large pool of contenders drew to a close on Friday. The verdict?
The story - "Assassinated By Oswald" - was accepted by the editors. That was the "WOOT!" you heard from Houston.
I'll have more on this down the line, but the full line-up for the book (and its official title) will be announced on November 17 at a Machine of Death event in Los Angeles, and one suspects will be on the web the next day.
It wasn't planned as such, but the staycation at La Torretta resort and associated Renaissance Fair trip this weekend that my honey and I took would up being a nice celebration of the acceptance. Everyone should celebrate with champagne, blood sausage, pierogi, a camel ride, beer, a massage, and the perusal of sword canes and fine leather journals. No cheesecake on a stick - I mean, it's not like I won a Nebula.
Tomorrow? Back to work on the novel - I've got a dozen longhand notebook pages to transcribe, which bridge to the next section being rewritten - as well as further contemplation of a short story that's rattling around in my head and wants out. I also need to line up readers for the advance copy of the forthcoming Kindle All-Stars Resistance Front anthology. While I suspect I can get readers who will read/review the collection, I believe I may be the only Kindle-wielding member of my immediate circle who'd be thus enabled to buy it for the Kindle at this juncture. More on Resistance Front this week - it's a great project for a worthy cause.
The story - "Assassinated By Oswald" - was accepted by the editors. That was the "WOOT!" you heard from Houston.
I'll have more on this down the line, but the full line-up for the book (and its official title) will be announced on November 17 at a Machine of Death event in Los Angeles, and one suspects will be on the web the next day.
It wasn't planned as such, but the staycation at La Torretta resort and associated Renaissance Fair trip this weekend that my honey and I took would up being a nice celebration of the acceptance. Everyone should celebrate with champagne, blood sausage, pierogi, a camel ride, beer, a massage, and the perusal of sword canes and fine leather journals. No cheesecake on a stick - I mean, it's not like I won a Nebula.
Tomorrow? Back to work on the novel - I've got a dozen longhand notebook pages to transcribe, which bridge to the next section being rewritten - as well as further contemplation of a short story that's rattling around in my head and wants out. I also need to line up readers for the advance copy of the forthcoming Kindle All-Stars Resistance Front anthology. While I suspect I can get readers who will read/review the collection, I believe I may be the only Kindle-wielding member of my immediate circle who'd be thus enabled to buy it for the Kindle at this juncture. More on Resistance Front this week - it's a great project for a worthy cause.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Of 365 Days and 1 in 56
I am a transplant that Texas has not rejected.
A year ago today, having made great time from Knoxville to Birmingham, I decided to call an audible, abandon a planned overnight in New Orleans, and drove straight through to Houston. I rolled to a stop in front of the little house on Walling Street, grabbed my laptop from the car, and met my girlfriend in the front yard with a "honey, I'm home!" And it's been a wonderful year under the same roof, building a home together, making new friends, exploring a Houston that's changed since my first rodeo, back in 1991 - 1993. Whereas that stretch was a debacle of colossal proportions, I wouldn't trade this past year for anything.
The Machine of Death 2 lineup announcement is slated for tomorrow. I think my story was solid and my take different enough to distinguish itself, but the law of large numbers - 1,958 stories for a maximum of 35 slots (that's a 1 in 56 chance, higher if the # of stories in the final book is lower) - says I should brace for disappointment and be happily surprised if I'm selected.
Meanwhile, the novel progresses, albeit at a couple thousand words a sitting (though I'm coming into some high-word-count burn territory); I have revisions for one story ready to put on paper; a second draft of a story-in-progress is in my head; a new take on a third story that's been sitting fallow has begun to germinate - so not getting an MOD nod would sting, but there are pots on the stove, and I'm stirring as fast as I can.
#
The Machine of Death 2 lineup announcement is slated for tomorrow. I think my story was solid and my take different enough to distinguish itself, but the law of large numbers - 1,958 stories for a maximum of 35 slots (that's a 1 in 56 chance, higher if the # of stories in the final book is lower) - says I should brace for disappointment and be happily surprised if I'm selected.
Meanwhile, the novel progresses, albeit at a couple thousand words a sitting (though I'm coming into some high-word-count burn territory); I have revisions for one story ready to put on paper; a second draft of a story-in-progress is in my head; a new take on a third story that's been sitting fallow has begun to germinate - so not getting an MOD nod would sting, but there are pots on the stove, and I'm stirring as fast as I can.
#
I may or may not be a candy resource tomorrow for Hallowe'en. Not having any candy to distribute is probably a a big hurdle at 9 PM the night before. Then again, I don't recall a single trick-or-treater last year, so I don;t even know if we'll be missed. I do wonder if we're going to get that jack o'lantern carved...
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
When a Stranger Tweets
I received a very nice and wholly unsolicited comment on my Machine of Death anthology story earlier today. I was at the MOD website to catch up on news (the lineup for the second volume will be announced at the end of October), and happened to note a tweet in their Twitter stream of MOD references:
""It pivoted toward hell with jackrabbit speed." Reading Machine of Death. Also, political commentary."
It's a curious thing to spot one's words in quotes being bandied about by a stranger.
Curiously cool!
So I tweeted my pleasure over spotting the initial tweet, and the woman who'd made the initial Twitter reference responded, "Awesome! It's been one of my favorites in the collection. Great characters. Realistic #MachineofDeath society." This more than makes up for the guy working on his graduate degree who admitted on his blog that he couldn't get into my MOD story. But then, he also made it sound like anything over five pages was a challenge to his attention. I'm sure that made Dickens sad, too.
In any event, now I'm waiting to see where the chips fall with MOD 2. With almost three times as many subs as the first anthology - and one for the second submission that neatly paralleled the title of mine (however improbably - I mean, when I tell you how close they were, you'll find you wouldn;t have put money on that parallel) - I have appropriate expectations. Read as 'somewhat lower than one might believe.'
I'm in a good way with short fiction right now - just had "One Man's Famine" in Bards and Sages Quarterly, the Kindle All-Stars picked up "Exhuming Harry Truman" and TOTU is still forthcoming with "Lorem Ipsum Donald" in their next issue. Couple that traction with some near-misses and validation from total strangers, and a case can be made for tightening and circulating the half-dozen or so tales that I have ready (and writing another half-dozen) and keeping the pot stirring.
So I wonder if this is the time to be climbing Longform Mountain after all.
I'm about 20,000 words into the first draft of a novel - The House of the Hours - which has come back front and center in the last few weeks. I like the premise. It has its roots in a number of things, but primarily in a series of nightmares I had sporadically across the first thirty or so years of my life. If not boiling over, it's got a good simmer. But the short stories are baby birds, and they're loud and hungry. In fact, one of them dictated a rewrite of an ending earlier today after three months of silence. But I wonder sometimes: if I don't drop everything to turn that sort of mental breakthrough into hard copy now now now am I'm inviting the magic and momentum of a piece to go away?
Hard to say without trying to strike the balance. I find I do better on the long form if I don't have distractions. Short stories qualify as such, with differing energies, voices and tones. And with X hours out of the day for writing, that can be a narrow pin head upon which to dance.
""It pivoted toward hell with jackrabbit speed." Reading Machine of Death. Also, political commentary."
It's a curious thing to spot one's words in quotes being bandied about by a stranger.
Curiously cool!
So I tweeted my pleasure over spotting the initial tweet, and the woman who'd made the initial Twitter reference responded, "Awesome! It's been one of my favorites in the collection. Great characters. Realistic #MachineofDeath society." This more than makes up for the guy working on his graduate degree who admitted on his blog that he couldn't get into my MOD story. But then, he also made it sound like anything over five pages was a challenge to his attention. I'm sure that made Dickens sad, too.
In any event, now I'm waiting to see where the chips fall with MOD 2. With almost three times as many subs as the first anthology - and one for the second submission that neatly paralleled the title of mine (however improbably - I mean, when I tell you how close they were, you'll find you wouldn;t have put money on that parallel) - I have appropriate expectations. Read as 'somewhat lower than one might believe.'
I'm in a good way with short fiction right now - just had "One Man's Famine" in Bards and Sages Quarterly, the Kindle All-Stars picked up "Exhuming Harry Truman" and TOTU is still forthcoming with "Lorem Ipsum Donald" in their next issue. Couple that traction with some near-misses and validation from total strangers, and a case can be made for tightening and circulating the half-dozen or so tales that I have ready (and writing another half-dozen) and keeping the pot stirring.
So I wonder if this is the time to be climbing Longform Mountain after all.
I'm about 20,000 words into the first draft of a novel - The House of the Hours - which has come back front and center in the last few weeks. I like the premise. It has its roots in a number of things, but primarily in a series of nightmares I had sporadically across the first thirty or so years of my life. If not boiling over, it's got a good simmer. But the short stories are baby birds, and they're loud and hungry. In fact, one of them dictated a rewrite of an ending earlier today after three months of silence. But I wonder sometimes: if I don't drop everything to turn that sort of mental breakthrough into hard copy now now now am I'm inviting the magic and momentum of a piece to go away?
Hard to say without trying to strike the balance. I find I do better on the long form if I don't have distractions. Short stories qualify as such, with differing energies, voices and tones. And with X hours out of the day for writing, that can be a narrow pin head upon which to dance.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
367 Days Later
"Lately it occurs to me / what a long, strange trip it's been."
-- The Grateful Dead
Where does a year go? You flip a few calendar pages, tear down the old one a week into the new year, hang the new one, flip a few more pages, and BAM - one year down. Would that time travel was so easy. (Actually, since time is a matter of arbitrary measure, time travel is as easy as deciding it's last Tuesday. You just need to get everyone else on board. Ergo, the true impediments to time travel are not science or physics, but perception and consensus-building.)
I could probably reconstruct the last year, from relocation to publication, but I'm not in an archeology place. Transitional, perhaps, but if you were around for bits of it, it's rehash for you. If you weren't, well, I suspect you'd care even less now. If you wanted to sift Facebook, I suppose you could see the highs and lows. And mayhap a few things eaten, a few movies seen, a few articles passed along. I think the big problem is just how digitally fractured I've become.
So in an effort to take back the blog and create a more unified presence, there will be no looking back or reheating last month's lunch. We'll leave it at the Dead quote above. We're looking forward. Blowing away the dust. Blogging as means of relating news, views and IOUs, stepping stone to the personal website in the works (seeing as I've been camping on the URL for a decade), and finding an efficient direction for self-promotion, publication and other writerly pursuits - since the roads to traditional publishing are beginning to look like the southbound route through the El Yunque National Forest. Watch this space for further details.
#
Item: I've been accepted as an author for the Kindle All-Stars project. It's the brainchild and labor of writer/editor Bernard J. Schaffer, and it promises to be a barn-burner. For me, it's the opportunity to appear between covers with mentor/inspirer/friend Harlan Ellison while also contributing to a good cause. I'll be posting much more about this project in the coming weeks, but for right now, click for an overview of the project.
Item: As I peck away at the novel and various short stories develop, finalize or set sail for consideration, I'm also mulling the possibility of a limited edition chapbook as part of a website launch. Since that would ideally be in the next few months I am, perhaps, short on time. There are certain things I may need: design the thing, find an artist, shop the print job, figure the price point, etc, etc. The alternative might be a broadside, but while I have one in mind for the flash bit "Shady Acres," I mull whether anyone will want to use wall space for my weirdness. In any event, tag that as "you heard it here first".
Item: Believe it or don't, but my first professional publication was five years ago this month, with the appearance of the Poe-centric tale "Mister Eddie" in the pages of Tales of the Unanticipated magazine (#27). Copies are still to be had from TOTU, easily ordered from their website - and at $7.75, a steal.
-- The Grateful Dead
Where does a year go? You flip a few calendar pages, tear down the old one a week into the new year, hang the new one, flip a few more pages, and BAM - one year down. Would that time travel was so easy. (Actually, since time is a matter of arbitrary measure, time travel is as easy as deciding it's last Tuesday. You just need to get everyone else on board. Ergo, the true impediments to time travel are not science or physics, but perception and consensus-building.)
I could probably reconstruct the last year, from relocation to publication, but I'm not in an archeology place. Transitional, perhaps, but if you were around for bits of it, it's rehash for you. If you weren't, well, I suspect you'd care even less now. If you wanted to sift Facebook, I suppose you could see the highs and lows. And mayhap a few things eaten, a few movies seen, a few articles passed along. I think the big problem is just how digitally fractured I've become.
So in an effort to take back the blog and create a more unified presence, there will be no looking back or reheating last month's lunch. We'll leave it at the Dead quote above. We're looking forward. Blowing away the dust. Blogging as means of relating news, views and IOUs, stepping stone to the personal website in the works (seeing as I've been camping on the URL for a decade), and finding an efficient direction for self-promotion, publication and other writerly pursuits - since the roads to traditional publishing are beginning to look like the southbound route through the El Yunque National Forest. Watch this space for further details.
#
Item: I've been accepted as an author for the Kindle All-Stars project. It's the brainchild and labor of writer/editor Bernard J. Schaffer, and it promises to be a barn-burner. For me, it's the opportunity to appear between covers with mentor/inspirer/friend Harlan Ellison while also contributing to a good cause. I'll be posting much more about this project in the coming weeks, but for right now, click for an overview of the project.
Item: As I peck away at the novel and various short stories develop, finalize or set sail for consideration, I'm also mulling the possibility of a limited edition chapbook as part of a website launch. Since that would ideally be in the next few months I am, perhaps, short on time. There are certain things I may need: design the thing, find an artist, shop the print job, figure the price point, etc, etc. The alternative might be a broadside, but while I have one in mind for the flash bit "Shady Acres," I mull whether anyone will want to use wall space for my weirdness. In any event, tag that as "you heard it here first".
Item: Believe it or don't, but my first professional publication was five years ago this month, with the appearance of the Poe-centric tale "Mister Eddie" in the pages of Tales of the Unanticipated magazine (#27). Copies are still to be had from TOTU, easily ordered from their website - and at $7.75, a steal.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The Relocation/Creativity Intersection
In sixteen days, I'm moving from the dense population and urban sprawl of Northern Virginia to the dense population and urban sprawl of Houston. In a way, I feel like I've free-agented from the Nationals to the Astros, a lateral move in which I go live in the Heights and the greater DC area picks up a player to be named later.
He probably has a better arm than me.
Unfortunately, the multi-pronged assault of life changes has done little to allow me to write. 900 books and 1,600 CDs lack opposable thumbs and refuse to pack themselves. Movers haven't harnessed their psychic abilities to issue quotes (but I'm happy to note that based on weight estimates from two sources, I officially have a ton of crap.) And there's not enough money for dwarves to tunnel to the back of the closet and unearth the things I didn't unbox 4 years ago.
Write? That's the thing with the keys and the imagination, right?
Though a trade show trip last week gave me a few hours of Dedicated Airplane Time, an oasis in the clouds that let me put pen to paper. Result: fifteen notebook leaves of one of the novels (the most mainstream of the three). Firmly in the "I'll take it" column, given the Packing Dance.
Five, count 'em, five pieces currently in the publication queue: "Friendly Fire" in Machine of Death any day now (no, really)(hey, that's what they said); "Lorem Ipsum Donald" in Tales of the Unanticipated next year; and a trio of flashy bits in Blood Bound Books' forthcoming Seasons In The Abyss anthology, which is still being finalized and as yet has no publication date - the triplets being "Good Bait", "Erin Beiber's Wild Ride" and "To The Devil, A Goat".
Slowly, the bibliography slouches toward a second page.
Even as boxes are being filled - maybe handling the books is a sort of osmosis of creative juice - various ideas are working in my head or in random index-card length flashes of "write this down!" lobbed like bricks by my muse. The process of creating never really stops. It's the dedicated finger-pounds per keystroke that are being put on hold while I decide if I really need four copies of Harlan Ellison's Angry Candy (don't ask). Soon, I'll be back to it.
Once the packing is done. And then the unpacking. And the refiling. And the new filing. And the laptop reconciliation (an aside: the piles of longhand-scrawled notebooks are one thing; working on files on two different machines is another entirely. I need one of those Filemaker Elves - like the dudes that make shoes, but more digital - to sort through what I've done where and give me proper unified drafts. S'okay - I have a new strategy for the new set-up that will keep it all straight.)
And THEN... then the fingers of mayhem go back to full-tilt keyboard boogie.
In Spring. Of 2012.
He probably has a better arm than me.
Unfortunately, the multi-pronged assault of life changes has done little to allow me to write. 900 books and 1,600 CDs lack opposable thumbs and refuse to pack themselves. Movers haven't harnessed their psychic abilities to issue quotes (but I'm happy to note that based on weight estimates from two sources, I officially have a ton of crap.) And there's not enough money for dwarves to tunnel to the back of the closet and unearth the things I didn't unbox 4 years ago.
Write? That's the thing with the keys and the imagination, right?
Though a trade show trip last week gave me a few hours of Dedicated Airplane Time, an oasis in the clouds that let me put pen to paper. Result: fifteen notebook leaves of one of the novels (the most mainstream of the three). Firmly in the "I'll take it" column, given the Packing Dance.
Five, count 'em, five pieces currently in the publication queue: "Friendly Fire" in Machine of Death any day now (no, really)(hey, that's what they said); "Lorem Ipsum Donald" in Tales of the Unanticipated next year; and a trio of flashy bits in Blood Bound Books' forthcoming Seasons In The Abyss anthology, which is still being finalized and as yet has no publication date - the triplets being "Good Bait", "Erin Beiber's Wild Ride" and "To The Devil, A Goat".
Slowly, the bibliography slouches toward a second page.
Even as boxes are being filled - maybe handling the books is a sort of osmosis of creative juice - various ideas are working in my head or in random index-card length flashes of "write this down!" lobbed like bricks by my muse. The process of creating never really stops. It's the dedicated finger-pounds per keystroke that are being put on hold while I decide if I really need four copies of Harlan Ellison's Angry Candy (don't ask). Soon, I'll be back to it.
Once the packing is done. And then the unpacking. And the refiling. And the new filing. And the laptop reconciliation (an aside: the piles of longhand-scrawled notebooks are one thing; working on files on two different machines is another entirely. I need one of those Filemaker Elves - like the dudes that make shoes, but more digital - to sort through what I've done where and give me proper unified drafts. S'okay - I have a new strategy for the new set-up that will keep it all straight.)
And THEN... then the fingers of mayhem go back to full-tilt keyboard boogie.
In Spring. Of 2012.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Machining Death
Way back in 2007, I answered a call for anthology submissions for a little concept called Machine of Death. The premise was pretty simple: there's a machine that, with just a drop of your blood, can tell you how you're going to die. Not when, or where - just how. And the machine is never, ever wrong.
With the rules in mind, I set about writing a contribution titled "Friendly Fire". Submitted. And from a pool of 681 submissions, I was among the thirty three (or so) selected for the anthology. It was my second sale, the one that validated in my mind that "Mister Eddie" in Tales of the Unanticipated (TOTU) #27 (available here) wasn't a fluke.
And then the project went dormant while the editors sought a publisher. And it slept. And slept.
In the meantime, I placed "Tacklesmooches" in TOTU #30 (available here), and had a couple of short-shorts at the wonderful Pure Francis, and sold "Lorem Ipsum Donald" to TOTU for next year's issue #31, and hammered out a bunch of other bits that got rejected, and started on a novel, and pretty much figured that Machine of Death had died on the vine. And while I got paid, it's only a little about the money - this was about my sophomore sale being on pages, within covers, holdable and readable.
But you can't keep a good machine down - the editor's reported in August that after a long journey, the book is finally due next month from Bearstache Books.
You can check out the cover here (and also read in six minutes or less the posts that chronicle the mileposts marking the book's progress over three years.
Of course, it's not on the Bearstache website yet... Hmm...
With the rules in mind, I set about writing a contribution titled "Friendly Fire". Submitted. And from a pool of 681 submissions, I was among the thirty three (or so) selected for the anthology. It was my second sale, the one that validated in my mind that "Mister Eddie" in Tales of the Unanticipated (TOTU) #27 (available here) wasn't a fluke.
And then the project went dormant while the editors sought a publisher. And it slept. And slept.
In the meantime, I placed "Tacklesmooches" in TOTU #30 (available here), and had a couple of short-shorts at the wonderful Pure Francis, and sold "Lorem Ipsum Donald" to TOTU for next year's issue #31, and hammered out a bunch of other bits that got rejected, and started on a novel, and pretty much figured that Machine of Death had died on the vine. And while I got paid, it's only a little about the money - this was about my sophomore sale being on pages, within covers, holdable and readable.
But you can't keep a good machine down - the editor's reported in August that after a long journey, the book is finally due next month from Bearstache Books.
You can check out the cover here (and also read in six minutes or less the posts that chronicle the mileposts marking the book's progress over three years.
Of course, it's not on the Bearstache website yet... Hmm...
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