Wow, how has it been two months since I last posted here? Time flies, my friends, especially when you’re working on a bunch of different stuff. Let’s cover all that work, shall we?

The II AM Trilogy

With the exception of an upcoming contest, I’ve put the II AM Trilogy to bed by creating a compilation eBook that contains all three titles in one file, and by redesigning the website. Note: if you’ve already read TBTB, Blood Hunt, and TCotS, there is nothing new in the collection and you should not feel any need to buy it (unless you want it all in one file for some reason). This is just a way for interested new readers to get the whole thing at once instead of having to download/buy three different ebooks. It’s not intended as a cash-grab from people who already paid for my work.

You can get more info at the new II AM Trilogy website. There’s also a FAQ, the full historical timeline (starting at 5000 BCE and going all the way to present day), and some other fun stuff.

The Broken God Machine

I’ve completed the final draft of The Broken God Machine, making substantial changes to the narrative that I think really help the book. It will shortly be going out to my advance readers for one last, quick round of feedback, following which it will head for my editor Lauren. We’re looking good for an early fall 2013 release! I’ve also engaged a very talented illustrator to do the cover. You should check out his website!

More on TBGM in the coming weeks.

Monster Hunters

The original draft of Monster Hunters is a fun book and I like it a lot, but it’s severely flawed from a structure standpoint: basically the climax happens in the middle and the whole last third of the book is stuff that really should take place before said climax. This is what happens when you write a novel in 30 days with very little thought put into it beforehand beyond “this girl kills a werewolf and gets recruited by a school that trains monster hunters” …

So I’m restructuring it, basically by cutting and pasting the chapters and then reading through and changing stuff that no longer makes sense (like the climax happening in February when, in the new order of things, it should happen in June). After that, it’ll go out to my advance readers for their first round of feedback. I have no idea if I will ever release this book, let alone when, but I’d like to at least advance it along the stages.

Also I’m renaming it from “Morgan Skylark and the Monster Hunters” to “The Monster Hunters – Book 1: The Werewolf at the Window” … but since the name’s never been official anyway, it really doesn’t matter much!

Non-Fiction

HUGE gin roundup coming to Primer soon. I submitted it at the end of March so it’ll probably be up in late April or early May. Sixteen gins with full tasting notes, plus I did a martini test for each one. It’s a fun, informative read (I think).

The Future

With The Broken God Machine about to leave my hands for a couple of months, my thoughts are turning to starting a new book. I’ve spoken before about a revenge thriller set in a partially flooded, future Brooklyn, and that’s what I’ll likely be working on next. It should b a standalone book, like TBGM, and I’m expecting it to come in at about 95,000 words, also like TBGM (that’s a bit longer than The Blood That Bonds). Sometimes these projects have a tendency to grow, though, so we’ll see. At 1,500 words a day, I should be able to crank this thing out in about two months. Which is just about the amount of time Lauren needs for editing TBGM. Serendipitous!

That’s it for now.

My short Sci-Fi story Watchers has been picked up and published by the good folks over at Aurora Wolf, a literary journal of science fiction and fantasy. It’s free to read online, and will be available in an upcoming print anthology as well.

Watchers is set in the relatively near future, a time when mankind has mastered space travel within the solar system, but has not yet branched out into other galaxies.

Here’s an excerpt!

Stef sighed, adjusted the feeding tube at her side, glanced over at him with her big, grey-green eyes and asked, “Can they cure it?”

“It’s not going well,” he replied, and she rolled those lovely eyes at him, looking back out the port window.

“Well, no kidding. What does that mean?”

“It mutates faster than anything we’ve ever seen. By the time the body even figures out how to attack it, it’s changed.”

Stef made a noise: psssshhh, and rested her forehead against her hand. “It’s almost worse that it didn’t come from us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, from Earth. We managed to avoid all that stuff down there, disease and global warming and war, for what? So some rock could crash-land in a field somewhere … bam. That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Stef shook her head. “Jesus Christ.”

“Lots of people calling for Him, down there,” he told her. “I don’t think He’s going to show.”

Stef looked up at him again, eyelids tinted red at their edges. Her cheeks were mottled pink, her brow pinched, her whole face twisted. Dark brown curls of hair were plastered against her forehead; others stuck out at odd angles from around her headset. He thought about the last time they had been naked together, seventeen days ago, making love standing up in the steam and heat of the shower.

He met her gaze, waiting, and her voice trembled just a little when she spoke.

“Was that a joke? We’re going to die up here.”

“It’s better here,” he said.

…

You can read the whole story at Aurora Wolf!

Why look, there are buds on the trees. Spring is here, and with it I’ve brought some very exciting (I think) updates on my projects!

Blood Hunt

I’ve decided to go ahead and move forward with getting Blood Hunt ready for eBook and print formats. I’ve hired an editor, Lauren, who did the first editing pass on The Blood That Bonds way back in the day, and am working with Adrian again on a cover, which should be more complex than the cover for TBTB. I’m about to send the draft off to Lauren so she can start on her end of things, which should take 8-10 weeks. Meanwhile I’ll be incorporating her edits into BH as she sends them in. The result of all of this is that, while I don’t have anything close to an exact date for Blood Hunt yet, I’m pretty comfy saying it will be available as an eBook at LEAST on Amazon, B&N, the iBookStore and Smashwords sometime this summer! There’s a very good chance that I’ll actually be able to do a simultaneous print and ebook launch.

The eBook version of Blood Hunt will be priced at $2.99. The print book price isn’t determined yet. The Blood That Bonds eBook will remain free, but the print edition may come down a bit in price. I’m looking into ways I can shave off the cost.

The Children of the Sun

The Children of the Sun, or TCS for short, is the final chapter of Two’s adventures. Will it be a happy ending? I’m not exactly sure, yet. Two’s world, like the real world, has its share of sadness, misery and despair. Two’s pretty fiesty, though. I wouldn’t bet against her!

I’ve started on the first draft of TCS. Not much written yet, but it’s a start. I’m also working on its entries in the master time-line I keep for the II AM saga, which extends all the way back to about 5000 BC! When all of the books are out, I’ll probably publish it on this here website for people who are interested in it.

The Broken God Machine

I had meant to go from BH to the second draft of The Broken God Machine, but the truth of the matter is that the demand for Two and her adventures is so great right now that I don’t feel comfortable putting them off to work on another novel. So it’s in a holding pattern for the moment. When I finish the first draft of TCS and send it off to my trusted readers for their thoughts and comments, I will try to squeeze the second draft of TBGM into that time.

Short Stories

My Sci-Fi short story “Watchers”  — which Lauren also edited — has made it through three rounds of critique from the readers for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and is now short-listed, which means there’s a good chance they’ll publish it. Should hear about that in the next couple of months. I’m also working on a short-story about a serial killer set in the early months of 1918. More on that as it develops!

That’s about it for now. Stay tuned.