Days of the Dead (Jan) and ConPossible (Feb); WALKING WORM Update and THING Sale
The Atlanta Steampunk Exposition has a new name. The second sequel to THE THING IN THE WOODS advances; THING discounted on multiple platforms
In case you didn’t see it earlier, for the first time since January 2020, I will be vending at the horror festival Days of the Dead Atlanta. I’m splitting the table with author Lynette Bacon-Nguyen, whom I met at CONJuration last November. The vending room will open 5-10 PM on Friday January 26th, 11-7 PM on Saturday January 27th, and 11-4 PM on Sunday January 28th, with VIP admission 30 minutes early. That’s this coming weekend, so get tickets while you can. I’ve put out three new books since I last attended — the Battle for the Wastelands prequel novella “Son of Grendel” and sequel Serpent Sword, the The Thing in the Woods sequel The Atlanta Incursion, and my short story collection Flashing Steel, Flashing Fire, which was out of print at previous Days of the Dead. Anything you buy, I will sign. I will have also stickers based on the Thing cover and possibly some comics to re-sell.
(If you’re interested in more than just the vending hall, check out the convention website. There are a lot of actors coming — pretty much everybody in Aliens other than Sigourney Weaver, all of the Cenobites from the first two Hellraiser films, and even David Noughton, the male lead from An American Werewolf in London.)
And that’s not my only convention coming soon. From February 16 to February 18, I will be selling books at ConPossible, formerly the Atlanta Steampunk Exposition. As part of its rebranding, the convention is welcoming all types of “-punk” fandoms — think cyberpunk (Blade Runner or The Matrix), dieselpunk (The Rocketeer, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Phantom, and even Indiana Jones), and other sub-genres I’m less familiar with in addition to steampunk. So if you’re not into the color brown or airships, don’t worry. :)
At the last ASE, I was finishing up Serpent Sword, the sequel to my steampunk military fantasy Battle for the Wastelands. It’s been available for purchase since last March and I will have many copies available to sign at ConPossible. Many of you have bought books from me at the last ASE or AnachroCon, the now-defunct other steampunk convention in Atlanta, including Battle and the prequel novella “Son of Grendel,” so here’s your chance to continue the story.
Here’s the full list of the books I’m selling at both shows: The Lovecraftian The Thing in the Woods, its sequel The Atlanta Incursion, my steampunk military fantasy Battle for the Wastelands, its prequel novella “Son of Grendel,” its sequel Serpent Sword, the horror-crime farce novella “Little People, Big Guns,” and the short story collection Flashing Steel, Flashing Fire. I might also have some comics to re-sell.
Progress Report on The Walking Worm
One bit of writing advice I’ve heard is, if one is writing two series, alternate the releases. Since Serpent Sword came out last March, I’ve been focusing my attention on The Walking Worm, the sequel to Thing and TAI. Although I didn’t make much progress during the summer of 2023, I’d decided to make TWW my National Novel-Writing Month project in hopes of, if not getting it done, at least making significant progress. I’d only tried NaNoWriMo once before for a science fiction project entitled The Cybele Incident and although I didn’t make the 50,000 word goal, I did manage 7,000 words.
NaNoWriMo it turns out didn’t get me that far — about 3,500 net new words. However, since I tend to write in patches, I was able to stitch together the prologue and first three chapters and bring it to my writing group 12/17/23. I had a lot of time off around Christmas, so I wrote two additional chapters for writing group on 1/7/24. Since then, I’ve managed another for writing group on 1/21. I’m now up to six continuous chapters out of a planned eighteen and a total word count of just over 36,000 out of a projected between 50,000 and 60,000 words. Much of the latter third or so is already written, so it’s just a matter of writing a good middle.
The plan is run the manuscript through my writing group one to three chapters at a time (the more total words per entry the better), edit, and then independently publish it. In order to cover as much of my costs ahead of time as possible, I plan on using Kickstarter as basically a pre-order mechanism.
(Since I plan on using e-books as Kickstarter incentives, I’m taking Thing and TAI off Kindle Unlimited. That means I don’t have to keep them exclusive to Amazon anymore. You can find Thing e-books on non-Amazon markets already; TAI will go wide sometime in March. My Kickstarter campaign will probably be sometime over the summer and the e-books will be wide-release until TWW premieres at minimum. If you get your e-books from somewhere other than Amazon, get Thing while you can. I’ve set a special discount to run until 1/26 — $0.99 on Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, etc.)
I’ll keep you posted, but the goal is to run the Kickstarter in May and have TWW out in June-July. I already have the cover done, but I can’t do layout, cover design, etc. until the length is finalized and that requires, you know, actually finishing the book. :)