It’s been a couple of months since I last blogged. Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned.
Such sins are unlikely to be repeated as this blog has become one of my prime outlets, at least for now. My personal website has been terminated, due to my distaste for playing security guard as well as content creator. I had that thing for the better part of twenty years, but enough is enough. Thanks, hackers and ne’er-do-wells.
I’m using the time to generate more content. I do a ton of work gratis. It isn’t really a problem for me–I’d like to get paid for some stuff, but I can’t always, and I have an earnings cap because of my medical needs.
So my chief interest is in filling the time and developing what skills I have. I pick up a little change here and there, and place the odd anthology or magazine piece. All of those things build audience for my book(s) (well, at least theoretically), and that’s worked so far.
“before Crazytown” has sold more than 1500 copies since its November 2014 debut. It still has but one review, and hasn’t been available since September. I’m embroiled in a Kafkaesque situation with Amazon regarding that volume, and slowly trying to either satisfy the requirements of an editor with an attitude or waste enough time to fulfill the one-year agreement with Amazon and cut loose from there and go back to Smashwords and Lulu. There’ll be a second edition, with a couple of stories added and a roster shuffle, no matter what. And it’ll be available as an actual real paper book that you can fondle, fold, and manipulate. Perhaps even read.
I just don’t know when.
But there are other things. I’m just finishing a story about a forgotten god, which is destined to be submitted to Cthulhusattva: Lovecraftian Tales of the Black Gnosis, an anthology from Martian Migraine Press, and I’m working on the second and third stories of a projected series of four King in Yellow pieces. The first story, Hali, is appearing at shoggoth.net. It’s kinda buried in a welter of game-related Halloween stuff, but it’s getting a decent amount of views and likes. It’s good to see that there is plenty of fiction there now. I was getting lonely.
The second story, Sunshine and Scarlet, should be done by the end of this week, and will go into the shoggoth queue. The other two are due by the end of November and will also go to the shoggoths.
One of my Martian stories is making a pass at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which I’ve never cracked, even under a pseudonym. It’s my third submission this year. I’ll keep trying. I had a bet with the late George Potter about who’d get there first. Unfortunately George didn’t get to finish. I’ll try for two.
And I’m indulging my love for all things baseball and especially things Cub, and have gotten a gig doing the Cub Tracks feature at Bleed Cubbie Blue, a Cubs blog. Cub Tracks is a link aggregation, with considerable entertainment potential and a good deal of latitude within the format. I’ve read that feature every day since it began–it’s odd to be in charge of it. I plan to do a good job, and to not work too hard on making it “my own”. The format is just fine as it is. My personality will infuse the thing in due time.
There are also a number of new songs at moderan@reverbnation. Feel free to listen at your leisure. I’ll be culling some tracks from that archive to feature on a cd, sometime in the reasonably near future, but I’ll keep the archive intact. It isn’t like people are knocking at the door wanting to buy the latest in moderan prog-rock.
RetroGrade A 