Myth, the Universe, and Everything

The big news of the day: I've started blogging about webcomics (and, soon, interactive fiction) for Black Gate, where I've previously been an occasional book reviewer. My first post is about Ursula Vernon's Hugo Award and Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner Digger, which I loved and had fun getting to write about. Why am I over at Black Gate instead of just blogging here? They've got a great readership over there, and hopefully some of them will find their way over here to Myth, the Universe, and Everything -- and maybe decide to pick up the Redemption Trilogy when they're all finally released. It's a bit of marketing, a bit of fun, and hopefully a great fit for everyone involved.

As for my social media updates, I realized I don't have my Facebook page and Twitter on my website. This clearly must be remedied as I'm -- hopefully -- driving new folks over to Virgil and Beatrice. I'm also updating my Facebook page a lot more frequently than my blog -- every time one of my blog entries for Questia or Cengage Brain goes up, I post a notice on Facebook -- so if you're interested in my to-the-minute news, that's where you should find me.

Last thought for the day: every time I write about social media, using that phrase, the Common Shiner tune "Social Mediasochist" starts running through my head. It's catchy.

I (and the art-reward backers) have gotten two images of Lindsay Archer's progress on the novel cover, and I'm getting very excited about where she's headed. It's going to be a fantastic conclusion to the trilogy!

But speaking of the trilogy, I now have in hand the re-edits from Shawn Merwin for book 1. Within the next month, I will be able to take those edits and turn the newly revised manuscript into an e-book. I told Shawn that the red showing on the first two pages was a little intimidating, but he promised me it cleans up after that.

In the meantime, I've been keeping busy on the autobio project, writing obituaries, and working on my next Choice of Games project, a Western with a little bit of mystery to it. The autobios this batch are tremendously exciting. I've gotten to work with Jim Hines on an original essay that had the same balance of laugh-out-loud and heart-wrenching I've come to expect from his novels. Joseph Bruchac did a fantastic update about his years in Africa, Pat Cummings provided amazing graphics from her illustration process for her update, and Eloise Greenfield wrote about, among other things in her update, filming her "Grandma Rap." I always enjoy working on the autobio project, but this batch has been especially fun, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the final results once they hit the online databases.



Between review books, I'm also reading the finalists for the Mythopoeic Society's Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards. I've really enjoyed being on the jury for both the children's and adult lists over the past few years, and there are a bunch of really good ones up this year.

Reading anything good lately?

There are few things that sap my motivation as much as having a cold, and my house got hit last week with a whopper. Threestripe and I are both on the mend, but it's been a quiet, sleepy time around the house as we've made our best efforts toward recovery. Thankfully, the Kickstarter was in its two-week quiet period after the funding was raised but during which any kinks got worked out. Luckily, we had very few kinks, and all should be progressing forward very soon. Shawn Merwin already has Into the Reach in his hands to edit, so I expect the momentum to start gaining on that project very soon.



In the meantime, I've been following a couple of other Kickstarters, including Fireside Magazine, which got funded and now has its submissions guidelines posted for flash fiction. I'm thinking of taking a look at my 3000 word short story draft of "Retirement" and seeing if I can cut it down. It needed work anyway, and maybe reducing its size would work out some of the problems that substrater Max Gladstone helped me identify when I first wrote it. (Speaking of Max, he has a guest post on Romance of the Three Kingdoms up over at A Dribble of Ink. Check it out!)

I've also begun work on my next Choice of Game, a Western currently titled Kidnapping at Willow Creek. As that's just starting, it's fun to see Choice of Kung Fu still getting some Internet love. Club Floyd, a group that plays interactive fiction together, played through Choice of Kung Fu awhile ago, and the full link to their experience of the game is available up at All Things JACQ. If you haven't played it, this is full of spoilers -- it takes you through all of Club Floyd's decisions on how to play the game through. There are multiple endings, of course, and multiple ways to get there, so if you're interested in seeing how other people played it, this might be a fun read. (Their commentary was certainly fun for me to see!)

In addition to writing, I'm reading longlist books for the Mythopoeic Society Fantasy Awards, review books for PW and Kirkus, and I'm one of the readers for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards this year. It's the first time I'm reading for ABNA in the romance category -- I've done the YA section before -- and I'm having a great time. The two titles I've read so far were really enjoyable, and I have high hopes for at least one of those titles to make it into the final rounds. It'd be nice if the rest of my titles were as fun as the first two!

Since I can't talk about most the books I'm reading -- what are you reading now, and what would you recommend to other readers?

It's true what they say about Kickstarters being crazymaking. I am vacillating between:



And this:



There are still three days to go and just over $500 left to raise (and another $350 would get the original books reedited and up in multiple formats). If you've been thinking about contributing, or want to send word around to others who will make it a reality, please drop by the Kickstarter and spread the word!

Luckily, I have plenty of other projects to keep me busy! I'm just finishing up a batch of obituaries from famous individuals who died in 2012. One was Roger Sherman, who wrote the songs from Mary Poppins and other Disney films -- including a movie I'd not thought of for years: The Gnome-Mobile. I don't remember anything about the plot, but I do remember the very catchy jingle, "The Gnome-Mobile, the Gnome-Mobile, we're riding along in the Gnome-Mobile. Sooner or later we feel that we'll find what we want in the Gnome-Mobile." (Lyrics are from memory; I've not Google checked to make sure that they're correct.)

I also get to write an obituary for Maurice Sendak, who I'm saving for last.

I'm also delighted to say that I'm signing a contract for my second Choice of Games project, just as soon as the printer cooperates. I'm extremely pleased to be working with those folks again, and I'm delighted to continue to increase the amount of my living that I'm making from writing games. As a high school friend once told me about my career: I'm living the dream!

Over the next two weeks, interviews about the Regaining Home Kickstarter should be popping up with me around the net, which is great, since we're getting into the final half of the campaign. Things are, thus far, going quite well -- as of this writing, we're at 58% funded with 14 days to go. But the extra press will definitely help toward reaching (and exceeding???) that goal. The podcast interviews were also a great chance for me to chat with some very cool podcasters. Brian LeTendre of course is an old friend of the blog -- he and I go way back to the very first days of Into the Reach being released, and Brian was a regular in my Mythic Greece game back when those heroes were still out changing mythology. Chris Sniezak of Misdirected Mark is a friend of Shawn Merwin's (Shawn is, apparently, a regular guest on the podcast), and also a great interviewer. I had a tremendous time chatting with both of them, and I highly recommend both Secret Identity Podcast and Misdirected Mark (which I started listening to and got totally involved in after finishing my interview with Chris).

Chris also made me aware that I hadn't updated my website since Choice of Kung Fu came out, so clearly that needed to be fixed. So instead of working on obituaries tonight, I've been updating my page, playing Marvel Avengers Alliance on facebook and Fallen London in another tab, listening to podcasts, and watching cute videos of baby elephants. All in a day's work!

Great news for art lovers! Lindsay Archer has agreed to let people in on the early stages of the art process, so we've created a $35 reward that includes all the $25 rewards, plus digital updates as Lindsay works on the cover. Our new stretch goal also involves art: If we hit $4300, Lindsay will do a signed and numbered limited series of prints of the cover art -- we'll start with 12 available as a $75 reward (which will also include everything from the $35 reward), and if demand is high (and we continue to raise funds), we'll make more available.

If you're not familiar with Lindsay's work beyond what I've already posted here (you've seen a lot of her work over the past few posts), she has an amazing gallery at her home page that is well worth browsing. I am delighted to have served as one of Lindsay's models as well!



I'd love to see us add more art rewards, and if we can keep raising enough funds, that will become an option -- but most of those rewards won't be available until we go over the initial budget. So if you'd like to see more of Lindsay's work show up in this Kickstarter, spread the word!

Nara, by Lindsay Archer

The Regaining Home Kickstarter has hit $1000 is are about a third of the way to our goal! In honor of that, we've added a new backer reward for $75: Improv Snippets by me. Backers who donate $75 can send me a genre, setting, and two characters (named or given by profession), and Alana will create a unique scene featuring those elements. The Improv Snippets will be compiled into a backer-exclusive e-book. (I may choose to use the snippets for another project in the future and retains any pertinent copyright, but the backer's name will be listed along with the snippet wherever it appears, in perpetuity.) To pad the Improv Snippets collection, I may choose to include original snippets of my own creation, or original snippets as they appeared in the Empty Room Studios Art Book project.

I hope this will be a fun mini project -- I've written romance novel blurbs for friends and really enjoyed creating the scenes for the ERS Art Book, so this seems like a great way to involve people in the creation process and create a unique reward that's worth that high backer level!

The news is in: the Kickstarter for Regaining Home has been approved, and we've launched! I've set a budget for the project that includes paying editor Shawn Merwin for his editorial expertise, artist Lindsay Archer for a brand new cover image for the Regaining Home e-book, and me for doing the writing and revisions to get the book ready to launch, as well as covering the software I'm planning to buy to use in the e-book creation process.

Here's the link!

Here's how you can help.

• Donate. If you already have the first two books, there's a $3 reward to get a copy of Regaining Home a week before its publication. I expect to price all three e-books at $2.99 once Regaining Home is published. There are also rewards to buy all three e-books, get deleted scenes, have a minor character named after you (or someone else, within reason), or even take part in the editorial process and weigh in on specific events in book 3. If you just want to keep track of our progress (and get your name in the acknowledgements), there's a $1 option, just to show your support.


• Tell your friends. Kickstarter is, from my experience, driven by social networking and word of type. So, tweet, facebook, google plus, pinterest, or whatever you do. Any help in getting the word out will make a huge difference to us!

I am really excited to get back to the Redemption Trilogy and to finally get Regaining Home out of my head and into the world. I hope you'll all be pleased with the results!