Here’s why I’ve been silent for a while.
Over the last few weeks, I turned in both ‘Sit By The Fire’ and Amazing Alternity Stories to Pulpworks Press.
‘Sit By The Fire’ is a new Don Cuevo story told from a unique viewpoint. If you liked 'Don Cuevo’s Curative,’ from the first volume of How The West Was Weird, you may enjoy the further clues this story gives as to the nature of our frontier exorcist and his comely assistant. I think I may make one of my goals for next year to write a few more Cuevo stories with an eye towards compiling a collection of them for 2015 when I’m not working on my next novel; hell, a third tale formed so quickly in my mind I’ve started writing down the initial licks.
I personally am relieved that Amazing Alternity Stories has been delivered to its publisher. There have been nights I’ve had dreams of me and Harlan Ellison sitting on a bench in the afterlife with manuscripts chained to our spirits--his being The Last Dangerous Visions, and mine being Amazing Alternity Stories. I am so grateful to the quartet behind Pulpworks Press for their patience when it came to this anthology, and am so glad that all the writers who showed faith in my for all these years will finally see their work brought to the public.
(And I think this book will mark the end of my career as an editor....)
As for other things...well, ‘The Town That Hated Santa,’ the Doc Thunder story for this year’s Pulpworks Christmas Annual continues apace. I’m still working on ‘Giants of Industry,’ the story for Monster Earth 2. I’ve started work on that story for that project I’m not allowed to talk about juuuuust yet.
That leaves The Shadow Legion stuff. I think I can safely announce that one of the stories that will ultimately appear in The Shadow Legion Casebook Volume One, the Ferryman story ‘A Waltz In Scarlet,’ will be featured in Mystery Men And Women Volume Four...and another of the stories might appear in the fifth volume of that series from Airship 27.
Right now I’m holding off on finishing the Dreamcatcher story for the Casebook. Part of that is because of the more pressing deadlines for Monster Earth 2 and the other project...and the implied short deadline for the Doc Thunder story. But the other reason is that I realized that ‘Amongst Monsters,’ which I was over halfway done with, is going to make a much better fit for what I want to do with the second novel. My intention is to focus primarily on the legacy of Black Talon in that novel, as well as some new additions to the cast, and the threat for the story works much better in concert with that. That means it’s back to square one for my Dreamcatcher tale. I think I have a good idea for a replacement tale that will hit the same beats as the story it’s replacing, but I’ll only know until I start back up.
Incidentally, the Dreamcatcher story has proven to be the most difficult. There are story fragments from two, maybe three previous attempts. Maybe if Airship 27 is willing to do it, I’ll provide some excerpts as a ‘CD Extra.’
Keep an eye on this blog, folks. There is going to be a very, very big announcement coming up very soon.
