Identity Shenanigans

DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?

Some of you know about the losing battle surrounding my name, Todd Newton, and some of you perhaps do not. If you've ever watched the Game Show Network, you're probably well aware of the prominent host of the *new* Press Your Luck, among other things, has the same name as me. Well, not the exact same name - he goes by Todd Newton but his actual name is James Todd Newton (according to his Wikipedia entry).

Partly because of this and partly because it's a common thing for authors to do, I've been playfully going by T.D. Newton for awhile now (at least on Facebook, IM, and blogs). Well, I have discovered that not even this is safe for me.

Today, based on this post from Guide to Literary Agents, I decided to make a Google Alert for my name. Not much came back linking "Todd" with "Newton" directly, so I decided to search for my authornym (I'm coining this phrase as of now). Guess what I found?

Apparently there is a prominent physicist in Canada that goes by, you guessed it, T. D. Newton. What the hell? Is there no justice in the world?

I haven't yet started receiving fan mail for these impostors, and it's not that I think people will mistake me for them, but my only real recourse is to go by my "full" name (Todd David Newton) which has it's own interesting Google Search Results. Apparently David Newton is a popular name.

"Todd Newton" may not be a name that strikes fear in the hearts of evildoers, but it is still mine. I guess I'll have to make the best of it.

Busy week

It has been a little nuts around here for the entire month. I think January is always that way; it just takes so long to come back around--not to mention getting distracted by the Holidays (you know which ones I mean)--that you forget the looming pandemonium that is January.

Weird fact. Both my father and my father-in-law have birthdays in January. Coincidence? You be the judge.

Back to the topic. So, yeah, this week has been crazy. Pushing aside the miscellaneous personal issues that don't seem to ever go away, I have been hard at work on the writing front. I believe that I've finished the Second Draft of Thomas Redpool Goes To Hell, so I'm no longer gripped by the terror that it won't be ready to enter the ABNA contest on Monday. You can bet your bottom dollar, however, that I will be staying up late on Sunday night (after the Superbowl festivities end) to submit my entry as early as it can possibly be accepted - I didn't put all this work in for nothing.

No, now the only terror gripping me is that I'll get dismissed in the first round... but this has no basis in reality.

I do believe I will work on the manuscript a tiny bit more today, just to make sure all the rough edges have been smoothed out and there aren't any wayward sentences or references that need to be extricated. There always are, though, since any writing project can be improved further (based on whose opinion you're listening to at the time) and there is no such thing as a limit on drafts.

I did feel that same kind of "what the hell, am I really done?" feeling with the 2nd draft of TR that I did with the last draft of The Ninth Avatar. I think the "doneness" kind of hits you out of the blue; writing a novel is not like cooking a turkey, after all. I mean, what guidelines do we really have? Word count is a good one, but once you pass a certain point and you're in the "safe zone," you really just need to make sure you finish telling the story and not leave any pertinent details out for the reader to assume. I mean, you can't kill the mystique, but you really can't guarantee that someone will come to the same conclusion that your imagination does without the proper prodding.

Okay, stifling the ambiguity so I don't get further off track.

If you haven't checked out my Wordpress web home, please do. There are a couple of cool things, not the least of which is a Cast the Movie page for Thomas Redpool and a fricking sweet bio. Plus, it still has that "new website" smell.

Expect an update first thing Monday morning when I get my entry posted to the ABNA. Until then, thanks for reading and good luck to all of us aspiring writers--we need it.

Wordpress pages now active!

I thought I'd get a head start on tomorrow's post by making an announcement.

For the past few weeks, I've been trying to get a "web home" organized over at WordPress.com and I can now say that it is ready to go. It's nothing spectacular (well, the writing is, but the page design and whatnot leaves something to be desired) but there are some writing samples there that you won't find here.

Note that I am not moving to WordPress - this blog is staying right where it has always been. This is partially because it would be too much of a hassle to move all my past posts, but mostly because the HTML/rich text editor over there is total and complete shit (I wouldn't use this word if I didn't mean it).

The WordPress page is merely an organized area for me to post Events and host Samples and description pages that the Blogger interface doesn't easily allow. Plus, it just looks more professional to have it all a click away.

Sometime in the future I may drop some cash for a "real" website, but for now this is what I'm doing. Feel free to bookmark the page as the content will change as time goes on. And, as always, thanks for reading!

TDNewton on WordPress

COSine 2009

This year, one of the Five Things that I have resolved to do was to attend a "real" SFF convention. That opportunity presented itself with COSine 2009, a mostly-SF convention held in Colorado Springs--about 70 miles south of Denver.

Of the myriad things to do, we attended quite a few of them. Though the actual events began Friday night, we had to miss most/all of those because we couldn't leave Denver until both of us were done with our work days (and had walked the dogs... and packed our suitcases for the weekend). So, we missed the "opening ceremonies" and the "treasure hunt" but we did get a chance to hang out with a really cool bartender and have a few drinks. We also went swimming in the Academy Hotel's indoor pool (very warm).

Saturday the real fun started. After a buffet breakfast, the first event was an interview with the Guest of Honor, one George R.R. Martin. I was extremely excited about this since he's lately become one of my favorite authors. It also turned out to be interesting for Micah since she'd never seen an author this famous, much less heard them talk about working with editors and whatnot. The interview itself turned out to be an enlightening experience; the only thing I knew about George's personality was that he's a big football fan (particularly of New York teams). What really stuck out to me was, well, how human George was.

Without a doubt, the re-done title for A Clash of Kings from MightyGodKing (click here to see them all, hilarous) makes more sense now, except in George's cause it would be Authors Who Say "Fuck". Not that this put me off, of course, it just made me realize that he truly was a regular guy and not some holier-than-thou intellectual like some people fear authors to truly be. It's comforting, since most of us aspiring SFF writers are regular guys, too.

There were other illuminating moments, most of them from interviews or panels involving George, like when he talks about other authors he's known and their plights. He believes that the way to "break into" the business is still to build up some experience getting short fiction pieces published, but sees that it's not being done as much as it used to be. He eluded to the possibility that this was because the SFF "magazines" are dying a slow death because of cut corners and poor management, and I agree with him since I don't really enjoy reading them much. It's just hard to weigh this against my own experiences with rejection, not the least of which was being told by one agent to cut The Ninth Avatar by 1/3rd (an isolated case, but still it sticks with me).

I stayed rather incognito over the weekend, just another SFF fan interested in the content of the convention rather than an aspiring writer starving for advice on how to "make it big." I merely listened, even during the Q&A sessions, and took in as much as I could. The fan base is devoted, I will say that, and as Micah is fond of saying, "Stereotypes exist for a reason."

COSine was a small convention, "low key" as George puts it on his LJ, and it was very enjoyable. Colorado Springs had some fantastic restaurant choices, but not much in the way of things to do otherwise since it was winter time; I'll have to go back when it's warm to experience the Air Force Academy, Garden of the Gods and Pike's Peak.

I did get a trade-size of A Game of Thrones signed by George so now my collection of autographed books is TWO! I definitely plan to attend again next year and, who knows, maybe I'll even have read the books of more than one author there.

Lies!!

Sometimes I just feel like a digression.

This morning on NPR, they covered a story about the recently-elected Mayor of Portland (OR) - the first "openly gay" Mayor. I live in Colorado so, while it is interesting that this happened, it's kind of overshadowed by the election of the first mixed-race President (technically it's incorrect to refer to him as simply "African American"). While Barack Obama has his office nailed down so far, the news this morning was that Mayor Sam Adams is having some trouble.

Again, normally I wouldn't care much (particularly about a sex scandal) because I just don't get excited over sensationalist news. But the problem wasn't specifically the "sex scandal," it was that Adams admitted to lying about it, and the public responded with an explosion of outrage. Even [some of] the openly gay Mayor's openly gay supporters were crying out against him, and many have called for him to step down/resign.

Let's set aside the issue of the sex scandal itself; Adams claims that the boy/man he had sex with was over 18 by a few weeks (the legal age of consent in Oregon). If he's to be believed there, and I do believe him because-again-I'm not personally invested enough to have a reason to doubt, then the real issue is that he lied and that he had the boy/man lie as well.

Stop the presses. Holy shit. Someone lied?????

I got enough of this during the late years of the Clinton administration. It's easy to use the cop-out phrase here that "politicians lie," but that's not exactly where I'm going with this. My assertion is not just that politicians lie, but that everyone lies. People lie. That's what we're practically trained to do when it will help us evade consequences. "Desperation breeds deception," as I say in Thomas Redpool, and I stand by that 100%.

Sure, we value honesty in court and when there are life and death situations and in our personal relationships, but in the Mayor's case the fact that there wasn't an "actual" scandal makes lying about it kind of moot. It's like me telling you I'm wearing orange shoes today - it's a lie, but how does it affect your life?

My point is that we have completely unrealistic expectations if we are looking for honesty from human beings. If we were to factor in the possibility that people are not always going to tell us the "truth," however we want to define that quoted word, then we'd be more apt to look at what they lied about and make a decision based on the severity of the situation.

In Clinton's case, he had extramarital sex with an employee. In Adams' case, he had perfectly legal sex. In both cases, I respond with "big deal." We act like the rest of us don't do illegal things on a regular basis like underage drinking, illegal downloading of music/movies/software, speeding in the car, or that if we don't somehow admit to or confess these things then it qualifies as lying. We're human beings! And, while that doesn't necessarily give us license to frolic amorally through the streets doing whatever we please, it is still justifiable to us (subconsciously) to hide the truth for privacy reasons.

As John Travolta said in Battlefield Earth when asked if he (as a Psychlos) could be trusted to tell the truth, "What do you think I am, human?" I'm sure if that character were viewing this situation, he would say the same thing I would.

Get over it, Portland; there are much bigger fish to fry in this world.

*NEW* Thomas Redpool Preview posted

Edit: This Preview has also been archived since the ABNA has begun. You can still find the sample as a download via the original link, in PDF format here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mwygkw3njmt

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After rewriting the opening chapter of Thomas Redpool Goes To Hell, I decided to repost it on the CreateSpace previews to get some additional feedback. A lot of the events are the same, but you should notice a distinct difference in the writing.

Please share this link with any friends you think might be interested! Any feedback is welcome!
https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1053514

(Note: the OLD Preview link will no longer work because it has been Archived)

Two weeks...

(Blog title is supposed to inspire memories of the Total Recall scene)

I got my reminder this morning via Outlook; only two weeks remain until the ABNA contest officially opens. And I have so much work still to do on Thomas Redpool Goes To Hell. Really, I do.

This weekend, I submitted one of the "Interlude" chapters for critique and, while it was generally well-received, some of the feedback I got made me realize that a few things were still missing. Add to that the very generous feedback from Ben of varying points but the main "thrust" being that the book needed to be longer. I'd already planned on beefing it up where possible, but he actually meant that I should shoot even higher. I'm sure Sue agrees, since the tendencies of editors is to "cut" things apparently.

An interesting piece of feedback that I got this weekend was that it apparently reads like I write with my audience in mind. What's interesting/odd about that is it was given as criticism rather than praise, but I thought this was actually a good thing. Kind of like I'm sharing a private joke with the reader, I guess. Maybe I just interpreted the words wrong. Who knows.

I won't be attending Writer's Group next weekend because I will be fulfilling one of my Five Things for 2009: attending a "real" SFF convention. That's right, I'll be going to COSine with Micah for the entire weekend. Very exciting. I hope to see some cosplayers (since she's never seen any), even if it's just so I can point out a chainmail bikini.

Back to the topic.

I had originally planned for next week to be "CRAM WEEK" whereupon I edit like mad to make TR into the greatest story in the universe, but I think that needs to bleed into this week so that I can up the wordcount and, truly, achieve my goal. I want to go far in this contest (frankly, I want to win, but I'll take 2nd place as a last resort) and to do that the prose has to live up to the promise of the premise. Maybe I will blog every day next week just to keep on track, maybe I will be too busy with my day job to do that, but either way I will be doing my best to be ready for the start of the contest.

I expect a lot of late nights. Good thing I have coffee.

Reflections on CreateSpace Previews

Since posting the first chapter of Thomas Redpool Goes To Hell on the CreateSpace Preview area, I felt it behooved me to check out and provide reviews for the other folks brave/foolish enough to do the same. It's a lot like a more organized and online version of my Critique Group, in a way, and that is certainly more of a give-and-take situation, so why not.

What I found was pretty astounding.

A little context. The Preview idea is that you post a portion of your work and accompanying survey-type questions to get feedback. I have realized from today's excursion that one of those questions (possibly supplied automatically) should be "How far did you get before you stopped reading?" On a few of the pieces, the author was kind enough to provide a question of this nature, but not all.

Now, a little history. I've read a stack of books about writing. Honestly, I have. I even own most of them. Many give recommendations that seem like common sense or second nature to me these days, even elementary. Not to toot my own horn but I do feel like I've been doing this for awhile and have received enough critiques to hone this "craft" thing into something workable. It's with that experience that I took it upon myself to remind folks of these basic concepts.

I was quite surprised at how many of the stories had interesting premises, interesting descriptions, and then fell completely flat with their opening line/paragraph. Folks, let me tell you this now because I am a 100% true believer, you MUST hook people with your opening line and paragraph. Something needs to happen so that we become excited and interested.

Either make it so strange (not just foreign or out-of-left-field, but unnatural) that we become curious, or make it so life-and-death that we instantly care why this character is in mortal danger, or so bluntly humorous that we can't help but stay interested. But, for the love of God, make it something.

I read at least 4 openings today that might as well have been replaced with blah blah blah, the good part is coming up. Having been a former critic of the whole "hook" concept, I can honestly say now that it is an absolute must.

It is vital. Imperative, even.

Really, take it as a challenge: I dare you to make me care about your story (and interchange "me" with an Agent, an Editor, your mother, etc). If you can't hand someone your first page and have them respond with "Yes, I will read the following 300" then you need to take immediate action. And friends/lovers don't count; they rarely refuse to read your entire MS.

It's a brutal world, but at least my eyes are more open now. Hooks are not just fluff.

Premio Dardos

I won an award!
I mean, I "won" an "award"?


According to Harry, who bestowed the passalong award on me, the award "Dardos" appreciates the merits - culturally, literary and individually - of every blogger who expresses him/herself on his/her blog.

This is a fairly significant statement, particularly since it requires "me" to come through on this blog in a big way. Hopefully that is true, as this seems to be my "big push" blog as of mid-2008.

Thanks, again, to everyone who reads this blog and comments. I appreciate it!

Now then, the rules of Premio Dardos:
1. be tickled pink ;)
2. copy and paste the award picture to your blog
3. write down the regulations
4. link the blog who bestowed you the Award
5. and finally nominate 15 blogs for the Award

It's the first and the last big that kind of throws me, honestly. I'm not ticklish, first of all, so the mere option being tickled pink usually falls to my wife, Micah. Without further ado, here are fifteen blogs that I definitely think deserve this award:

Use. The. Clutch. (Micah)
La Belle Saison (Princesse Ecossaise)
Speculative Horizons (James)
Writing Chaos that is Me (Harry's LJ, ha ha, I cheated because he nominated me with his reviews blog)
picture this... (Stephanie)
Not Quite Cultured (Cuyler)
Tia's Writing Blog (Tia)
Fuck You, Penguin
Hangin' like a Wizard Sleeve (Joe Abercrombie)
Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin' Blog (SQT and yes I know Harry nominated her too, but she deserves it)
Sue Campbell Writes (Sue)
Amy Courts: en route (Amy)
Phillip and Karla (Karla)
A New Paradigm (Tony)
Rob in Gallup (Rob)

A Snow Day

This week I'm working from home for a different reason. It just barely stopped snowing (it has been coming down since around 5am) from a surprise storm that left us a few inches and made the streets pretty dangerous (and annoying). Rather than traverse through accidents and sliding, I preferred to work from home again.

Things on the writing front are still moving along. The posted Preview of Thomas Redpool has garnered some interesting feedback but there can never be enough (especially as the ABNA inches closer). If you haven't checked it out yet, I'd encourage you to.

Also, last Friday, I ordered a new Proof Copy of The Ninth Avatar with improved typesetting and the new "concept" cover (codename Deviation, as it deviates from the simplicity that I was using before and improves upon the back text considerably). I'll probably post a new image once the cover is no longer just a concept (a smattering of sample images from iStockPhoto, watermarks included).

That's really about all I have for today. I'm still celebrating that Micah bought me a new copy of Dynasty Warriors 6 over the weekend (my previous one got a huge crack in the disc from some unknown assailant) so I can now back again in all its HD glory and give Warriors Orochi 2 a break. Happy Monday!

ABNA Preview - Now Available!

Edit: This Preview has also been archived since the ABNA has begun. You can still find the sample as a download via the original link, in PDF format here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mwygkw3njmt

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I have posted the PDF sample of Thomas Redpool Goes To Hell on CreateSpace as a preview. There you can download and read the Opening and provide feedback in the form of short survey-type questions as well as give an overall review (in stars).

If you haven't read the piece and provided feedback already, I'd appreciate a glance. Thanks!

Direct Link

Colds, Covers, Counts

Man, I love alliteration sometimes.

Here's the deal, I'm finally over my cold and back in the office. No more VPN this week (unless it dumps copious amounts of snow tonight and I feel like working from home tomorrow for different reasons). Thank God that's over. Being ill makes me miserable, especially when it doesn't go away after a few days.

On the cover art front, I have a new design I'm pretty set on. No previews yet, I don't want to spoil it because I'm still working with stock images. I realized, though, that if I'm going to go with straight up photography (or edited photography, rather), I have a friend that has a fantastic style and a penchant for creating dark pictures that I love to look at. I contacted her yesterday and we are going to try to collaborate. The only worry I have is cost, but if you're going to have a professional looking cover then you're going to have to pay for it. Full stop, no excuses or caveats.

When I signed in to post this morning, I noticed something pretty interesting. My post count for Initial Draft has now surpassed my count for [Opinionated Spiritual Commentary] with today's entry. Strange that my gears have shifted so heavily over time, but you can tell I'm still very interested in both topics. A little screenshot for your viewing pleasure:


I'm still working with my new fancy WordPress account to create more of a "web home" than this blog can put forth, but I discovered yesterday that you have to pay if you want to use custom templates or change your CSS. Is nothing free anymore?? Anyway, it hasn't hindered my plans, but just put into perspective that sooner or later I will have to spend some money on something to promote my work, starting with a web home that puts a professional foot forward. Something to crunch on in the coming weeks, I guess.

That's all for today. Counting down to the ABNA start and I still need to do some Thomas Redpool work so I will see what I can get done with the remainder of the week... while I'm not agonizingly reading The Stormcaller, that is.

Spoke too soon, perhaps

I am not having a good week.
Let me rephrase; I am having a horrible week, despite progress I have made with the cover design for The Ninth Avatar.

Today is my third day in a row of working from home due to this cold that will not go away. Add to that: for some unforseen reason, my work laptop refuses to work properly when on my wireless network and I have the VPN active (I need the VPN to use Outlook and browse my network drives, etc). And when I say "refuses to work properly," what I mean is that I can barely open Firefox and click a link before the entire browser crashes... repeatedly... at great length.

This is incredibly frustrating for someone who relies on multiple tabs (Gmail, searching, blogging, WordPress, forums, etc) at any given time. I know it's not a general problem because both Firefox and this computer work perfectly when plugged directly into the network at the office, and again neither have a problem when I'm just using my wireless. It's when I add the VPN that it turns into The Perfect [Shit]Storm.

While I'm somewhat used to this Firefox-crashing thing, it's gotten a bit worse this morning. So I'm currently using IE (which I loathe) because Google Chrome started singing the "My Buddy" song to Firefox just before it, too, died. Having a BS in Computer Science doesn't make problems like this easier to solve. If anything, it makes them more frustrating because you know what kind of technology and obstacles go into this kind of nonsense.

Anyway, the reason it is worse is because I am now having trouble with Paint.NET as well, which doesn't even use my wireless or VPN - it's an image editing program. It has been crashing on me for days since I began using it to draft cover designs and I figured it was just because of the incredibly large file sizes that I was working with. Now, of course, I know better.

Something evil has warped my Paint.NET. Firefox and Google Chrome are having a wicked London Bridge threesome with my Paint.NET and causing it to balk at so much as rotating an opened image 90 degrees clockwise or copying to the clipboard, and I am done. But I need a stronger application than MS Paint (puke!) to slap together cover designs in different file formats. So, it is with a little sadness that I am abandoning Paint.NET for the time being and searching out something more robust (like Photoshop, though I was proud of my trend-bucking for awhile).

I used to be a big fan of Paint Shop Pro, but that was back in 199x when the program was still simple and I had no idea what "layers" were. Now, PSP is more like a big wheel compared to Photoshop's Harley-Davidson engine, and not just because of it's super-fancy Adobe user interface.

Okay, I'm "geeking out" a little, but at least I'm calming down. I was nigh on ready to swear that if something else crashed on this machine today I was ready to hurl it into oncoming traffic. Literally.

Sick again

I have a cold that will not go away. It's obnoxious.

I know it's only the 5th of January, but I'm already kicking myself for making precisely zero progress on Thomas Redpool as far as readiness for the ABNA. What have I been doing? Well, I'll tell you.

The holiday season severely cut into my time (as it does) but I've also been working on The Ninth Avatar more than usual. Last Friday, I got the proof copy in hand and basked in all its 8pt font glory, realizing that 352 pages was only a plausible count if I kept the font size so small that it would be "a chore to read." Fortunately, 500 pages and 10pt isn't that much of a stretch. What really became an issue was my cover design - it seems my efforts were admirable but not necessarily passable. I've been "consulting" with a member of my Writer's Group on it (who does book design for a living) and when I receded back this weekend to try some other designs I did not get as far as I wanted to. Finding free images to use is pretty ridiculous, but art goes hand in hand with design as a hurdle to self-publishing. Look for more developments on this in the coming weeks.

Also in the foreground this weekend was an outside-the-box story opening that I wrote to have critiqued. I deviated from my usual Fantasy flavor and started more of a contemporary "love story," much to the surprise of my Group (and peers). The fact that it didn't get shot down with enthusiastic fervor gave my writing ego a much-needed boost; it's a testament to how hard I work that I can switch channels and still write something legible and enjoyable. Of course, it's not perfect, but it was incredible fun to write and have people discuss. I think there will have to be more diversification in my future.

Today I will be splitting my time between resting up and cleaning house, though the two do seem to be at odds on paper. Keep your fingers crossed that I will kick this cold soon and be back to my normal, energetic self.

The post-holiday entry

Since I was far too busy on the actual holidays of Christmas day and New Years Day to post a blog entry, and my weak attempt at sticking to a Monday & Thursday schedule mandated that I do so, I figured I owed an update on the happenings here in Colorado.

Christmas was fantastic. I woke up early to bake the cinnamon rolls (homemade, one of my favorite traditions that Micah and I started) while Micah walked Leo and Suki. After they returned from the cold, we let the dogs tear into (figuratively speaking, of course) their stockings - we got them a few treats and new collar/leash sets. After that, we started into the gifts for each other. We used out video camera for this, so some of them may end up on YouTube sooner or later (and you can see what my morning hair looks like, yay). Once all our gifts were exchanged and the celebrations were over, we headed up to Boulder to visit the latest addition to friends-of-our-family, Hayden Marie West. She was adorable, a Christmas Eve baby just as I predicted, and I snapped some pictures of her newly opened eyes. Then it was back down to Arvada, over to the in-laws' house, for more presents, food, board games, and enlightening conversation. All in all, a fantastic holiday.

New Years Eve was actually the start of the festivities; we had tickets with some coupley friends to go to "Club Vinyl" which turned out to be not actually Club Vinyl, but a place across the street (the party was put on by Club Vinyl). Yes, not the place where there was a very recent shooting, but across the street from it. We drank, we mingled, we listened to incredibly loud club music until it became nigh on unbearable, kissed at the stroke of midnight and shortly after headed home.

Yesterday, New Years Day, we both had the day off so we slept in until 9am and woke with the appropriate hangover. Since I've been fighting a headcold all week (and the Karaoke on Tuesday night only exacerbated it), I sounded very much like I had swallowed ten frogs until after dog walking and breakfast. The night before it was decided that we should take Rick and Jake, two non-natives of Colorado, to Casa Bonita. If you've never been, I highly recommend you avoid it - the food is atrocious (to say the least) and the entertainment is not much better... but it's one of those touristy places that is famous for reasons unknown (other than the South Park episode). We appropriately gorged ourselves on really bad "mexican" food and then split after closing the place down.

That's it. I haven't done too much writing except for 3 chapters of a "love story" that I'm having critiqued at Group tomorrow. It's a pretty severe deviation from the kind of things I normally write but I found myself engrossed in crafting the characters and story and just couldn't stop. Hopefully it'll be just as fun if I decide to continue the story to climax and conclusion, but for now it's only about 10,000 words and no real title to speak of.

I'm going to post on Red Flag Waving on my planned New Years Resolutions; Micah and I have decided to take it in a different direction for 2009 on.

Here's to a great year for everyone! I have the ABNA coming up next month (for Thomas Redpool Goes To Hell) and The Ninth Avatar should be available sometime between now and the release party slated for March. I'll post updates on both as soon there's some news to share.