FULL BLEED: THIS BRIGHT MANIFEST

Summer is withering in place as we speak, barely able to push out an eighty-two degree day here, out in the foothills where I'm used to ninety for this time of year and the kids telling me that I really should be picking them up closer to school. Instead, it's shade that's a little too cool and sun that's perfect to walk in. I'm expecting a last thrashing heatwave, like a fish that's been hauled in but isn't off the hook just yet, flopping around the bottom of the boat until it just gives up from exhaustion.

Being consumed by preparation for Rose City Comic Con coming up in a couple of weeks. Worldcon was just a couple before that. I really don't have much to report on that, other than listening to the folks who came up from all over Mexico to talk about the SF experience from their part of the world. You know in Mexico they don't really differentiate between SF and fantasy? It must be nice. Just call it all 'fantastic' and let readers figure it out for themselves. Because maintaining the borders between all other genres gets exhausting enough as it is. I've long given up on it, particularly since my instincts have me writing between them as it is.

But then time to market books comes around and I have to tiptoe around things. All the stuff I'm writing now might have cosmic horror as background elements, but I wouldn't pretend to call it that. So I just try to make it individual and see where that gets me. (About a thirty percent response rate when writing to blogs/podcasts, if I'm being generous.)

Here's the front and back of the postcard I'm printing up in advance of Rose City, something to attract the eye and get people to come over to the Broken Eye Books table and maybe pick up a copy of QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS for their trouble. Hey, a guy can dream, right? If anything, it'll be another piece of convention swag that gets recycled when you clean up your room. Maybe it'll get pinned into a wall and inspire someone. Maybe it's just a beautiful thing, you know? There's something to be said for that (and it takes a hell of a lot less time to make a virtual neon sculpture than it does to write a novella or novel.)

But read that copy. You'd buy that, right?

Of course you would. Even if it doesn't fall into anyone's categories, no matter how broad or narrow.

As mentioned, I'll split my time at Rose City between the Broken Eye Books table (not sure where it's going to be) and walking around. Maybe I'll be able to sit in at an artist's alley table with one of my friends, but don't depend on that. My hope is that you'll be able to pick up your own copy of QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS in paper ahead of the December release date (ebooks not available until then, either.) As for shows after that this year? Looks unlikely, but if anything moves, I'll let you all know here.

Plotting out the next thing I plan on writing, which has the tentative title CINDY SAYS FOLLOW. That may or may not change. It also takes place in the same setting as QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS, and yes, you'll see some familiar faces, but only in the peripheries. Of course, none of you have even read QUEEN so you'd just be confused if I talked about it so I won't. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of book it even is. I know. That's a dumb question to ask so early on in the process. Hell, I didn't know what QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS was until I got about two-thirds of the way through it. I mean, I knew what it was supposed to be, what I'd pitched it as. But that's not always what a thing is, you dig?

All that said, I need to spend some more time and focus on it simply because I've done enough marketing and artwork/layout in the right now to make my head hurt. And more marketing awaits. I know. It's supposed to be fun and no. It's really not. I suspect I feel this way because I'm significantly older than the rest of my "just landing writing gigs" cohort. I'm just not embracing my brand identity hard enough. Not riding the wave onto the very far end of the long tail.

Anyways, let's play out a last song for summer and turn it up loud.

Open up to the welcome cool and dry that is fall, all leaves and dirt and harvest.