FULL BLEED: NOT THE END BUT YOU CAN SEE IT FROM THERE.

Sure, it's been a little while. Maybe even more than that. And sure, I've got real good reasons for not posting here. Mostly because this goes largely unread compared to anything I do on social media. I can see the metrics.

But sometimes things are too long for a tweet.

Anyways, it's been a weird couple of months. I know, me and everyone else, right? Still, living through a lot of changes right now, most of which is personal and I'm not going to discuss them right here and probably won't even if you corner me in a bar at a convention. Speaking of which, it looks like I'll be at the upcoming Bay Con in about six weeks. Maybe even crashing some panels. Will probably have copies of some short story collections and BLACK TRACE to sell on the sly if you're interested.

In the meantime, the fate of MY DROWNING CHORUS is much more set now than it was just a little bit ago. Shooting for an October release from Broken Eye Books. As you likely know, it's the second in the HAZELAND book series. I'd say novels, but it looks like at least two of these are going to be short fiction collected. And to share with you a little secret, I've always approached this project (once I knew it was happening) like it was a comics series. Not a graphic novel series, but comics.

Which leaves open the possibility of doing stories in what amounts to single issues, though it's tougher to slide those into a novel as presented, so there's going to be books of stories that are simply too long to offer in any other outlet. Have you looked at short stories lately? Most outlets tap out at 5k words. Some go as high as 7.5k. A few will look at 10k+. I tend to go from around 8k to 13k. It's just the way things go. Always been like this. And, honestly, most outlets don't pay well enough for me to try and hack down something by half its length for thitry-five bucks and a reader copy. I guess this makes me an elitist or something. Whatever.

So, October will see MY DROWNING CHORUS from Broken Eye. Likely a year after that, QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS will have reverted to me, and I'll be offering it along with a new novella entitled THE STARS ARE MADE OF US and some other material as a self-published volume. Now, this precludes someone in the horror world thinking that they'd want to publish it. I've already asked around. I don't have the rep to make a re-printing worthwile. I'm realistic if not sanguine about it. It's fine. Nobody stopping me from doing it myself. Can't tell you exactly when this will happen, but probably not until at least 2023, perhaps 2024. Shooting for regular releases of HAZELAND books after that. And it might even be possible that there'll be two collections of short stories in a row. Something about setting a broader stage and not having a novel to do it in.

Yes, this is likely commercial suicide. But looking over my career, that's about the only thing I am reliably good for. As in I can't even decide on a genre to work in like a normal regular writer would. Where the hell do I even shelve my books, right? Well, wherever I tell Amazon to, really. So I say 'horror' even though that's... inaccurate. But it's about the least inaccurate label out there.

So there's going to be revisions to QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS. I'll keep them small. I have no intention of going all STAR WARS SPECIAL EDITION, but there are some things that need tweaking now that the book is no longer stand-alone. And honestly, if I hadn't told you that I'd be doing this, I seriously doubt anyone would notice them.

I am, of couse, going to be re-designing the covers. No, I don't get them automagically. The publisher paid for the art and the rights to reproduce it. If you follow me on Twitter, you might've seen some of these.

I'll also start work on a book called VOIDMAW, which is a weird/gothic space opera about mythology and control in a crumbling empire. So maybe it's a complete departure and maybe it's exactly on-brand for me. We'll see. I'm still a little intimidated by it, honestly. I haven't written a novel in almost two years at this point. Maybe I've forgotten how.

Then I'll try to get through the weird summer ahead. Won't be making it to NecronomiCon, unfortunately. Had hoped this would be my first year there, but that's looking increasingly unlikely. Probably still going to the Rose City Comic show in September. Not sure of what other shows. Maybe World Fantasy, but given my last experience there, I'm not positive that's such a great idea. What else? Just trying to play the only game in town, I suppose. Like usual.